In my other blog, I recently wrote about Traveling Music, a book by Neil Peart, best known as the drummer and lyricist of the Canadian rock band Rush. As I noted there, it seemed more appropriate the aspects of his book pertaining to music in this blog. During the road trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas which the book is built around, he listened to CDs that he liked from a wide variety of eras and genres, and he comments on his own relationship to and impressions of each of them. In other parts of the book, he talks about the early stages of his musical career. Other music-related tangents are scattered throughout the book.
Among the artists Peart listens to on his trip are Frank Sinatra (quite a few different albums over the course of the trip, including Sinatra & Company, with a cover of Kermit the Frog’s “Bein’ Green”, and the one Peart cites as his favorite, Watertown), Mel Tormé and Buddy Rich (with an aside about the Buddy Rich tribute album Peart produced), Mickey Hart (of the Grateful Dead, in a side project where he collaborated with many others) , Linkin Park (two albums from a band Peart calls a “‘must hear’ favorite”), Isaac Hayes (Hot Buttered Soul), Massive Attack (Blue Lines), Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here), the Tragically Hip (two albums by this Canadian group, with Peart giving particular praise to the lyrics), Roxy Music (Avalon), Vertical Horizon (a younger band whose leader Peart had become friends with after becoming a fan of their music), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue), Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis, where in talking about all the great composers whose songs appear, he particularly singles out “two great songs by Randy Newman”), Paul Young (with particular reference to some of the musicians he collaborated with, such as Manu Katché), Coldplay (two albums), Jeff Buckley (Grace, which Peart calls his “current favorite CD of all”, Patsy Cline, 98 Degrees, Madonna (Ray of Light), Dido (with a positive mention of Eminem’s “Stan”, though Peart admits to not being a big fan of rap in general), and Radiohead (OK Computer, though interestingly he seems more to admire their approach than truly love their music).
I was mildly surprised by some of the music Peart said he liked, though I was not surprised that he listened to music outside of the genre he himself is a part of, as most good musicians do. He mentions that he had long been putting together tapes and later CDs of songs to be played over the P.A. before Rush concerts (variously titled “ShowTapes”, “ShowTunes” and “Rush Radio”), and being surprised that an English audience actually booed when a Police song came on (Peart seems to be a fan of the Police himself, speaking positively of them several times). Having read a couple of guys from Iron Maiden having an similar experience with playing Journey before their concerts, I was not so surprised; a lot of fans are a lot more narrow-minded than the bands they follow (in fact I plan to someday write an essay dedicated to this unfortunate phenomenon). I suppose I was if anything more surprised by his love for a band like Linkin Park than for artists like Sinatra, perhaps because many older musicians don’t seem to listen to artists a lot younger than themselves that much. It’s to Peart’s credit that he is an exception. In any case, while I have some of the albums Peart talks about, he did succeed in making me curious about many of those I haven’t heard, particularly those he praises at length.
Where I most strongly disagree with Peart is on some of his comments on the Beatles. He lists his “pantheon” of music greats (ranging from Ellington and Sinatra through Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley, and makes a point of noting that Elvis Presley and the Beatles are not among them (nor are the Rolling Stones, who he talks about more towards the end of the book), and of saying that other than one single he won selling newspaper subscriptions as a kid, he never owned any of their records. He discusses this at some length, and brings up the issue of the Beatles several more times in the book. While of course taste is subjective (as Peart himself acknowledges), he seems to try to make a more objective argument for leaving the Beatles out of his list, and his comments about them strike me as somewhat inconsistent. He accuses the early Beatles (and Elvis and the Stones) of being too derivative of black music, and talks at some length about how they were influenced by others (while neglecting to mention how some of those same others, notably Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend and Brian Wilson – while it is certainly true, for example, that Pet Sounds helped inspire Sgt. Pepper, Pet Sounds in turn had been inspired by Rubber Soul). On the other hand, he acknowledges that the Beatles wrote some “great” songs, and implicitly admits that they were pioneers. At times he displays a fairly thorough knowledge of the Beatles’ catalogue and history, even their solo work (he mentions Ram as an example of good solo work by McCartney), and at other times talks as if he had hardly listened to them at all, such as when he says that when he was a teenager in the late 1960s, he thought that “they seemed more like ‘pop’ music, sometimes almost the dreaded teeny-bopper, bubblegum music my young-musician friends and I so despised.” While one could argue that the Beatles did play (very high-quality) teen music in the early 1960s, there is nothing remotely “bubblegum” about their late 1960s output.
