Rocket Fuel

I have a confession to make. I wrote about the Elton John film Rocket Man before having seen it. Back in August I was stating, ‘if you want to see a movie that conveys the musical impact of Elton John, you would be better off watching the bus scene in Almost Famous than digesting Rocket Man’.

            I’ve now seen Rocket Man. For me it is a game of two halves. I like the coverage of the pre-fame years, particularly the scenes of Elton John as a boy in suburban Pinner. When he becomes famous, though, the film becomes dull. It’s not that stardom or drug addiction are inherently boring, it’s more that this film doesn’t really capture their highs, lows and weirdnesses. Interviewed by Graham Norton this week, Elton John had far more engaging things to say about the megalomania and depravity of rock stars, as well as about the oddities of fame. In particular, I enjoyed the story about introducing his partner, David Furnish, to his mother for the first time, only to have Michael Jackson turn up and come along to the dinner date as well.

            And what of the music? I think my hunch was right. Almost Famous is the more effective film when it comes to illustrating Elton John’s brilliance. There is one scene in Rocket Man that cuts through musically, however. It depicts the composition of ‘Your Song’. What I liked about this scene is its relationship with ‘truth’. It could be considered false in relation to music making, but true in terms of illustrating what it feels like to write a break-through hit. You capture lightning in a bottle.

            It takes place at Elton John’s childhood home, where he has returned to live with his mother and stepfather, bringing his lyricist partner, Bernie Taupin, along with him. Taupin hands John the lyrics to ‘Your Song’. John goes to the piano and writes the tune in real time. This brought to my mind Oliver Stone’s film, The Doors, in which the band similarly create their breakthrough hit, ‘Light My Fire’, in a spontaneous jam session.

Looking at the scene in The Doors again, the guitarist Robbie Krieger has scribbled down the chords and lyrics to ‘Light My Fire’ beforehand, and there is some tinkering around by the keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, before he stumbles across the Bach-inspired introduction to the song. The fully realized version that follows takes place in a different context: it soundtracks a montage sequence in which we witness the band’s escalating fame. In contrast, in the film Rocket Man, Elton John finds the tune to ‘Your Song’ immediately.

Why then does the naturalistic setting in The Doors feel corny, while the theatrical scene in Rocket Man rings true? Part of it comes down to this staging: naturalism can sabotage itself if the detail is not perfect. Melodrama, on the other hand, can capture a truth to feeling without having to concern itself with historical accuracy.

            Another reason is that The Doors scene surely is false. ‘Light My Fire’ may well have emerged from the scribbled notes, been worked up in rehearsal, and had a quickly realised intro because, in  Manzarek’s words, ‘It just came out of, you know, fifteen or twenty years of music practice’. Yet there is still the feeling that the whole process would have taken longer than this.

            Elton John, on the other hand, really does take the words of Taupin and create fully-realized songs off the bat. ‘I put my hands on the keyboard and away we go’, as John stated to Norton this week. As one example, he composed the music for the double album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, in three days. Lest we forget, this is an album that includes ‘Candle in the Wind’, ‘Bennie and the Jets’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ as well as the title track. ‘Your Song’ was written just as quickly. John talked with Norton about its staging in Rocket Man. For him, the film gives ‘a pretty accurate description of how it was done’.

            Even though it is ‘true’, this remains a remarkable means of creating successful music. Other composers, in contrast, can toil for months. I’m not sure how widely known it is that John writes in this way. Yet my guess is, even amongst viewers who do not know about this process, the ‘Your Song’ sequence would still appear honest. Could it be that there something in the music that is letting us know?

Fear of Musicking

There is a bias amongst some popular music academics. They are for musicians and they are against songwriters. This is not borne out of a need to venerate the incredible playing ability of certain artists, quite the opposite in fact. The desire is to move away from the idea of ‘artists’. Musicians can be viewed as workers. Theirs is a job of honest graft. In contrast, it is songwriters who carry with them the bourgeois notion of the creative genius, operating at a remove from society. This viewpoint is made clear in a recent call for papers for a ‘Working in Music’ conference:

As with any artistic production, music is also - and perhaps mainly - work. Such an idea is opposed to the romantic mythology from the 19th Century which conceives of artistic activity as coming from transcendental inspiration, impossible to rationalize, and of the artist as an exceptional being whose ‘talent’ would be irreducible to sociological analysis.

