Critiquing music is difficult, mostly because everyone has their own criteria and therefore thinks they re an expert, which often results in heated discussions about the value of an artist or about his or her work. An easier topic to critique is sports because there s at least always a bottom line: no matter how ugly it was, the winner is still the winner. Too bad music isn t more like sports, where outcomes are defined by measurable times, distances, or goals for and against, and a winner is decided.
Maybe as a trial balloon, music ought to be an Olympic sport by next summer. I can see it now: gold medals for the world s loudest band (measured in decibels), fastest guitar player (measured in notes per minute) or highest possible vocal note (measured by the number of crystal glasses broken at ten paces).
Perhaps that rsquo;s maybe a little clinical (or maybe cynical) - however, pop music already has a fine tradition of battle of the bands, so as far as the Olympics go, maybe the world could be ready for music as a type of boxing match.
Just like the Olympics, we d eliminate pro boxing rsquo;s cigar smoke atmosphere and obnoxious ring announcers and just stick to the business at hand - musicians and their songs fighting for big money endorsements and public prestige, errr...
just like the pros. Just substitute weight divisions with theme divisions, run a number of smaller cards before the main event, and just imagine - it might go something like this:
1) rdquo;Thinkin rsquo; lsquo;Bout The Afterlife rdquo; Division:
Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven vs. AC/DC Highway to Hell
So which will it be: a 70 s rock anthem with pompous, ethereal philosophical meandering or a 70 s rock anthem with mindless, bombastic drivel?
Yeah, I know you hipsters who disavow any knowledge of the 70s are snickering and saying, So which is which? Laugh if you want, but both Zep and AC/DC will still be selling albums long after flavor-of ndash;the-month (insert name here) returns to wherever they came from before the radio gods decided to play their hit into the ground.
I think Zeppelin deserves this one because I ve actually run this tape backwards, and you really can hear some vaguely threatening mumbo jumbo, unintentional as it may be.
AC/DC run backwards sounds like Alvin the Chipmunks starring in Gidget Goes Hawaiian.
Winner: Led Zeppelin by split decision (American Judge scores it Zeppelin 97-94, British Judge scores it Zeppelin 99-94, Aussie Judge scores it AC/DC 99-96).
2) ldquo;My Title Is The Same As Yours, But Better rdquo; Division:
The Doors The End vs.
BUICK MacKANE The End
Though the titles are the same, there s a world of difference where these two songs are going. This is the end, my only friend, the end, sings Jim Morrison to open this oedipal rock n roll monolith from the 60s. The unexpected is my best friend, sings Alejandro Escovedo on Buick MacKane s 1997 Rykodisc release The Pawn Shop Years.
Such is the way of the opening round of any boxing match: you ve gotta play with your opponent to see what he s got.
The killer awoke before dawn/He put his boots on, drawls Morrison over some eerie background noodling provided by the other three Doors as the song progresses. Escovedo responds with, My plate is empty/My bed is stone, while the rest of the boys in Buick MacKane crank out some of the noisiest guitar raunch this side of the MC5.
The end of nights we tried to die/This is the eeeeeeeend, concludes Jim nearly twelve minutes later.
Unfortunately for him, Buick MacKane made their point in just over three minutes and have gone on to their next match, where they ll likely lay a thrashing on the Stones Black Limosine with their own original blues-based number Black Shiny Beast.
Winner: Buick MacKane by TKO.
Sometimes even the underdog has his day, especially when the other dog is getting a little long in the tooth.
3) Pyromaniac Division:
Prodigy Firestarter and Billy Joel s We Didn t Start the Fire vs. Johnny Cash Ring of Fire and Brian Eno Baby s On Fire I know, tag team matches are in wrestling, not boxing, but go with me on this one.
So Prodigy was once considered cutting edge music (whatever that means at any given time), and Billy Joel s sold as many records as Smitty s has sold pancakes, but Prodigy can t match the psychotic nervousness of Eno and Billy Joel just doesn t deliver the goods against even the ghost of The Man in Black. And look what happens when someone gets tagged in: Brian Eno vs. Billy Joel?
Prodigy vs. Johnny Cash? Too strange to even imagine.
Winners: Cash Eno by KO in the first round.
And finally, the feature match of the evening:
Elvis Presley Hound Dog vs. Olivia Newton-John You re the One That I Want
The Vegas oddsmakers said 20-1 in favor of the King in this heavyweight battle of the Greasers, but in a flash of insight I realized this could be a rock history rewrite in the making.
Look at the facts: Elvis started out as a tough-guy in leather, but when most people think of Elvis they think of bloated Lounge Lizard Elvis from twenty years later (Thank you, thank you very much indeed). Whereas Olivia, who started out squeaky clean, is often remembered in her tough-girl-in-leather stance during the finale of the musical Grease. And what does she look like after all these years?
A reasonable facsimile of herself was recently a guest judge on American Idol, but try ta fuggedaboudit: her younger self still struts her stuff on DVD, impressing once again a new generation of moviegoers brought up on the media message that image is more important than substance.
And the music? Well, Lieber and Stoller, the writers of Hound Dog, say that Elvis actually lifted his arrangement of the song not from Big Mama Thornton s original but from a lounge act (isn t that some sort of poetic justice?
). And the unnamed studio backing vocalists from the Grease soundtrack sing way better than The Jordannaires, who ruined more good Elvis records than anyone gives them credit for.
Surprise Winner: Olivia Newton-John by KO.
Thank you all for coming out this evening. Goodnight!
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