Sounds Delightful #17: Music: What Happened?

When I first started reading Scott Miller’s Music: What Happened?, I told myself that I didn’t have to listen to every song. In each chapter Miller — who fronted cult-pop bands Game Theory and The Loud Family — ranks his favorite tracks of the year, from 1957 to 2011. With about 20 songs on each list, that’s well over 1000 songs. Given that it took me 18 months to finish the book, you can probably guess what happened.

From the start, I found Miller to be such an insightful critic and kindred spirit, that I just had to hear the songs he was writing about. How can you internalize a comment like “…on this one you can really hear the volume drop to a soft plateau and lock onto a perfectly controlled vibrato…” without hearing the vibrato in question? (Frank Sinatra on 1958’s “One for My Baby, in case you’re wondering.) So I started reading a chapter at a time, then listening to each song on Spotify while consulting the book to catch some of the more specific references. This approach allowed me to absorb the big picture of each year, while picking up on a lot of subtleties of individual songs.

The whole experience turned into an immersive journey through pop music, during which I gained a fresh perspective on favorite songs, rediscovered some I had forgotten, and learned a lot of new ones. I also gained a huge appreciation for Scott Miller, who knows music, but who more importantly loves music — and who is genuinely very funny. In the spirit of Miller’s approach, I’m framing the rest of this review in the form of a playlist. Each song helps illustrate an element of Music: What Happened?, along with the expressiveness of Miller’s writing and the impression it made on me.

(Spotify link)

1. The New Pornographers — “Mass Romantic” (2000) 

I wanted to start out with a song that would sum up everything about Miller’s worldview on music, and “Mass Romantic” does nicely. Generally, Miller loves melodic pop. Specifically, he values creativity, tunefulness, the sound and meaning of lyrics, accomplished playing, and a minimum standard of pop accessibility. In his review of “Mass Romantic,” which he chose as his favorite song of 2000, Miller singles out elements like “the unlikely ka-chunka guitar figure” and “the run-on sentence verse structure that always resolves in the middle of the word radio.” You will now always notice these things when you listen to this song. I also wanted to start out with a banger, because Miller loves songs that are fun, and that’s important.

2. Henry Mancini and Audrey Hepburn — “Moon River” (1961) 

As a book about years, Music: What Happened? inevitably becomes a book about decades. Decades are tricky things though, and it’s safe to say that the ’60s don’t really start until the release of “Love Me Do” in 1963. That leaves us with 1957-1962 as a pre-Beatles mix of vocal standards, jazz, early rock’n’roll, and showtunes. With a choice like “Moon River,” Miller tackles this era in a way that’s true to the values he applies to the modern pop world where he’s clearly more comfortable. He likes that Mancini is expected to be “in a word, charming,” and engages in what will become a trademark style of lyrical analysis, divining meaning in what some might dismiss as nonsense: “…but ‘huckleberry friend’ is so weird (is that a description of a color that calls Jim and Huck Finn to mind?) that it provides mooring as a kind of imagined colloquialism.”

3. The Monkees — “Daydream Believer” (1967) 

Ah, the heart of the ‘60s. It was a glorious time, and Scott Miller thinks so too. Usually he limits himself to one song per band per year, but in the case of the ‘60s he has to make an exception and allow one song per Beatle. It’s to his credit that he comes close to making a similar case for the Monkees, tossing out a few alternate choices before settling on “Daydream Believer” for 1967. This pick is a good example of his lack of snobbishness, as well as his ability to describe the musicality of a song. He effuses,

“‘Cheer up sleepy Jean,’ the way Davy slams the compressor with it, is certainly a world-class hook by itself, but holds back on a tentative minor chord, then ‘Oh what can it mean’ sidesteps to another minor. At “to a…,” there’s still a rest on the next big downbeat!”

I love how excited he is about that rest.

4. The Temptations — “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” (1972) 

The ’70s remain glorious. I think it’s only in the past couple years that I have fully absorbed the extent of that decade’s variety and quality. You can see this in the song choices throughout these chapters, with Miller easily covering a range of styles from rock to pop to R&B to prog to true out-there stuff like The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. As Miller points out, the ’70s also represent a peak of racial integration in pop culture: “The same people bought Sly and the Family Stone and Three Dog Night.” The boundaries between genres were also less defined, as in this Temptations number, which is both danceable and “sophisticated in its lyrical and vocal drama.” Miller makes the effort to continue to represent black artists as the years go on, but It’s hard to imagine that he really likes the Kayne songs he’s picking in the 2000s as much as he likes this.