Peart also seems to subscribe to several somewhat inaccurate popular views of John Lennon and Paul McCartney and their relationship. For one thing, he sees Lennon as the edgy, experimental one and McCartney as more conventional. While it is true that many of the Beatles' more obviously experimental tracks were Lennon's, McCartney often played a major role in putting them together (e.g., the tape loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows" and the orchestral freak out on "A Day in the Life"), not to mention the fact that McCartney's songs often were also pioneering in the way they were recorded ("Eleanor Rigby" being an obvious example). Peart quotes McCartney as saying "Strawberry Fields Forever" was "too weird", yet though I've read a fair amount of Beatles-related literature, I've never seen such a quote, and I'm somewhat dubious about its accuracy. In stating his agreement with those who think The White Album should have been cut down to a single album (an argument that I don't want to get into now), he also quotes McCartney as saying in response "Shut up, it's the Beatles' White Album." The quote I've seen is "Come on, it's the Beatles' White Album", which sounds a bit flippant, but is hardly the arrogantly dismissive response Peart has him making. This is not to say Paul could never be arrogant; only that Peart's view is overly negative (on the other hand, I should note that many of his references to McCartney are more positive; aside from mentioning that he did some good solo work, he mentions that he recommended the Who – Peart’s favorite band as a teen – to perform at the Monterey Pop Festival, among other things). He also mentions Lennon's "How Do You Sleep" as illustrating "the depth of his contempt for his former partner", when in fact from what John himself said later it was more of an exaggerated emotional outburst which didn't represent his true feelings toward Paul. In fact that was the nadir of their relationship; a few years later the two were occasionally hanging out together and while their relationship cooled off again somewhat, they did sometimes speak by phone and Lennon spoke positively of McCartney and quite a few of his songs in interviews not long before his death.
In the course of the book, Peart quotes the author Nick Hornby several times. Interestingly, he says he agrees with almost everything Hornby had to say about pop music, except the music itself, as he liked almost nothing Hornby liked, and he guessed that Hornby wouldn't like anything he (Peart) liked, which again shows how subjective taste in music is. In any case, Peart also quotes Hornby on the Beatles, and I think this quote goes to heart of Peart's own ambivalence about them. Basically, Hornby says that in the case of the Beatles "some very good, very pretty, very sharply written, brilliantly produced, and undeniably memorable songs have been credited with almost supernatural power. It's what happens when people are defied." His point is that because of the popular and critical adulation the Beatles received and the unquestionably major influence they had, their songs are no longer seen as just songs, and their work tends to overshadow everything else that happened musically in the 1960s, to the extent that almost everything that happened during the decade gets connected with them. I think Hornby is basically correct here, as I have to admit even I find it hard to look at Beatles songs the same way I look at other songs. As great as the Beatles were, their superiority to other important artists of the time shouldn't be exaggerated (Hornby points out that a similar thing happened with Shakespeare). Basically, I think that Peart. perhaps subconsciously, feels a certain degree of resentment for the way the Beatles tend to overshadow other artists who he likes as much or better, and so he is inclined to be somewhat negative about them. It would also be somewhat understandable if some people who grew up in the 60s may have occasionally gotten tired of hearing the Beatles, as their music was no doubt played a lot (I don't usually want to hear any particular song more than once a day myself, even if I love it). Towards the end of the book, when Peart talks about playing a big concert in Toronto with AC/DC and the Rolling Stones, he remarks that he had never been a big Stones fan and had never owned any of their records other than a solo project by Charlie Watts but that "perhaps, as with the Beatles, I heard them so much it wasn't necessary to own their records!"
