The Off-colored Officer - Gifts From the Aughties (Pt.1)
I read a newspaper yesterday and in one of the many articles featured, one in particular caught my attention which was about the last decade. The writer wrote that the English language has hit a wall in its incapability to come up with a name for that particular decade. I mean, we've had the 70's, the 80's, and the 90's. So what about the 00's? That was exactly the question raised by the writer. There has been a number of suggestions on what would be the best and most appropriate name, and among few of them:
1) The New Millenium - it's too Dean Koontz-y
2) The Singles - reminds me of cheese (Kraft Singles)
3) The Aughts - a cheap, one-album-wonder The Pretenders' imitator band
4) The Naughties - a better, more well-known Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's imitator band
5) The Zeroes - sounds utterly hopeless
6) The 00's - dangerously looks too similar with a pair of boob
As you could have probably guessed so, none of the suggestions work. Thus, it is with great irony though for me to celebrate the death of the failed decade with a feature on some of the most important album ever released during the Aughts. Starting with...
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
Release date: June 26, 2000
Label: XL Recording
I guess it would be very easy for me to begin this feature with Radiohead's Kid A, already the single most important record of the Aughts. It is kind of obvious where did the idea for this feature came from so I thought I better save it for later and instead wrote on something less obvious. Something that perhaps not many people realize it but that's the fact nevertheless. Badly Drawn Boy is essentially a vehicle for one-man-show, play-all use-all, where-available, where-fitting Damon Gough. He make, wrote, and sang some of the most delightful, fun, occasionally weird, uncompromising, occasionally beautiful, and occasionally impromptu songs that man has ever listened to.
The sole reason why BDB's debut album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast deserves the recognition as the most important album of the last decade is the same with how BDB's music has essentially 'reconfigured' the term singer-songwriter. I'm not sure the term 'reconfigured' is the most appropriate but that's the only word that my brain is capable of producing right now. What was traditionally associated with the term singer-songwriter is the image of a troubadour: usually unwashed for several weeks, reeks of alcohol and sweat and blood and tears, faded shirt and jeans, and holding a guitar while face pointing towards somewhere vague in a deep-in-thought pose. Singer-songwriter's music are usually a highly personal recollection of the singer's experience with drugs/alcohol abuse/failed romantic relationship and how he/she dealt with it. They are choke full of emotion. But then BDB came along.
A singer-songwriter is no longer a stinking, heartbroken, lonely hobo with a guitar and lots of songs in their head. A singer-songwriter now, according to BDB, is a highly civilized member of the society who has a lot of money at his/her disposal and is making/writing songs because he/she can do it. So they are able to throw every single musical instrument that their hand can reach into a single composition. Gone are the stark soundscape of a broken heart and replaced with a spectacular orgasmic concoction of equal genuine songcraftmanship and insanity. A singer-songwriter nowadays is now, in practice, a full blown strings ensemble. No I meant to say in theory.
What The Hour of Bewilderbeast has achieved that merits its status as "the most important" lies within the heart of the record. It may be a tad too long a record (18 tracks altogether), and that all the songs in the album don't seem to slot in nicely to make it a cohesive unit. But then exactly in that chaos and perplexing weirdness that makes the album a true gem. Because as with Damon Gough himself, Badly Drawn Boy is as a whole a representation of the 'do as I please' mantra. The same goes with the album - it sounds and feels like the album was made purposely to sound and feel like it was made with no purpose at all. Like it was made not as a statement of the singer's artistic craft, but as a statement of the singer's artistic freedom.
As we'll move along this feature in coming weeks with more important albums of the decade, we will be able to see how artistic freedom has become the go-to mantra for many artists/bands. How artistic freedom has shaped the music that we've listened to in the last decade. Because the Aughts was all about individuals standing out from the rest. Because the Aughts was the year of Facebook and Twitter - it was the decade of 'me'. The Hour of Bewilderbeast is an outstanding record, and an outstanding example of how the 'me' culture has shaped the music as well. The 'me' culture resents itself of having any purpose, so long as it stands out from the rest, a lot of people pay attention, and that's that.
The album, in practice, is a bewildering collection of nonsensical musings that is at odds with each other. It is beautiful and mesmerizing because of how fun and childish the album feels. It is an outstanding piece of art because the way the album was engineered, it becomes a collage and not a pile of incomprehensible garbage. It is important for the decade because it shows how music of the 'me' decade should be.
I read a newspaper yesterday and in one of the many articles featured, one in particular caught my attention which was about the last decade. The writer wrote that the English language has hit a wall in its incapability to come up with a name for that particular decade. I mean, we've had the 70's, the 80's, and the 90's. So what about the 00's? That was exactly the question raised by the writer. There has been a number of suggestions on what would be the best and most appropriate name, and among few of them:
1) The New Millenium - it's too Dean Koontz-y
2) The Singles - reminds me of cheese (Kraft Singles)
3) The Aughts - a cheap, one-album-wonder The Pretenders' imitator band
4) The Naughties - a better, more well-known Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine's imitator band
5) The Zeroes - sounds utterly hopeless
6) The 00's - dangerously looks too similar with a pair of boob
As you could have probably guessed so, none of the suggestions work. Thus, it is with great irony though for me to celebrate the death of the failed decade with a feature on some of the most important album ever released during the Aughts. Starting with...
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
Release date: June 26, 2000
Label: XL Recording
I guess it would be very easy for me to begin this feature with Radiohead's Kid A, already the single most important record of the Aughts. It is kind of obvious where did the idea for this feature came from so I thought I better save it for later and instead wrote on something less obvious. Something that perhaps not many people realize it but that's the fact nevertheless. Badly Drawn Boy is essentially a vehicle for one-man-show, play-all use-all, where-available, where-fitting Damon Gough. He make, wrote, and sang some of the most delightful, fun, occasionally weird, uncompromising, occasionally beautiful, and occasionally impromptu songs that man has ever listened to.
