The following is a first attempt at relating thoughts of the cultural critic, Roland Barhtes, to my own observations. I think Barthes wrote a book (or maybe it’s a collection of essays) critiquing the state of music/art/cinema in society…Le Plaisir du Texte….After perusing cd stores for the last decade of my life, I wanted to know why I like the music I do…seeking to answer the question, “what really speaks to me? Why does it speak to me? And How does it—the music/singer/words/sounds —actually do it?)
I think that Steven Merritt is an artist that has made me appreciate music more than anyone else, but I could never really figure out wy. Maybe now, thanks to Barthes, I can finally somewhat articulate why his music is so important…….When Barthes talks about “Sensual Production,” he says that the mistake that singers make is that they sing in such a way to bring out the meaning of the words at the expense of the texture of the music. Immediately, I thought of Merritt (particularly songs from the albums The Charm of the Highway Strip, Holiday, Get Lost, and 69 Love Songs) and that he does exactly what Barthes was saying is important in our ability to “sensually produce.” To me, Merritt has balanced the content and the textures perfectly in his music…something that I have never heard before (this balance was achieved by Merritt in my mind, but for other people, I guess that other musicians are capable of doing the same)—music speaks to different people in different ways. I enjoy different artists for different reasons, but the way that Merritt has actually achieved this balance is utterly amazing. He has created a sound, a texture, a music, thats overall signature agress with its component parts.
What I find disturbing, is that this is the reason why people should like music, and this is what listeners should be seeking. Perhaps not every single time we listen to something we need to ask the question of textural and lyrical balance, but keeping this perspective in theback of our minds ultimately refines taste and will in turn make people better listeners and evaluators. But I’m afraid that this is not the case, and people have become used to enjoying music for the wrong reasons. Get past why a specific song helped you get over the break-up with a significant other, and stop searching for lyrics to specifically fit the situation you are in to “get you through.” Placing more emphasis on lyrical content than textural content is a sin that people are so accustomed to doing. The opposite rarely happens, but we should be concerned with both. Of course, music with compelling lyrical content will most likely be accompanied by some sort of melody, no matter how simple, difficult, or avant-garde those melodies may be. Why would a want-to-be pop star focus on unique texture when they can superficially capitalize on the ignorances of the common listener because the common listener does not sensually produce. It’s interesting because sensually producing can be as simple or complex as the listener wants it to be. I think that merely being cognescent of sensual production is a good start though.
To further my belief in the importance of texture in music (and how most people ignore it), Barthes talked about his version of bliss…a musical version I think…Barthes mentions “the human muzzle” and what its capabilities are in cinema (a human mouth). We can hear materiality, sensuality, the breath, the gutturals, the fleshiness of the lips—the whole presence of the human muzzle. For this voice to succeed, and I am guessing become a form of bliss, we must feel the mouth granulate, crackle, caress, grate, cut, come—”this is bliss,” according to Barthes. Have you ever listened to someone speak into a microphone and focused on the crackles and granulates of their mouth? So, we see that it is not so much what the actor/singer/performer says/does, but how they do it, and the way it is done. This is why all of us can have different versions of musical bliss.