What we should value is the work (the physical effort that is expended in making music) and not ‘the work’ (the musical product that is credited to an author). Christopher Small, with his neologism ‘musicking’ is key to this notion. He believes that we should think of music as a process - and thus a verb - rather than as an object - get rid of that noun!

To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing. We might at times even extend its meaning to what the person is doing who takes the tickets at the door or the hefty men who shift the piano and the drums or the roadies who set up the instruments and carry out the sound checks or the cleaners who clean up after everyone else has gone. They, too, are all contributing to the nature of the event that is a musical performance.

I’m in agreement with much of this. Music is social; we should take genius down a peg or two; songwriting should not be placed above performance in the musical hierarchy. This outlook generates some questionable claims, however.

            First, there is the idea that the practice of musicians is out of step with the legal and commercial perceptions of music. Simon Frith has recently argued that ‘The law treats music as a work, a commodity, intellectual property, something that can be owned and exploited’, whereas ‘Musicians think of music as a process’. But do they always think in this manner? The recording industry may have declined in recent years, but the goal for many musicians is still to make a recording. They also want to have credit for it. These musicians do think of music as a noun. Frith once described the process of popular music as resulting in an object:

The ‘industrialization of music’ can’t be understood as something that happens to music but describes a process in which music itself is made – a process, that is, which fuses (and confuses) capital, technical, and musical arguments. Twentieth Century popular music means the twentieth century popular record; not the record of something (a song? a singer? a performance?) which exists independently of the music industry, but a form of communication which determines what songs, singers, and performances are and can be.

I would argue that this still remains the case, regardless of the academic vogue for musicking.

            Second, there is the desire to conflate music-making processes. It is argued that the division of labour into composition and performance is a classical music conceit. Popular music, in contrast, witnesses a confusion of these roles. Musicians compose as they are playing; songs are produced communally. Frith stresses this point in his recent article, stating that ‘The law assumes music is authored, created by named individuals’, whereas ‘Musicians know that music making is an essentially collaborative, a social process [sic]’.

            Music making is certainly collaborative and the divisions between composition and performance can be blurred. This does not mean, however, that they are the same thing. Few popular music songs are notated, but most of them are written. This is most obviously true of the lyrics. The words are honed and they are crafted, and it is usually an individual who does this. It is also true of the music: chords and melodies are usually developed by individuals or by small teams of writers; they seldom emerge whole during the rehearsal process.

            There is, of course, the question of whether the chords and melody should be valued above other elements of music, such as rhythm and the timbre. Frith believes not. He argues that ‘The law describes music in terms of notes and tunes’, whereas ‘Musicians think of music in terms of sounds and textures’. Again, though, do all musicians think in this way? There are a lot of performers who still believe in songs, and there are many who believe (perhaps conservatively) that lyrics, melody and harmony should be given greatest compositional accord.

            The idea that performance and composition take place simultaneously is in some ways outdated. It harks back to the idea of the rock group: a band of musicians who work up their material in rehearsal or in the recording studio. This is not modern practice. Most contemporary hit records are made by solo artists or by collaborations between solo artists. These musicians usually have a hand in writing their songs, but they do not write them on their own. We live in an era of professional songwriters. Their job is to work on the notes and tunes. It is somebody else’s job to work on the performance.

            There is, however, one modern example where the lines between performance, composition and recording are truly blurred. This is the lone, electronic artist who writes, edits and records their material on a digital audio workstation. Ironically, this type of music making is the least social or collaborative of all.

            Finally, we come to attempts to solve the legal dilemma. If the law is an ass when it comes to performers, how do we make it into something better? One proposal that has been put forward is to regard performance as composition. Richard Arnold has argued for this. He believes that ‘in the field of popular music many works are created in performance rather than being written down first’. Lionel Bently’s solution is to forgo the conventional compositional copyright for popular music and instead have a copyright in the ‘original work of sound’:

The effect of this would be to save copyright law from being asked to invent ‘musical works’ (and, indeed, ‘performances’) in circumstances (as in much of rock and pop – but not all) where the musical artefact is created in the recording studio (and subsequently marketed, appreciated and consumed) by way of such recording.

