In The Republic, Plato discussed “the lovers of sight and sound.” These people seek out things that are beautiful, and in doing so, they miss the meaning of real beauty. If Plato were to visit the present day and go to all the music festivals that exist, he may be able to say which bands he liked the most, but even he would not be able to explain what it actually means to hear a “good song.” He wouldn’t even think such a thing were possible: “Man, I’ve seen all sorts of awesome bands, I mean, come on! That lady from that obscure band you’ve never heard of is so hot, but you want me to tell you about why their music is good and Nickelback’s isn’t? Come on, dude, it’s Nickelback!”
No, dude, it isn’t. There has to be a reason that we think one band is better than another, an objective thing called “beauty” that we can apply to good bands and an objective thing called “ugly” that we can apply to bad ones.
We might not ever be able to define it exactly, but as we go through life, if we look for what beauty is not what is beautiful we can come up with a better guess as to whether or not we ought to listen to Nickelback.
Now, whether or not you share that particular philosophic view, were you to have been at The National’s concert at The Pageant on Sept. 29., you would have been given a taste of something that falls into the ‘beauty’ column, at least as far as I am concerned. When the band took the stage, you could tell something good was about to happen.
For those of you who have never listened to The National, the best way I can describe their sound is Radiohead, but more…conventional. “Sulkfest 2010” was what one person I know suggested this concert might turn out to be. But if you stop thinking of them as Radiohead clones, you might be able to see the appeal of a band with a similar, but more ordered symphonic sound.
Certainly the sold-out crowd at The Pageant understood the greatness of The National. Scheduled to go on at 9:15 p.m., the crowd started chanting somewhere around 8:55, something you might not expect of Sulkfest 2010!
Eventually, the band took the stage, and with Matt Berninger belting out his trademark crazy lyrics in his trademark baritone, all had a good time rocking out to songs from all across the band’s repertoire. Because that’s just what The National does. They are not a band in which each instrument has its own little character, own little bit to play, and instead everything comes together in one massive wall of sound. Not a massive wall of discord and hazy noise, like, say, Nickelback, but instead an orchestral type of tune: sound that zooms out, surrounds you and then makes you rock out. A good thing. Like a symphony, but with more electric guitars.
The National is an example of good music. But they also help us figure out what “good music” might really be; perhaps, instead of a cacophony of terrible sounds, a cacophony of excellent sounds provides for beautiful music.
The National, unfortunately, was not the only concert I attended that weekend. I am a photographer as well as a reporter and so I was assigned to cover both The National and a band called the Drive By Truckers over the course of three days.
As you might imagine, there is a bit of a tonal difference between the two acts, but because I am here to bring you nothing but the whole picture of music in this city, I bravely went where I had not gone before.
Namely, to a so-called “alt-country” concert. I don’t understand alt-country, never have, and probably never will. I don’t get this “alt-genre” thing as a whole, actually.
So, I went to a country music concert. It isn’t that I don’t like country music. I like anything but pop-country, such as Taylor Swift or Hannah Montana or the guy with the song about America kicking, ahem, tail. The thing is, I don’t know quite how to classify the Drive By Truckers. They seemed like they couldn’t decide which sound they wanted to chase after. Moving between rock, country, the blues, a little bit of funk and even a spot of punk, the Truckers are clearly talented musicians, but it seems that even they have not been able to figure out what alt-country means.
They were fun, as evidenced by the massively bearded man next to me jumping up and down like a kid experiencing Christmas in July, but indecisive. This inability to pick – as far as I could tell – a musical story they wanted to tell meant that they wound up playing a wall of sound. Not a harmonious wall of sound, but a buzzing wall of sound.
The Truckers are an odd band in that they have three guitarists, and this could have made for an interesting sound, but in my concert experience each guitar got lost in the buzz.
So, to review: One way in which it is possible to approach the beautiful in terms of music is to, if you’re going to make a wall of sound, make it well. Produce a harmonious tune that wraps around the audience and draws them in, not a wall of discordant noise that pushes them back. The National succeed at this, while the Drive By Truckers fall slightly short.
