Theatrical production
Detail from an ABC magazine advertisement, 1980s
In our new feature, Transcript, we just paste in conversations instead of actually writing. Today, Andrew Romano (Newsweek) and Zachary Sachs chat about Personal and the Pizzas’ “I Don’t Feel So Happy Now No More” (Rob’s House, 2009).
Andrew Romano: This sounds like a great lost Bobby Fuller track recorded by a bunch of stoned teenagers on a RCA boombox circa 1987. which is fine and all; I mean, I like the whole “let’s create an air of nostalgia/mystery/insouciance by sounding incompetent and technologically backwards” aesthetic as much as the next Brooklyn fauxhemian. but wouldn’t be nice to hear a song this solid given the full British Invasion treatment: 12-string lead, proper harmonies, audible drums, etc.? Hey bands! stop playing dumb! bottom line, though, is that I can’t get this out of my head.
Zachary Sachs: From the sound of it, I think you rather don’t like the “technologically backwards” aesthetic as much as the next Brooklyn bohemian.
Andrew: i like the way it sounds. i do not like it being reflexively applied to everything. i do not like it as substitute for actual songwriting. and especially i don’t like it when i find myself liking a song that sounds “bad” that i wouldn’t like if it sounded “good.”
Zach: Yeah. How often does that happen though.
Andrew: you mean me liking something because of the way it sounds? It happens fairly often, actually, at least at first. sometimes it’s very hard to separate the quality of the music from the sound of the music, especially when it’s a sound you like. everyone takes shortcuts. i can basically like any girl group song if i’m listening passively.
Zach: Yes, I’ve always held that the ‘separation’ is ultimately artificial. Not that that means it’s any less valid, since all criteria are artificial. Some people just seem to like to pretend that some things are otherwise.
Andrew: Right. I guess I choose to think of the “production” as something that enhances the underlying work, which needs to meet whatever standards of craftsmanship and performance I’ve set. If it doesn’t, I tend not to think that production/vibe/etc is enough. I can like a great song that sounds stupid—Jimmy Webb comes to mind—but I can’t like a great-sounding song that isn’t any good. There are plenty of British Invasion tracks for example that fall into the latter category, and I try to apply the same standard to this whole lo-fi indie-pop scene. But I admit that my value system here is arbitrary.
Zach: I think in those cases it’s useful to be more explicit about the qualities you seek in the “underneath.” e.g., in some genres, the underneath is prized for its homogeneity, or aggregate effect, rather than its changes, and thereby the qualities of the recording itself, rather than the chords chosen, can be of significant importance. Being not a very serious minimal techno fan, I can’t speak to this very directly, but I think it’s useful to concentrate on what exactly I’m getting out of something, and not get too hung up on what I perceive as how it relates itself to a given fashion or genre (unless that is exactly the quality that is important). But anyway perhaps that amounts to screaming “pay attention to what matters!” Which isn’t terribly useful.
Andrew: You’re right that the only thing you can really measure is your personal response. Which makes me wonder why i feel so suspicious of this current lo-fi aesthetic. i think it probably has something to do with the artificiality of the sound—that it’s manufactured to sound careless, unconcerned, tossed-off, but it’s still manufactured, which means it’s actually the opposite of tossed-off. it’s very deliberate. it’s “cool” as a pose, and there’s something hypocritical about that. but now i sound like a scold!
Zach: My complaint with the lo-fi craze is that they sorta fail by what I understand are their own metrics. Garageband sounds weird in a not-nasty way. And then the applique of effects just doesn’t sound as good to these ears. Phony reverb, etc. And then, I agree, from a stylistic perspective, the affect seems convoluted. I mean if you present yourself as a Polaroid toting analogue freak and then spend all your time running everything through Photoshop filters.
Andrew: but you can’t judge something only by its own metrics. its metrics might not be particularly worthwhile. i’d have to figure out what they’re trying to achieve beyond just sounding like their favorite bands from 15 years ago and judge them on that.