Peart several times says that for him one of the most important things about musicians is their artistic integrity. He tends to prefer artists who he perceives as writing and singing from the heart rather than treating it as a job or a way to get rich. I can understand where he's coming from, but then judging someone's artistic integrity is a tricky matter. Some artists who may seem to have a lot of integrity may in fact be much more calculating about their music than they appear to be, and artists who seem to just write and perform commercial music may be perfectly sincere in what they do. In any case, very few artists manage to go through their entire career without ever compromising, and in many cases compromising a little may result in better music. Peart claims that it seem to him when he was a teenager that the Beatles didn't share the "desperate sincerity" he admired, but considering how adventurous they were in the mid to late 60s, it would be hard to claim they were pandering to commercial expectations in any way. He also criticizes the Rolling Stones for agreeing to change "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show, contrasting it with Jim Morrison defiantly singing "girl, we couldn't get much higher" when performing "Light My Fire" with the Doors on the same show. While I'd agree that in this particular case the Doors look better, I would not assert that this alone means the Doors were a superior band in an overall sense (I'm not a huge fan of either, but I like them both about equally). While an obviously high standard of artistic integrity would be a point in an artist's favor, it would only be a minor factor in determining my listening preferences.
Peart's stories of playing music in Canada and England when he was young are also quite interesting, such as his time playing with a band in England whose van and amplifiers were all stolen, and whose guitarist had a girlfriend who was so jealous of his devotion to music that she sawed his guitar in half. After returning to Canada, he played briefly in a band that did covers of Genesis, Frank Zappa and the Who (I'd be curious what Genesis songs they did, but he doesn't say -- at another point in the book, he praises the double drumming Phil Collins and first Bill Bruford and then Chester Thompson did in concert, but that would have been some years later). It was while playing with this band that he was invited to audition for Rush, whose drummer was quitting the band. He doesn't talk in great detail about his career with Rush, though there are some interesting passages about how they record and how they put together their concerts. Inevitably, though, reading the book did cause quite a few of their songs to play on what Peart would call my "mental transistor radio". One song that has always been a favorite of mine is "Time Stand Still", and it is one that particularly sums up the travel parts of the book: "I'm not looking back but I want to look around me now, see more of the people and the places that surround me now." Of course, in this case he does spend some time looking back, but he allows the reader to join him in doing so. While I may disagree with some of his opinions, overall I for one enjoyed the experience.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Luo Dayou (羅大佑)
The following is an article I wrote a few years ago about Taiwanese singer-songwriter Luo Dayou (羅大佑). It first appeared online on the Taiwan Culture Portal.
Whenever Taiwanese popular music of the 1980s, Taiwanese singer-songwriters or indeed the history of Mandopop (i.e., Mandarin language popular music) in general is being discussed, one name that's almost sure to come up is Luo Dayou (羅大佑; his name is also spelled Lo Tayu). Luo came from a relatively well-off family (his father was a doctor). He began learning piano at six, and later also picked up guitar. Like his father and his older siblings he studied medicine, but his true love was music. In the early 1970s he was the keyboardist in a band which played covers of songs by Western groups like Santana. In late 1977, he got his first job as a songwriter, composing songs for the movie Golden Days (閃亮的日子) starring popular singer Liu Wenzheng (劉文正) and actress/singer Zhang Aijia (張艾嘉), also known as Sylvia Chang. Both the title song and "Song" (歌), the lyrics of which were famed Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (徐志摩)’s translation of a poem by Christina Rossetti, have been covered many times since, as has "The Wind Blows Softly" (風兒輕輕吹), a song Luo wrote for a 1979 film also starring Liu Wenzheng. Luo also wrote more songs for Zhang Aijia, who eventually became his lover. The best known of his songs for her was "Childhood" (童年), a hugely popular track with appeared on Zhang's 1981 album of the same name, which Luo produced. Almost as popular was another track from the same album, "The Story of Time" (光陰的故事).