The sole reason why BDB's debut album, The Hour of Bewilderbeast deserves the recognition as the most important album of the last decade is the same with how BDB's music has essentially 'reconfigured' the term singer-songwriter. I'm not sure the term 'reconfigured' is the most appropriate but that's the only word that my brain is capable of producing right now. What was traditionally associated with the term singer-songwriter is the image of a troubadour: usually unwashed for several weeks, reeks of alcohol and sweat and blood and tears, faded shirt and jeans, and holding a guitar while face pointing towards somewhere vague in a deep-in-thought pose. Singer-songwriter's music are usually a highly personal recollection of the singer's experience with drugs/alcohol abuse/failed romantic relationship and how he/she dealt with it. They are choke full of emotion. But then BDB came along.
A singer-songwriter is no longer a stinking, heartbroken, lonely hobo with a guitar and lots of songs in their head. A singer-songwriter now, according to BDB, is a highly civilized member of the society who has a lot of money at his/her disposal and is making/writing songs because he/she can do it. So they are able to throw every single musical instrument that their hand can reach into a single composition. Gone are the stark soundscape of a broken heart and replaced with a spectacular orgasmic concoction of equal genuine songcraftmanship and insanity. A singer-songwriter nowadays is now, in practice, a full blown strings ensemble. No I meant to say in theory.
What The Hour of Bewilderbeast has achieved that merits its status as "the most important" lies within the heart of the record. It may be a tad too long a record (18 tracks altogether), and that all the songs in the album don't seem to slot in nicely to make it a cohesive unit. But then exactly in that chaos and perplexing weirdness that makes the album a true gem. Because as with Damon Gough himself, Badly Drawn Boy is as a whole a representation of the 'do as I please' mantra. The same goes with the album - it sounds and feels like the album was made purposely to sound and feel like it was made with no purpose at all. Like it was made not as a statement of the singer's artistic craft, but as a statement of the singer's artistic freedom.
As we'll move along this feature in coming weeks with more important albums of the decade, we will be able to see how artistic freedom has become the go-to mantra for many artists/bands. How artistic freedom has shaped the music that we've listened to in the last decade. Because the Aughts was all about individuals standing out from the rest. Because the Aughts was the year of Facebook and Twitter - it was the decade of 'me'. The Hour of Bewilderbeast is an outstanding record, and an outstanding example of how the 'me' culture has shaped the music as well. The 'me' culture resents itself of having any purpose, so long as it stands out from the rest, a lot of people pay attention, and that's that.
The album, in practice, is a bewildering collection of nonsensical musings that is at odds with each other. It is beautiful and mesmerizing because of how fun and childish the album feels. It is an outstanding piece of art because the way the album was engineered, it becomes a collage and not a pile of incomprehensible garbage. It is important for the decade because it shows how music of the 'me' decade should be.
Labels: 2009, badly drawn boy
posted by Hafeez at 5:55 PM
1 Comments:
The only NUMERICAL & MNEMONICALLY correct phrases to name the century's first decade are AUGHTIES, NAUGHTIES, NAUGHTS, AUGHTS or NAUGHTY AUGHTIES.
A few suggestions use one or more specific events that occurred during the decade. They will probably never be used from a radio and broadcasting point of view because they do not encompass this whole decade and they aren't pleasing to the ear. Radio stations introduce their programming along the lines of “Music from the 80s, 90s and Today”. Soon, they’ll be replacing it with “Music from the 90s (NineTIES), ______TIES and Today”. The best choices contain either AUGHTIES, NAUGHTIES, NAUGHTY AUGHTIES, NAUGHTS or AUGHTS. Using events usually requires one to use adages like "The Age of" or "Era" which is more descriptive of a time period, not necessarily an actual decade. There is a huge difference between what a decade is "remembered for" versus what a decade is "referred to as". Many suggestions (Age of Confusion, , Era of Misplaced Anxiety, Decade of Disruptions, North goes South, etc) do NOT pass this simple litmus test. Any suggestion that would require you to be a history buff in the future, shouldn't even be considered.
The media needs to embrace the only viable choice from a NUMERICAL & MNEMONICAL point of view. The first decade of previous generations did not have this sense of urgency as mass marketing really didn't exist. The mass marketing concept was introduced to the public with the advent of radio broadcasting of the mid 1920's (Roaring Twenties) and heightened in the 1940's with television accessibility.
Why Naughty Aughties? We NEED an identifier. Not many people can pinpoint the actual years of Generation X and Generation Y, the Stone Age or the Industrial Revolution. Naughty Aughties and its offshoots leave no doubt to this identity as “naught” and “aught” both mean zero. Jazzing up “Naught” to “Naughty” and combining it with “Aughties”, inadvertently describes the tone of the first decade that includes the Years 2000-2009. Marketing sense tells us that the 00’s are not memorable enough nor are they appealing to the public. Naughty Aughties is simple, catchy, rhymes and intimates fun and mischievous behavior, as well as being sweet and sexy. Previous decades are easily identifiable and well marketed, but until now, there seemed to be no cohesion for the years 2000-2009. Naughty Aughties fills the void in a fun and “roll off your tongue” sort of way.
Obviously, many “naughty” things have occurred in the entertainment, political, sporting and economic arenas from global, national and local perspectives that may depict our moral compass. Jackson’s Superbowl Half-time show, OJ Simpson, Britney Spears, Enron, Martha Stewart, Cheney and Clinton are just a few highlights. Can you come up with more? Sure, you can!
Post a Comment
<< Home