Zach: Isn’t “sounding like your favorite bands from 15 years ago” a pretty age old approach
Andrew: sure. but is that enough?
Zach: I dunno. Hard to make judgements on that scale.
Andrew: like, is trying to sound like the shop assistants a worthwhile goal? if a new band has “sounding like the shop assistants” as its internal metric and then does, in fact, wind up sounding like the shop assistants, do i have to declare them a success solely for that reason?
Zach: The modernist mantra about newness seems pretty wrong to me these days though. If their own internal metric is really “sounding exactly like the Shop Assistants” then unless they’re playing covers there’s going to be some uh built in failure eh
Andrew: here’s my take on it i guess: a lot of these bands are really about pop songwriting— THAT’S their internal metric. but that’s “caring.” that’s trying hard. and so they kind of want to dilute it by not trying hard production-wise, or seeming not to. there can be a nice tension there. but it dissolves without a strong pop song underneath. so the song is a necessary part of the equation I think. the alchemy is gone if the music itself isn’t strong enough, and you’re just left with the pose.
Zach: Yeah, I mean, I think pretty much everyone would concede that, right? Though the terms here are interesting — (e.g., why is that “dilution”?)
Andrew: i guess so. But I don’t think a lot of this stuff is held to a high enough standard of songwriting
Zach: But then what is.
Andrew: My point is that this could’ve been a chart-topping single in 1965. i wonder what it would’ve sounded like if it actually was. because that’s the idiom the song was written in.
Zach: Sorta
Andrew: well via the Ramones or something. but i guess i don’t think the way they translated this song—which is written in a very particular historical pop style—is all that interesting. or at least, is more interesting than what it would’ve sounded like had it been recorded in 1965.
Zach: The imagination is a powerful thing.
Andrew: i want it to be uncool, enthusiastic, going for the big emotions, because i think it’s good enough to do that. i think it could stand up to that sort of “obvious” approach. there’s nothing here to hide.
Zach: Enthusiastic would be a pretty significant contrast for a song titled “I Don’t Feel So Happy Now No More.” Or, you can flip the comparison if you want to. “Phil Spector songs are so good they could have stood up to a stripped-down, soulful performance instead of being amped up by seventeen overlaid tracks”
Andrew: sure. that’s exactly the point i’m making. this song is good enough to have been a big mid-sixties british invasion pop single. i’m not saying it doesn’t work like this. i’m saying it could work like that
Zach: It just sounds like there’s a “and it really ought to” somewhere in there
Andrew: if only for some variety. what’s frustrating is that contemporary “power pop” bands like, i don’t know, sloan or something, they put the sound first—they want to sound beatlesque or whatever and none of them have written a song as simple, direct and good as this. it’s very hard to do. i was listening to the dum dum girls record today. same thing. there are some good songs there. i’d like to hear a band write that well but skip the trendy aesthetics. i guess i sort of suspect that it’s a shortcut—that you can just say, oh, we’ll record it through garageband and it will sound “right” for Brooklyn or whatever, without having to make the tough production/arrangement decisions about what would best serve the song. sometimes it might be right but sometimes not.
Zach: I agree exc. I think I have yet to hear a project it really suits. A lotta of these people only seem willing to choose between Contemporary Studio Sound and Garageband w/ Built-In Mic. I don’t know why they don’t mess around more. There’s lots of old recording junk out there.
Andrew: but isn’t that kind of a false distinction—like, we’re nostalgic about bad 4-track recordings but garageband is the new bad. What’s bad-bad now will be good-bad later.
Zach: Well but there is an audible difference, perhaps I am reactionary about it but there it is.
Andrew: there’s definitely an audible difference. At the end of the day I just want everything to sound like it was produced by Owen Bradley.
Zach: And arranged by him.
Comments
Rich Kroneiss at Terminal Boredom called it a “gentle AM radio dude-ballad.”
I fucking love that you did this. LOVE.