My latest album, Where are the Arms, is a pop record, plain and simple. Yes, it has classical elements in some of its arrangements, but it is unmistakably a collection of pop songs, architecturally speaking. Many have simple ABABCAB structures, or variants thereof, and while within those structures there are rhythmic and harmonic events unusual in pop music, they’re still pop songs.

While some may be inclined to throw it into the “alt-classical” pot, I would call that out as a cynical move. E.g., “Let’s take pop music that’s somewhat sophisticated and call it alt-c so that we can corner a portion of the classical market by offering something accessible, plus you only have to sell like 100 copies a week to chart on Billboard Classique.”

No one would make the argument that Eleanor Rigby is a “classical work” simply because it was recorded with a string quartet. Rather, it’s a pop song with strings on it.

My work in the pop realm is pop music.

I wouldn’t want a classical critic reviewing WatA, which is why I elected to have a strictly pop publicist pitch the record to strictly pop critics, despite the fact that more people (10>n>0) know who I am in the classical world than do in the pop world (n<0). If a classical critic did review it, she’d probably say, “hey, there are nice arrangements on these pop songs, but in purely musical terms, the more or less strophic architecture of the pieces prevents them from developing in anypalpable traditional sense.”

I guess what I’m getting at— and I realize this is subjective and maybe reactionary— is that I have too much respect for the people writingwhat I consider to be “classical” music today to have my little pop confections considered as being in the same realm. This is not to say that I don’t think my pop music is of artistic value, but rather to say: let’s not kid ourselves by thinking that the presence of strings, woodwinds, and brass doth a classical record make.

On Thursday night, I’m premiering a piece called Crane Palimpsestwith American Composers Orchestra at Zankel Hall in NYC, and much of it is an investigation of the ideas discussed herein, e.g. can the architecture of a pop song be exploded procedurally to the point where it is no longer a pop song? I’m not sure if I’ve been successful at all, but the longer form and broader palette feels like a good medium for the experiment. Come on down. See for yourself.

I am extremely sorry to report that I must cancel tonight’s show at Jammin’ Java due to lingering and annoying illness. It is my fervent hope that we’ll reschedule soon soon soon. Know that I would much rather be playing tonight than lying in bed.

Best,

Gabriel

And the fundamental problem, as I see it, is that we as a society have gradually (d)evolved to the notion that universal access qua quantity is axiomatically good. As Butthead once queried Beavis, “if nothing ever sucked, how would you know if something was cool?” By the same logic, how are we to assign value to any music if we have access to all of it?

There is another problem, which has to do with the common defense of Spotify that argues that its service allows people to “check out” music and then decide if it’s worth purchasing. This would be all well and good, except it seems to me this puts music that may require several listenings in order to get under one’s skin at a real disadvantage. In the “old days”, if we bought a CD and didn’t take to it immediately, there was an economic imperative of sorts to grow to like it, i.e. “I paid $15 bucks for this record, so I better give it a second spin to see if it takes”. Nowadays, the only records that people seem to give second chances after an initial reaction of indifference or dislike are those given the stamp of approval by select tastemakers in the blogosphere, i.e. “Umm, I don’t really get this BadgerDance record, but Pitchspoon gave it a 9.7317 so it is good and therefore I will listen to it until I understand the music slash find it relatable.”

So I imagine a near future wherein Spotify has become ubiquitous, and the listeners of the world simply bounce around from one immediately satisfying songlet to another, and anything that is truly visionary/difficult/new will probably get tossed aside.

All of which is to say: if someone wants to use Spotify the way he or hse once approached the purchase of physical albums, I’m in full support. But if it’s just a means of sampling music at a surface level, folks might as well just download illegally, because the damage to serious listening has already been done.