5. Band Aid — “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (1984) 

Scott Miller hates the ’80s. I was a little surprised by his attitude, because I thought that most cool music people had moved past that kind of anti-syth purism. But there’s Miller in 1985 bemoaning, “As drum machines and DX7s blared, crooning emoters with mullets and rolled-up suit jacket sleeves paraded victoriously past countless sorry little rock combos at palpable risk of obsolescence” — and he’s kind of selling me on it. Once you start listening for that DX7 bell sound and gated reverb on the snare, you will not be able to unhear it. To be fair, Miller does find the silver lining of the ’80s, particularly in beloved traditionalists like R.E.M., The Smiths, and The Replacements. Still, 1984’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” was the obvious choice to represent Miller’s grudging attempt to capture the zeitgeist of these years.

“Why? Until it gets to the very respectable ‘Feed the world/Let them know it’s Christmas time’ part at the end, it’s not really even good. The answer is that one can only say God bless them, but rhetorically, what can one say of such a parade of Boys George and Simon Les Bons singing lines as bad as ‘the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears’”?

6. The Smashing Pumpkins — “Cherub Rock” (1993) 

A bold pronouncement:

“The nineties were better than the eighties, and one key reason was there there was less originality. Originality is unmusical. The urge to do music is an admiring emulation of music one loves; the urge toward originality happens under threat that the music that sounds good to you somehow isn’t good enough.”

This jibes with my own view that innovation is generally overrated. It’s a paradox, because without innovation, where would we be? But at the same time, in 99 out of 100 scenarios, most people will be better served by a classic idea well executed. Hence Miller’s conclusion that “Cherub Rock” “might have been the third best song on a Black Sabbath record in 1971,” but was exciting in 1993 simply because it sounded like the kind of music that everyone already liked.

7. Belle and Sebastian — “The Blues are Still Blue” (2006) 

The 2000s mark a change in the demographics of Miller’s picks. Previously, his lists tended to have a good mix of mass market pop, cult indie, and true obscurities. But in the 2000s, the mass market element shrinks significantly. Despite the fact that Miller has almost 25 years on me, I find the same pattern in my own listening. The 2000s were when mainstream radio hits diverged so much from the template set by the glory years of the ’60s and ’70s that adult listeners who wanted to keep listening to new music had to create their own space. The result has been a kind of hipster adult contemporary genre that retains a focus on melodies and guitars. As Miller says, “It doesn’t hit you over the head with new innovations or worthy superstars, but generally speaking, little people in music are doing good work that makes progress on its own terms.” “The Blues are Still Blue” is one of my own favorite songs, and Miller treats the development of the characters within the song, as well as Stuart Murdoch’s light touch in relating to them, with appropriate reverence.

8. One Direction — “What Makes You Beautiful” (2011) 

I’ve alluded to the fact that each chapter of Music: What Happened? has a certain structure. Miller’s goal was that each chapter would fit on a single CD, and as such they usually end up at around 20 songs. Within the chapter, only the last 10 songs are ranked, with special attention paid to the last couple as the best songs of the year. The first song in the chapter is an attempt to capture the zeitgeist of that year, which results in some of the more wildcat picks (see also “Do They Know It’s Christmas?). You can tell Miller is struggling a bit with the zeitgeist songs for the later years, but I have to give him props for what appears to be a genuine appreciation of “What Makes You Beautiful.” Miller points out that 1D are working in a similar tradition to the Monkees and engages in some speculation that maybe rock is not, in fact, dead. The ’10s did go on to contain occasional flashes of classic pop brilliance like “Call Me Maybe,” “Uptown Funk,” “All About That Bass,” “Happy,” and “Shut Up and Dance,” and I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of those show up on Miller’s future lists, were he still around to write them.

