Saturday, August 15, 2020
classical kitsch
The elder brother of one my friends had this album, its contents are all too familiar to me
It was pretty ubiquitous for a moment there in the British late '70s, now completely forgotten (even more so than Sky)
"The music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and performed by his younger brother, the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. The Lloyd Webber brothers were always very close but their two different careers (a rock musical composer and a classical cellist) meant that a collaboration seemed unlikely. It was not until Julian beat his brother in a bet on a Leyton Orient football match that Andrew was forced to write his cello work. As his subject, Andrew chose the theme of Paganini's 24th caprice and added 23 variations for cello and rock band. The work premiered at the 1977 Sydmonton Festival with rock band Colosseum II, featuring Gary Moore, Jon Hiseman and Don Airey being joined by Barbara Thompson (sax, flute), Rod Argent (piano, synthesizer, keyboards) and Julian Lloyd Webber (cello). It was subsequently rearranged and recorded in 1978. It reached Number 2 on the UK album charts" - Wiki
The theme ended up as the perennial intro to the South Bank Show, its perfect home really
because when SBS deal with rock, it had an unerring instinct for finding the upper-middlebrow - Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, that sort of artist (did they do Kate Bush? Must have done, eventually).
one exception would be the episode they did on Rough Trade at the peakprime of postpunk
but generally yeah
rock that exhibited intelligence, craft, seriousness... a colour supplement idea of artistry
not knocking it particularly
much of my favorite stuff ends up upper-middlebrow, by acclamation and audience if not intent
Variations though i would categorise as lower-middlebrow - a vulgar attempt to 1/ "elevate" rock 2/ loosen up classical, jettison the bow-tie, help it "get down" a bit
transparent pretensions, laughably falling short of everything either kind of music validly offers
for all that, enjoyable!
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6 comments:
Phil Knight sez:
The Wank Show also did the Feelgoods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fZu9ed__O4
No doubt sandwiched between two Ken Russell "specials".
yeah i forgot that one - i've seen it, or bits of it - it's fairly straightforward. they don't seem like a typical Bank Show candidate, the Dr Feelgoods. it's about the band after Wilko left too, so even more straightforward verging on plodding. although i do like 'Milk and Alcohol' still
Phil Knight sez:
Thinking about the whole classical kitsch thing though, my Dad was into Sky and liked to watch the South Bank Show. He couldn't get enough Ken Russell.
He was part of an interesting demographic in that his teenage years were in the late 1940's and early 1950's - that generation that were too young for the war and too old for the rock'n'roll boom. He didn't have an adolescence as such, as he was straight into work at 15.
Therefore his generation had had virtually no input into the popular culture that had emerged around them, and which was practically foisted upon them. So he had this really odd all-over-the-place taste which I think was him trying to get "with it". I remember him coming home with a Go West CD one day, really pleased with himself, because one of the staff at a hi-fi shop had recommended it to him.
But I think this explains a lot of the oddities that emerged in the 60's/70's/80's - there was still a large cohort around that were cherry-picking appealing novelties from a culture that on the whole they didn't understand.
My parents were just a couple of years too old to get into rock'n'roll. they liked light jazz (Oscar Peterson, Dudley Moore Trio), Sinatra, musicals, and the Beethoven end of classical. That was the backdrop growing up and I'm glad of to have been exposed to that kind of thing.
They did like bits of pop. My mum used to average one single she loved per decade - 70s was "Killer Queen", 80s was going to be "Come On Eileen" - but then she fell for the Smiths.
My dad got into pop in a big way - the sexy soulful end first (eased by Pan's People etc) with Barry White, Stevie Wonder. Madonna. Then, only a few years after I started at Melody Maker, he started reviewing big concerts at Wembley for What's On in London. Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Whitney, that kind of thing. It was a bit disconcerting for me. He even phoned up NME offering his services. Some of his reviews were quite good - lurid descriptions of the lighting and the spectacle.
The last thing I remember him expressing a strong liking for in the pop field was Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do".
But yeah both parents fit what you're describing with your dad. A sort of agnostic pick-and-mix approach to pop, with no investments in youth culture or rebellion etc
Phil Knight sez:
My dad came up with the finest appreciation of Ken Russell's "Tommy" ever - he said "I don't think it needed all that music".
haha
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