Last night I listened to the Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never
Knows’. It was one of those times when I marvelled at the freshness of a sound
recording. It’s 50 years old for Chrissakes! And yet it is still astonishing.
Listening to it you can find yourself declaring that this track is more
sonically exciting and challenging than the majority of music made today.
Some people
find this longevity problematic. There is a belief that popular music should be
constantly progressing. We should not be harking back to older records. There
is something seriously wrong with pop when the sounds of the past are more
innovative than the sounds of the present. This is part of Simon Reynolds’ case
against the ‘retromania’ of our times.
It struck me that if people do
have an issue with musical nostalgia, it is not centred upon songs. It is the
steadfastness of old sound recordings that troubles them. There have always
been long-lasting tunes. It doesn’t bother us that ‘Stardust’ is nearly a
century old and is still being sung. If anything we enjoy the longevity of compositions
such as ‘Greensleeves’, ‘House of the Rising Sun’ or ‘Scarborough Fair’. Conversely,
there can be something irksome about the fact that Revolver still tops best albums lists, or that the Stone Roses’
debut album is still being praised.
There are
folk reasons for this. Songs are iterated. They are remade by the generations
and they shine anew. Sound recordings, in contrast, are static. If they last,
they last in their initial form. They can be remixed and they can be sampled
but you cannot escape the original. They are monolithic.
There is
also an issue of auteurship. Although
all music has multiple points of influence, we are used to the idea that songs
are individually authored or are co-authored. The idea of the songwriting
author is enshrined in copyright law. The duration of copyright in musical
composition is tied to the lives of the individuals concerned. In Britain, it
lasts until 70 years after the last of the co-authors to die.
In
contrast, the auteurship of sound recordings
is not as well established. There is an issue of just who it should belong to: the
songwriters, the musicians, the producers, the engineers? British copyright law
awards it on the basis of financial risk. It goes to the party who has made the
arrangements for the recording to take place. This legislation does not
recognise artistry; it instead rewards record companies. Copyright is not tied
to the life of an individual. It lasts for 70 years from the date that the
record is issued to the public.
There is nevertheless an
increasing sense that sound recordings are artworks in their own right. Some of
the pangs of retromania are no more than growing pains: sound recording is
becoming canonised. We have no problem with the idea that the greatest works of
literature, fine art and musical composition achieve classic status. We will
eventually have no problem with the idea that the greatest sound recordings are
worthy of the same accord. Music retail, music broadcasting and music
journalism have already moved in this direction. They kowtow to the records of
the past; they appreciate their artistry; they help to establish the auteurs. Copyright law is lagging
behind.
And yet there is one final twist.
There is a reason why recordings such as ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ are timeless:
their makers had one eye on the future. Until recently the imperative in
popular music was either to be forward looking or to ‘be here now’. The
celebration of old records makes this harder: musicians are now saturated with
and intimidated by the music of then.
If any records of today are going to be canonised, it will most likely be the
ones that are not overly indebted to the past masters. It is a question of
balance. The greatness of sound recording
should be acknowledged; the greatest sound recordings should also be
transcended.
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