Superking wrote:Somebody on these blessed pages once said they wished they could hear "Stairway to Heaven" in a cultural vacuum (was it "Stairway to Heaven" or "Free Bird"? And was that T. Midgett?).
i don't think it was me. might have been an offhand comment.
cultural context and artistic intent aren't that important to me when it comes to liking/disliking. if i like it, i like it. if i do not, i do not. i don't care who else likes lynyrd skynyrd or whether or not the stooges knew what they were doing.
the carpenters are a very weird case. i don't own any records. if i did own them, i wouldn't play them, probably. but when i hear something on the radio, i listen to it from beginning to end. i am _pretty sure_ i would do this even if i didn't know the back story. but i am not certain. the back story probably helps maintain my interest.
what makes them interesting to me isn't that it's soulless music. it's not quite soulless. it's that it's meant to convey a specific vibe, often one of carefree happiness, yet 'carefree happiness' is never something i take away from their music.
'we've only just begun': she is meant to convey the jittery happiness felt by a newly-wed couple. instead, she conveys to me some kind of barely concealed terror at what has transpired. perhaps also impending frigidity.
as my wife says: 'i like the carpenters because they are dark and creepy. am i the only one who thinks they are dark and creepy? [ans: no] like, even the supposedly happy songs, there is something weird about the key or something.'
so i will say not crap. i think if they did precisely what they intended to do, they might be crap. but they did what they did and that is all that matters to me. maybe they wanted it that way.
