What is it with Jon Pareles?
The Times' most prominent music critic has a dubious piece in today's paper, saying that the public has dropped the ball for eschewing critics' musical choices in favor of mainstream pop.
Pareles writes: "Voting with its dollars, the public ignored the esoteric favorites championed by critics and went for music that offered a little comfort and dance beats. Entertainment, not ambition, was the priority."
Critics like me, Pareles should probably say.
He adds: "Compare 2005 with 2004, which yielded albums like U2's 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' - full of compassionate songs that grappled with faith and science, fame and family - and Green Day's 'American Idiot,' which was nothing less than a rock opera about 21st-century alienation. Those albums continued to sell through 2005 because there was little to supplant them."
Other artists whom Pareles says made profound statements with their music: Madonna, Alicia Keys and Michael Jackson.
I think Pareles is looking through rose-colored glasses here, distorting the past. I don't know Alicia Keys' music well enough to speak to it, but no one ever thought Madonna or Michael Jackson were doing anything of great seriousness, other than pushing the boundaries of sexual and racial identity a little bit. (To claim otherwise is critical revisionism.) What was truly revolutionary about both singers was not their music, but their business talents. As far as the music goes—well, people did/do like to dance to Michael Jackson and Madonna, and Madonna's terrific new record is basically one long dance mix. It's not exactly political. Sample lyric: "I don't like cities/but I like New York/Other places/make me feel like a dork."
Moreover, it's generally the case with rock critics that they shy away from the commercial and the mainstream (exactly what Pareles does with Coldplay—but more on that later), partly because they don't find it interesting, partly because it's their job to point out little-known gems, and partly because rock critics are snobs. So Pareles' article is essentially circular. Of course the public didn't buy the critics' choices; the critics made their choices partly to highlight music that people weren't buying.
Moreover, Pareles has consistently been wrong about "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." He's been calling that record U2's best ever since, coincidentally, the band gave him exclusive pre-release access. Truth is, it's far from U2's best—"Boy," "War," "The Unforgettable Fire," "The Joshua Tree," and "Achtung Baby" are all better—and no one bought "Bomb" for its lyrics. Mostly they bought the record because U2 is a consistently excellent band that markets itself really well, in this case pairing the song "Vertigo" with an iPod campaign. Vertigo is a fantastic rock song with a great guitar riff. Its lyrics—"uno, dos, tres, catorce...yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah"—are less than deep.
Pareles has also been consistently wrong about Coldplay, whom he trashed in an article that felt like a heavyhanded ploy to be the instigator of a backlash (one that never arrived). Their sin: They want to be as big as U2, but they're not political. He complains, "Like a cheesy self-help guru, Coldplay inflates listeners' vague fears and insecurities, then offers itself as a panacea: 'I will fix you,' Chris Martin vowed."
Any rock critic who prides himself on his analysis of lyrics should be fairer than that. "Fix You" isn't offering itself as a panacea to anyone. It isn't directed at Coldplay's audience, but at one half of a relationship; it's a love song.
Second, the lyric isn't "I will fix you," but "I will
try to fix you," which is considerably different; it links the singer to his audience in mutual uncertainty, which doesn't seem inappropriate for the times. Coldplay singer Chris Martin connects with people because he comes across as an everyman character. He doesn't have the answers any more than the rest of us do. If any singer portrays himself as a savior figure, it's Bono.
I agree with Pareles that Coldplay's next step in its evolution should focus on more ambitious lyrics, but don't trash the band for things they don't say. And Martin has done quite a lot on the fair trade issue—as Mother Jones puts it, "Chris Martin doesn't sing about fair trade, [but] that hasn't prevented him from becoming the cause's most visible front man"—so it's also unfair to chastise the band for being insufficiently political.
Don't get me wrong: Pareles has a legitimate point to make, that in a time of war it's a little weird that popular music isn't striving for greater meaning. He and I would both like to see that happen. But I wonder if it's the musicians who are to blame, or the public....because most people just don't seem to want to hear about the war, no matter how good is the art it has inspired.