This idea is problematic in two respects. First of all, it ignores the fact that many songs are not written by the recording artists. As noted above, it is rare today for hit songs to be worked up in a studio like this. Bently’s idea is also unworkable in respect of cover versions: artists whose songs have been covered are not likely to welcome the covering artists as co-composers. The second problem with this proposal is that it posits composition as the desired musical goal. Copyright will give due respect to performers, but only if they cast themselves as writers. Isn’t this where we came in?

A Bit of a Blur

Although the ‘Blurred Lines’ legal case hasn’t been heard yet, it’s still making the news. Today’s Complete Music Update reported on the fact that neither ‘Blurred Lines’ nor the song that it is allegedly indebted to, Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give It Up’, will be played in court. Instead, the case will be decided by analysing the sheet music for each song. This is clearly to Robin Thicke’s and Pharrell Williams’s advantage, as the sheet music for ‘Got to Give It Up’ doesn’t include any of the distinctive backing vocals or rhythmic nuances that inspired the creation of ‘Blurred Lines’.

This reliance on sheet music will strike most popular music fans as being unfair. It is evidence that the legal system is geared towards classical conceptions of composition. On the one hand, it favours melody and harmony. On the other hand, it ignores what Paul Théberge has termed popular music’s ‘primary site of creation’: the recording studio.

There is some sort of legal logic in this, however. Artists don’t usually own their sound recordings; record companies do. It is the composition of ‘Got to Give it Up’ that is on trial, and it is the composition that is owned by Marvin Gaye’s estate. Howard King, the lawyer who is defending ‘Blurred Lines’, has said: ‘A truly fair trial requires only a comparison of the compositions, not the sound recording which is not owned by the Gayes. Given the fact that the compositions have absolutely no substantial similarities, there is little chance the Gayes can prevail at trial or on any threatened appeal’.

Another way of looking at this is that artists should own their sound recordings. They are more obviously the creators of these artifacts than record companies are. Moreover, it is in creating the sound recording that the principal act of pop authorship often takes place.

One final thing. I’m pretty sure that the focus on sheet music in this case is a quirk of American law. I used to work for PRS for Music and the regular advice we gave to songwriters was that, in order to copyright their works, all they needed to do was to post a sealed copy of the recording to themselves and ensure that the received package remained unopened. And so, in the UK the recording can be considered to be the composition. And yet who usually claims to be its author?

Composure

Can songwriting set popular music free? Well, it depends upon what it is being set free from and who is calling for its liberation.

            If it is people from the outside who are making these demands, then the answer to popular music’s problems should not be found in their complaints about songwriting. As I explored in the previous entry, some ‘high’ cultural theorists are overly focused on the compositional process. They look at pop songs and see standardization everywhere. They argue that hit records create ‘response-mechanisms wholly antagonistic to the ideal of individuality in a free, liberal society’. What these theorists tend to miss is that popular music is about more than its tunes. It doesn’t need to ape the ‘total’ compositional methods of classical music to have revolutionary potential. The best response to these theorists is not to answer their complaints about songwriting with songwriting, but to look instead at the areas in which popular music excels. It is the life force of popular music that can be radical and redemptive. It is here, in the human performance that gets captured in the grooves, that you can find the ‘magic that can set you free’. You can find anarchy and attitude, solace and soul. This is the democratic process that the best pop records enact. If the music were to prioritize composition in the way that cultural snobs demand, then popular music’s own particular magic would dissolve. In the order of things, it would forever play second fiddle to classical music, the composed form par excellence.

            But lets forget about outsiders for a minute. What does a focus on songwriting look like from within popular music? What difference can it make to people who are actually making and consuming this form? Here, there is a potential for composition to be democratizing. Conversely, there is a potential for the ‘life force’ of popular music to be tyrannical. Far from being a magic that can set you free, the prioritizing of ‘feel’, ‘soul’ and ‘attitude’ can distort our perceptions of the music. It gives kudos to musicians who have a supposed ‘authenticity’. It places a focus on the lives of the artists rather than quality of the work. It also favours men. Keeping it real or being true to the streets are by and large masculine pursuits. They should not be the standards by which all popular music is judged.