Even before Zhang Aijia's Childhood had been released, Luo had essentially completed work on his own solo album, but he was having trouble finding a record company that would agree to release it. However, having had great success with Childhood, Rock Records finally agreed to take a chance on Luo's music. Therefore, in 1982, the album Pedantry (之乎者也) was released. Musically, the album was a mix of styles like rock, folk and reggae, and lyrically many of the songs took a critical look at Taiwanese society. The lead track, "Little Town of Lugang" (鹿港小鎮), spoke for the many Taiwanese who had migrated to the big city of Taipei with its expressions of nostalgia for small town life and disillusionment with the modern urban environment. The ironic "Love Song 1980" (戀曲1980) was also a big hit. The title track employed language reminiscent of the Confucian classics in taking a sarcastic look at modern life, though it did not become as well known to the general public since it was banned from the radio. The album sold over a hundred thousand copies, a substantial amount for that time, and is rated by many as the most influential Taiwanese albums of all time.
Luo Dayou followed up his debut with 1983's Masters of the Future (未來的主人翁). Both the title track and another key track, "Phenomena 72" (現象七十二變), were more rock-influenced songs which took a critical look at Taiwanese society, the former looking at a damaged world through the eyes of the children who will inherit it and the second featuring an irony-filled recitation of various features of contemporary Taiwan. Perhaps the best known track from the album, however, was "The Orphan of Asia" (亞細亞的孤兒). The song featured a dedication to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but this was added to mislead the censors, as the song was actually about Taiwan's political isolation. Luo's arrangement for the song was based on his folk rock-style acoustic guitar, but also included a children's choir and most notably a suona, a traditional trumpet-like instrument. In this same period several of Luo's compositions were hits for other artists, including "Is It True" (是否), sung by Su Rui (蘇芮), and "Springtime for the Wild Lily" (野白合也有春天) and "Maxims of Love" (愛的箴言), both performed by Pan Yueyun (潘越雲); "Maxims of Love" was also performed by Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; Teresa Teng).
Luo closed what many fans still regard as his classic period with 1984's Home (家) and one of Taiwan's first live albums, 1985’s Youth Dance (青春舞曲), which commemorated his successive New Year's Eve concerts in 1983 and 1984. Though the more nostalgic and subdued Home contained fan favorites such as the opening track "Impressions of My Hometown" (吾鄉印象), featuring Asian instruments such as guzheng, erhu and yueqin, the gentle title track and the banned "Super Citizens" (超級市民), it did not sell as well as his previous two studio albums. Luo had also finally broken up with his long-time lover Zhang Aijia. Exhausted by the constant media attention, Luo used his live album to announce that he was taking a sabbatical from music. He went to the US, where most of his family had already immigrated, and eventually settled in Hong Kong. He had little involvement with music in this period, though he did write the music for "Tomorrow Will Be Better" (明天會更好), Taiwan's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World", as well as writing a few hits for individual artists, such as "A Flower on the Ocean" (海上花) for Zhenni (甄妮).
In 1988, Luo Dayou returned to the music scene with the album Comrade Lover (愛人同志). A departure from his earlier work, this album featured drum machines, more oblique lyrics and less social commentary. Though the changes displeased some of his fans, the album was a big success, selling over half a million copies and spawning hits such as the massively popular "Love Song 1990" (戀曲1990), "The Way You Are" (妳的樣子) and the title track. Luo showed that he had not completely abandoned sociopolitical commentary with "The Song of the Dwarf" (侏儒之歌), a track on his 1989 Hong Kong re-release of the album attacking Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Also in 1989 he released a pair of albums in which he sang songs that he had originally given to other artists. In 1991, under his new Hong Kong-based music label Music Factory, he released a Cantonese album entitled Queen's Road East (皇后大道東), featuring a variety of Hong Kong singers performing his songs (Luo himself only sang on the title track and the album's sole Mandarin song, "Pearl of the East" [東方之珠]). The album was a huge hit in Hong Kong. In Taiwan later that same year he released Homeland (原鄉), his first album to mainly feature songs in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), though it also included several songs in Mandarin. This album, which included hits like "The Train" (火車) and "Don't Be Afraid, Everyone" (大家免著驚), also featured guest singers on several tracks, and some of the songs were in fact alternate versions of tracks on Queen's Road East. The last of this trio of albums was the Cantonese album Capital (首都), featuring Hong Kong singers and a title track recorded in Beijing.