9. Paul McCartney — “Maybe I’m Amazed” (1970) 

Scott Miller likes Paul McCartney, but more importantly Scott Miller respects Paul McCartney. He praises Paul throughout the book for some of typical things, like his ability to write great songs and sing great harmonies. But he also gets things right about Paul that the average person might miss. Take this statement: “The cheapest stance among music critics in my lifetime is that Paul McCartney is a lightweight.” So true, and I’ve said variations on that theme myself, many times. But then take this statement: “Paul is the best non-improvised lead guitar player there is.” I have never heard anyone say that, ever. To think about Paul as a great guitarist is not only to reconceptualize his work entirely, but to reconceptualize the concept of a great guitar player entirely. We’re conditioned to equate greatness with shredding and decibels and long jams, but what about solos that are tight and melodic and full of feeling? That’s the brilliance of Music: What Happened? — to make you think about songs you know well in new ways. Miller accomplishes a similar feat in his ongoing discussions of David Bowie as a great lyricist and John Lydon as a great vocalist.

10. Smokey Robinson — “Cruisin’” (1979) 

There’s an element of light musical theory in this book, a lot of which I don’t feel qualified to evaluate. But even if I don’t fully understand it, there are times when I can tell it’s spot on. Take Miller’s comment about “Cruisin’”:

“The minor-third-down chord change on ‘love’ in ‘I love it when we’re cruisin’ together’ has some specialness that I can’t put my finger on, that I think of as critical to pop in my lifetime and that I credit Smokey with inventing.”

I never could have put that into words myself, but, when I hear it, there’s no question it’s what makes the melody work. Even Scott can’t explain why, but that won’t stop him from making the jump to an exhilarating grand pronouncement.

11. Nirvana — “All Apologies” (1993) 

It’s fascinating to hear Miller interpret the lyrics of some of these songs, especially when his analysis is different from my own or just really unexpected. His review of “All Apologies” is pretty involved, but here’s an excerpt:

“His own marriage and fatherhood haven’t relieved his own turmoil, and he somehow knows this is connected to blame: ‘Everything is my fault/I’ll take all the blame/Aqua seafoam shame.’ Is that the cliche of seafoam being a tacky color worn by bridesmaids? I think he’s saying: I’ll admit it — I’m the outsider, the tacky bridesmaid, the gay person, we all are.”

Is that interpretation right? Is it what Kurt intended to say? No one can answer that question, but that’s not the point. Pop music lyrics are more like a Tarot card reading than an instruction manual. Their meaning lies in what they suggest to the hearer, and it’s fascinating to get such an intimate peek into someone’s experience.

12. Gomez — “All Too Much” (2006) 

On the whole, Music: What Happened? is about good songs, so Miller doesn’t have a lot of opportunity to be really critical. But in a few cases, he chooses songs that he has mixed feelings about, and these open up some different territory. His review of “All Too Much” is probably the funniest one in the whole book, and it’s also amazingly insightful.

“It’s the Tom Waits/Bjork effect: the more underbite, cold symptoms, and bear growl you inflect, the more authentic the song must be. A few Cat Powers and Devendra Banharts make life interesting, but there’s a fine line between that and Jimmy Durante doing the sad verse after Frosty melts.”

A great punchline, yes, but it’s not just a cheap shot. Just like that, I understand why I dislike Tom Waits. What a rare gift to be able to express such a subtle point with such humor.

13. Steely Dan — “My Old School” (1973)

 I didn’t know this Steely Dan song before I started Music: What Happened?, and it’s probably my favorite of all the discoveries I made as I read. Miller’s review rightly points out all the awesome bits, but what sticks in my head is his claim that, “This song will get me out of a deathbed depression and back to loving life with mechanized efficiency.” That’s a bit of a punch to the gut, knowing that Miller killed himself only a couple years after the book’s final edition was published. It’s sad to think that he’s gone and that we’ll never hear what he has to say about so many more years of music. It’s somehow sadder still to think that Steely Dan wasn’t enough.

Bonus Track: The Loud Family — “Chicago and Miss Jovan’s Land-O-Mat” (1997) 

I do want to end this thing on an up note, because Music: What Happened? has brought such joy and enrichment to my life. Each time I picked it up, especially after having been a way for a while, I experienced a warm rush, like “hello, old friend.” I really felt that I had grown to know Scott Miller, who put so much of himself into this book, and that deep feeling of engagement with great music writing has become of the best ways I know to keep my listening fresh. I feel a little bad that I’ve never been that into Game Theory or The Loud Family, but this is one track I’ve known for a long time and always loved. It brings together so much of what Miller celebrated in the music of others: melody, accomplishment, wit, depth of feeling, and a singular turn of phrase. Thanks for everything, Scott!