            A turn to songwriting can open things up. When someone like Noel Gallagher centres his greatness on his songwriting ability, it is invitation to be measured against Bjorn and Benny, rather than Brown and Squire. If fans are told to focus on the ‘song’, they can forget about authenticity for a while. They no longer have to suffer the ‘perfect pop’ of Big Star or Teenage Fanclub and can listen to genuinely perfect pop instead, including records that actually made the charts. Putting songwriting first helps to give female artists a greater chance. If we ignore the poets, seers and sages who have become the Romantic pin-ups of popular music’s history and instead concentrate upon composition, the gender biases of popular music and artistic genius can start to dissolve. In this order of things, Carole King has as much validity as Jim Morrison. It is no coincidence that female musicians are having increased success now that popular music has a greater focus on songwriting. After years of boys showing off about their noise, the music is regaining a sense of composure.

            This is not to say that girls can’t make a great noise too, but because the phallic grind of popular music has become encoded as male, the noise of girls has to be thought out in a different manner. In order to create the gushing thrust of ‘Whole Lotta Love’, Led Zeppelin didn’t have to write much. They merely had to take Muddy Waters’ ‘You Need Love’ by way of the Small Faces ‘You Need Loving’ and play and produce the riff with a power it had not previously known. In order to create their female rock music, the Slits had to think about the semiotics of each chord and each beat.  The group’s guitarist, Viv Albertine has stated, ‘The four of us constantly questioned everything. Each note had to be as exciting as the one before it and no clichés’. With her ‘mosquito’ tone, she aimed to replace ‘the old, oppressive patriarchal way that guitars sound’. Warpaint, a contemporary female four-piece, have also expressed a determination to write in a textural rather than climactic fashion. They want to avoid the punchlines that are common in both the music and comedy of men.

            And so where does this leave us in our search for popular music and liberty? Will we find emancipation in the grain of the voice or in the structure of the music? I’m going to equivocate. The thing is, I like both Led Zeppelin and the Slits, and I have found moments of freedom in records by each of these bands. Popular music can be a standardizing and reactionary force; it can also be challenging and cathartic. And these polarized tendencies can be found in both the structure and the grain. The songwriting process can reinforce the edicts of capitalism in both its musical and economic aims; it can also force us to think twice about societal norms. The concepts of soul and groove can become clichéd and can reinforce racial stereotypes; they can also bring out untapped emotions and encourage listeners to search across cultural divides. Authenticity can be a bind and a distraction, but some role-model artists can encourage people to think twice about how they live their lives.

A record can be transformative because it does exactly what the artist intends it too. Alternatively, a record can be revolutionary because audience members reinterpret it in a radical way. That reinterpretation doesn’t have to be ironic either; it can be more earnest than the author’s original intentions. Moreover, the divide between the artistic and the re-interpreted doesn’t have to be made along rock and pop lines, with the 'untouchable' works of art falling in the former category and the reworked works of art falling in the latter. In fact, records from any genre can be used in different ways: audiences can find what they want in them – or what they hate in them – by accepting or rejecting the composers’ intentions. Ultimately, the reductive and redemptive aspects of popular music work in accordance with everything else about this popular form: we takes our choice. 

Decompose

If left wing commentators view popular music as a problem, songwriting usually lies at the heart of the matter. This critique spirals out from a statement made by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology: ‘The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it’. Mental production in popular music is most often equated with the songwriting process. The danger, from a Marxist point of view, is that pop songs are no more than a reflection of the economic system that underpins their creation.

            In Marx's and Engels’ formulation we have the base (the economic system) and the superstructure (the political and cultural system). Marx suggested that ‘The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life-process in general’. This is where we get the idea that economics ‘determine’ cultural production. Engels did, however, add a proviso. He stated that, while economic conditions are ‘ultimately decisive’, the influence isn’t wholly one-way: ‘the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one’.

            The relationship between the base and superstructure is at the forefront of criticisms of popular music, whether these are made by academic theorists, journalists, fans or musicians themselves. For example, the indies vs. majors debate has rattled on for nearly a century now and is reliant on a belief that the major corporations’ economic systems are reflected in their musical product.