In 1994, Luo released what proved to be his last solo album for a long time, Love Song 2000 (戀曲2000). The album featured ambitious production and arrangements on tracks like "Red Rose of Taipei" (台北紅玫瑰) and "A Night in Shanghai" (上海之夜) but proved less popular with a public tuned to karaoke-friendly Mandopop. Though he wrote a few songs for other artists in 1995, such as the Hoklo hit "Kite in the Wind" (風吹風吹), and released a pair of Hoklo albums in 1995 and 1996 with a singing group called the OK Chorus (ＯＫ男女合唱團), the first made up of new versions of previous releases and the second mainly of new compositions with lyrics by his collaborator Buhiong (武雄), he basically stopped writing for the following few years, spending most of his time in Hong Kong and New York. He performed a very successful series of concerts in China beginning in 2000, and in 2004 he released his first album in many years, Beautiful Island (美麗島), as well as performing his first concerts in Taiwan in decades. Though the political views he has expressed in recent years have alienated some of his old fans in Taiwan, he remains very popular in China and is still viewed with nostalgia by many in Taiwan. His albums from the 1980s have been frequently cited by many later songwriters as a big source of inspiration. Not only are his songs still heard on the radio today, his influence is also still heard in the songs of many of Taiwan's current talents.
Whenever Taiwanese popular music of the 1980s, Taiwanese singer-songwriters or indeed the history of Mandopop (i.e., Mandarin language popular music) in general is being discussed, one name that's almost sure to come up is Luo Dayou (羅大佑; his name is also spelled Lo Tayu). Luo came from a relatively well-off family (his father was a doctor). He began learning piano at six, and later also picked up guitar. Like his father and his older siblings he studied medicine, but his true love was music. In the early 1970s he was the keyboardist in a band which played covers of songs by Western groups like Santana. In late 1977, he got his first job as a songwriter, composing songs for the movie Golden Days (閃亮的日子) starring popular singer Liu Wenzheng (劉文正) and actress/singer Zhang Aijia (張艾嘉), also known as Sylvia Chang. Both the title song and "Song" (歌), the lyrics of which were famed Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (徐志摩)’s translation of a poem by Christina Rossetti, have been covered many times since, as has "The Wind Blows Softly" (風兒輕輕吹), a song Luo wrote for a 1979 film also starring Liu Wenzheng. Luo also wrote more songs for Zhang Aijia, who eventually became his lover. The best known of his songs for her was "Childhood" (童年), a hugely popular track with appeared on Zhang's 1981 album of the same name, which Luo produced. Almost as popular was another track from the same album, "The Story of Time" (光陰的故事).
Even before Zhang Aijia's Childhood had been released, Luo had essentially completed work on his own solo album, but he was having trouble finding a record company that would agree to release it. However, having had great success with Childhood, Rock Records finally agreed to take a chance on Luo's music. Therefore, in 1982, the album Pedantry (之乎者也) was released. Musically, the album was a mix of styles like rock, folk and reggae, and lyrically many of the songs took a critical look at Taiwanese society. The lead track, "Little Town of Lugang" (鹿港小鎮), spoke for the many Taiwanese who had migrated to the big city of Taipei with its expressions of nostalgia for small town life and disillusionment with the modern urban environment. The ironic "Love Song 1980" (戀曲1980) was also a big hit. The title track employed language reminiscent of the Confucian classics in taking a sarcastic look at modern life, though it did not become as well known to the general public since it was banned from the radio. The album sold over a hundred thousand copies, a substantial amount for that time, and is rated by many as the most influential Taiwanese albums of all time.
Luo Dayou followed up his debut with 1983's Masters of the Future (未來的主人翁). Both the title track and another key track, "Phenomena 72" (現象七十二變), were more rock-influenced songs which took a critical look at Taiwanese society, the former looking at a damaged world through the eyes of the children who will inherit it and the second featuring an irony-filled recitation of various features of contemporary Taiwan. Perhaps the best known track from the album, however, was "The Orphan of Asia" (亞細亞的孤兒). The song featured a dedication to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but this was added to mislead the censors, as the song was actually about Taiwan's political isolation. Luo's arrangement for the song was based on his folk rock-style acoustic guitar, but also included a children's choir and most notably a suona, a traditional trumpet-like instrument. In this same period several of Luo's compositions were hits for other artists, including "Is It True" (是否), sung by Su Rui (蘇芮), and "Springtime for the Wild Lily" (野白合也有春天) and "Maxims of Love" (愛的箴言), both performed by Pan Yueyun (潘越雲); "Maxims of Love" was also performed by Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; Teresa Teng).