            These criticisms were at their most acute when records were mass produced. It was suggested that the standardized, factory-based nature of creating records was reflected in the standardized nature of recordings. This is what Theodor Adorno almost said. He hated popular music and he hated popular music songwriting most of all. Spelling out his thoughts in his ‘On Popular Music Essay’ of 1941, he claimed, ‘The whole structure of popular music is standardized, even where the attempt is made to circumnavigate standardization’. Adorno, along with his fellow Frankfurt school theorist, Max Horkheimer, coined the term ‘culture industry’ to make clear the link between the production of popular culture and the assembly-line manufacture of industrial goods. Adorno’s argument could occasionally be subtle, however. He pointed out:

Though all industrial mass production necessarily eventuates in standardization, the production of popular music can be called ‘industrial’ only in its promotion and distribution, whereas the act of producing a song-hit still remains in a handicraft stage. […] It would not increase the costs of production if the various composers of hit tunes did not follow certain standard patterns. Therefore, we must look for other reasons for structural standardization – very different reasons from those which account for the standardization of motor cars and breakfast foods.

Adorno’s answer was ‘imitation’. He suggested that, ‘As one particular song scored a great success, hundreds of others sprang up imitating the successful one’. This resulted in ‘the crystallization of standards’, which were ‘rigidly enforced upon the material to be promoted’. The major record companies  ‘institutionalized the standardization, and made it imperative’.

            Adorno’s views were echoed by Jacques Attali, the French economist and music theorist who acted as advisor to François Mitterrand. In his 1977 book Noise, Attali drew up a Marxian historical account of musical development, equating four stages of music with four phases of production and reception. His account of the era of mass production was labelled ‘repeating’. Just like Adorno, he saw stultifying standardization:

Fetishized as a commodity, music is illustrative of the evolution of our entire society: deritualize a social form, repress an activity of the body, specialize its practice, sell it as spectacle, generalize its consumption, then see to it that it is stockpiled until it loses its meaning. Today, music heralds […] the establishment of a society of repetition in which nothing will happen anymore.

Also like Adorno, Attali stopped short of suggesting that the repetitive nature of record manufacture determined the repetitive nature of music. In fact, he viewed things the other way around. He argued that music ‘heralds, for it is prophetic’. Here, the superstructure precedes the base: ‘music is prophetic … social organization echoes it’.

Attali’s way of thinking has been pertinent in the internet age. We have seen music at the forefront of change. Along with pornography, it has been the most prophetic form of popular culture when it comes to dematerialization, piracy and transforming the economic base.

            It is therefore worth returning to the conclusion of Noise. Attali posited ‘repeating’ as his third musical era. He did, however, envision a fourth: ‘composing’. He had a utopian vision of a society that would be beyond commerce: ‘composition is revealed as the demand for a truly different system of organization, a network within which a different kind of music and different social relations can arise. A music produced by each individual for himself, for pleasure outside of meaning, usage and exchange’.

            If music can be viewed as being prophetic, then so can Attali. The internet has provided a ‘different system of organization’, it has produced a musical culture that exists outside of ‘exchange’, and it has made it more readily possible for each individual to create and distribute music. It has also, as I argued in an earlier post, produced a greater focus on ‘composition’.

            But where are our new ‘social relations’? Moreover, where is our new music? Despite all the economic changes of the present century, popular music could still be regarded as being standardized. In fact, songwriting has now moved beyond the handicraft stage to become industrial. Adorno viewed popular music songwriting as being ‘individualistic’. This may have been the case in the 1940s, but songwriting teams piece together many of today’s hits. While some people will work on the rhythm track, others will provide the top line. One composer can provide the lyric for the main melody, while a hip hop artist can be called upon for a middle eight of rhymes.

            Adorno and Attali were fixated with songwriting. For them, composition lay at the heart of all that was wrong with popular music. Consequently, it provided the solution if this form of culture was to get things right. Adorno also prioritized particular elements of musical creation: those that have been central to classical music, such as melody and harmony. It was these that popular music needed to improve. However, as Bernard Gendron has pointed out, if we focus on these elements it is possible to see ‘sameness’ in popular music. Conversely, if we focus on ‘timbre and connotation’ we can see ‘difference’ from song to song and between artist and artist. Gendron’s case against standardization is a strong one, but it remains subject to a ‘classical’ point of view. The response to Adorno’s criticisms of popular music doesn’t have to be found in songwriting; there are other and perhaps better ways of suggesting that the music is diverse. It can have huge variety when it comes to feel, inflection, groove and dynamics.

            Or at least this used to be the case. Looked at from one angle, developments within computing technology have transformed popular music economics; looked at from another, they have made the creation of popular music more conservative. The focus is now on composition, just as it is with classical music and other 'high' arts. Adorno and Attali might have considered this the route to musical utopia, but as their writing makes clear, putting songwriting at the forefront only makes popular music seem more standardized. Moreover, despite the transformation of business practices, the music hasn’t entirely escaped exchange. If anything, the creation of mainstream popular music is more economically motivated than it was when it was less ‘mentally’ indebted. We have lost a bodily focus on timbre and feel and replaced it with a cerebral one that is centred on planning and editing. Popular music still has its problems, but it is clear that songwriting is not the only answer. An alternative solution is to decompose.

Compose Yourself

It’s now ten years since Ray Charles died. To mark this occasion Robert Elms asked listeners to his BBC London radio programme to request and talk about their favourite Ray Charles songs. I relished this half an hour of music. The first song chosen was ‘What’d I Say’, which is a good a piece of dance music as has ever been recorded. The second was ‘Georgia on My Mind’, which as a ballad is equally as good. In fact, when he’s at his peak, it’s hard to think of anyone who can equal Ray Charles.

            Charles was probably the first popular musician to be labelled a genius. He was also the one to whom the term was most consistently applied (check out those late 1950s/early 1960s LP titles). But where did his genius lie? To paraphrase Bob Dylan, whatever it was that Charles did, it wasn’t in the songwriting.

            Charles did write ‘What’d I Say’, but for all its innovative brilliance, the track remains bedded in the traditional 12-bar blues form. He didn’t write ‘Georgia on My Mind’, or ‘Mess Around’, or ‘Drown in My Own Tears’, or ‘Let the Good Times Roll’, or ‘Hit the Road Jack’, or ‘I Can’t Stop Loving You’. Some songs for which he did gain a writing credit, such as ‘I Got a Woman’, are really old songs reworked.

            But what reworking! It’s in his skills as an arranger that Ray Charles’s genius lies: his bringing together of different musical traditions and his ability to get a band to explore their twists and turns. It’s also in his interpretative abilities as a singer: the timbre, timing and nuances of his voice. It’s also in his abilities as a keyboard player; the way that he gets a band to swing together; the interaction that he has with his backing singers, the Raelettes.

            Digital technology has encroached upon the areas in which Ray Charles excelled. The majority of today’s pop musicians arrange blocks of information on computer screens, rather than arrange charts for performing musicians. Sequencing and quantizing have taken the place of the ability to interact with a band (or to interact ‘live’ with a backing track, for that matter). The precision of autotune has replaced the grain of the voice. Artists gain their reputations for their production techniques, rather than for their musicianship skills. Moreover, when these artists play live, they remain subject to computerization. Even when their performances are not digitally controlled, they have to play with the rhythmic precision of a sequencer, or sing with the range and accuracy of an electronic device. The writing and the recording of their songs dictates this.

            I don’t want to argue that these technical innovations are bad or that great music is no longer produced. I would also like to underline the fact that the techniques that Ray Charles employed were also the results of technology; as with today’s hits, his recordings were shaped by the latest developments in instrument design, studio equipment, and microphone techniques.

What I would suggest, however, is that digital audio workstations put more pressure on artists to make a mark with their songwriting. Older records are as likely to make their presence felt through ‘feel’ as they are through their chord changes or harmonic twists. Today’s music is more rigid and compressed. New artists aren’t musicians foremost; their main occupation is as composers and editors.

            What are the effects of this? In the first instance, I would argue that it shifts the conception of popular music ‘genius’ so that it is now more in line with other art forms. It is the act of writing that is valued, rather than the life that is captured the tracks (I will explore the pros and cons of this in a later blog entry). Secondly, I would argue that it is now harder to create great pop music. Being a writer is not easy. Being Ray Charles wasn’t easy either, but in the past there were many brilliant records that didn’t have great writing, great musicianship or great arranging. They just had a great something. In his book This is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco, Gary Mulholland outlines his ‘own personal Theory One of pop’. This is that ‘Everybody has one good single in them’. It’s my personal theory that it was the quirky magic of analogue recording that made this the case. A great digital audio workstation composition cannot be stumbled across in the same way. And so, for all the supposed democracy and opened access of computer-based music making, it actually makes pop music more elite.