Luo closed what many fans still regard as his classic period with 1984's Home (家) and one of Taiwan's first live albums, 1985’s Youth Dance (青春舞曲), which commemorated his successive New Year's Eve concerts in 1983 and 1984. Though the more nostalgic and subdued Home contained fan favorites such as the opening track "Impressions of My Hometown" (吾鄉印象), featuring Asian instruments such as guzheng, erhu and yueqin, the gentle title track and the banned "Super Citizens" (超級市民), it did not sell as well as his previous two studio albums. Luo had also finally broken up with his long-time lover Zhang Aijia. Exhausted by the constant media attention, Luo used his live album to announce that he was taking a sabbatical from music. He went to the US, where most of his family had already immigrated, and eventually settled in Hong Kong. He had little involvement with music in this period, though he did write the music for "Tomorrow Will Be Better" (明天會更好), Taiwan's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World", as well as writing a few hits for individual artists, such as "A Flower on the Ocean" (海上花) for Zhenni (甄妮).
In 1988, Luo Dayou returned to the music scene with the album Comrade Lover (愛人同志). A departure from his earlier work, this album featured drum machines, more oblique lyrics and less social commentary. Though the changes displeased some of his fans, the album was a big success, selling over half a million copies and spawning hits such as the massively popular "Love Song 1990" (戀曲1990), "The Way You Are" (妳的樣子) and the title track. Luo showed that he had not completely abandoned sociopolitical commentary with "The Song of the Dwarf" (侏儒之歌), a track on his 1989 Hong Kong re-release of the album attacking Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Also in 1989 he released a pair of albums in which he sang songs that he had originally given to other artists. In 1991, under his new Hong Kong-based music label Music Factory, he released a Cantonese album entitled Queen's Road East (皇后大道東), featuring a variety of Hong Kong singers performing his songs (Luo himself only sang on the title track and the album's sole Mandarin song, "Pearl of the East" [東方之珠]). The album was a huge hit in Hong Kong. In Taiwan later that same year he released Homeland (原鄉), his first album to mainly feature songs in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), though it also included several songs in Mandarin. This album, which included hits like "The Train" (火車) and "Don't Be Afraid, Everyone" (大家免著驚), also featured guest singers on several tracks, and some of the songs were in fact alternate versions of tracks on Queen's Road East. The last of this trio of albums was the Cantonese album Capital (首都), featuring Hong Kong singers and a title track recorded in Beijing.
In 1994, Luo released what proved to be his last solo album for a long time, Love Song 2000 (戀曲2000). The album featured ambitious production and arrangements on tracks like "Red Rose of Taipei" (台北紅玫瑰) and "A Night in Shanghai" (上海之夜) but proved less popular with a public tuned to karaoke-friendly Mandopop. Though he wrote a few songs for other artists in 1995, such as the Hoklo hit "Kite in the Wind" (風吹風吹), and released a pair of Hoklo albums in 1995 and 1996 with a singing group called the OK Chorus (ＯＫ男女合唱團), the first made up of new versions of previous releases and the second mainly of new compositions with lyrics by his collaborator Buhiong (武雄), he basically stopped writing for the following few years, spending most of his time in Hong Kong and New York. He performed a very successful series of concerts in China beginning in 2000, and in 2004 he released his first album in many years, Beautiful Island (美麗島), as well as performing his first concerts in Taiwan in decades. Though the political views he has expressed in recent years have alienated some of his old fans in Taiwan, he remains very popular in China and is still viewed with nostalgia by many in Taiwan. His albums from the 1980s have been frequently cited by many later songwriters as a big source of inspiration. Not only are his songs still heard on the radio today, his influence is also still heard in the songs of many of Taiwan's current talents.
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