There seems to be a common trend at the moment of art works spreading out before you like the great expanse of the Gobi Desert, blowing around aimlessly, waiting to get to the point. Sometimes it is necessary to sit in and feel the energy, get sucked into lifestyles, atmospheres, take time to tell the story. Jeez though, some recent films and books have meandered their way. Booker Prize or Oscar nominees. Have the editors been cut from their jobs? Jettisoned like unwanted plankton into the seas of journalistic oblivion. There was I thinking we live in the tick tock world.
The Bee Sting – Irish family troubles taken to the nth degree of narrative, personalities you understand within a few paragraphs drawn out for huge swaths, 100s of pages.
Oppenheimer– the human big bang, lots of men talking, shouting, laughing, plotting, bombing.
Dragons Den – in the end it just repeats its formula infinitum until we throw down the remote control in disgust and go for a walk. Or pick up the latest recommended novel.
The Love Songs of WEB du Bois by Honorée Fannone needed it’s length, the opportunity to exist in current and historical black American worlds. The Bee Sting groaned from under the weight of over bearing descriptions and recap, reinforcing messages which were understood early on. A great 250 page novel turned into War and Peace, love and cars. Likewise, David Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, where the interesting storylines are battered into submission by over explanation. Leave the reader or viewer with some element of involvement. Like a classic French film, leave open endings. Stop halfway through. John Cage’s 4’33” of background noise or random performance, nothingness expanding a short space of time. Minimalism. Less is more. There is no need for yet another series of Schitts Creek, the humour, the stories have all been told. Fawlty Towers for all its racist, homophobic, hegemonic rantings knew when to stop, 12 episodes. Maybe Friends could justify its expanse. The double album never really worked, except for maybe The Clash London Calling or Sandinista. Daydream Nation, Selected Ambient Works. The White Album, taking minimalist Yoko Ono inspired Richard Hamilton artwork and introducing a range of styles that flowed over the whole. Country star Beyonce is yet another to cover Blackbird in the dead of night. New Order’s Blue Monday, only ever available at 12” length is a perfectly formed record. An example of using the medium in a perfect way. Maybe that is the problem with books? There is no limit. A press can just add more parchment. The same with Spotify. Your playlist can expand to ever reaching worlds, keep evolving, never having an end point. Music, music, music. Artists, musicians, producers saturating an already overburdened market with a slew of mid quality flotsam which floats around, no-one really streaming, no impact, just a space where artists can present their work. I mean that is probably a good thing, but the gatekeepers have vanished. The only people saying no are those working for major labels who just churn out material from their top selling artists. Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, Abba, Bob Marley, Taylor Swift x 10, the Beatles of course. Even Billy Joel hasn’t yet moved out. What hope do new artists have to puncture this dichotomy of a world. It’s never been so easy to release music, it’s never been so difficult to get heard. What new music makers should concentrate on is creating the perfect song. Don’t worry about a whole load of material, just write one amazing piece of music and then somehow get this to the ears of radio and record companies. Or create lots of tracks, form a band and get out there on the road battling through Brexit paperwork, sleeping six up in a dodgy freezing old transit van, making enough money for food and a drink the next day. Rock ’n’ Roll. Actually just make a song that is 1’30”. Short, sweet, to the point and doesn’t take up much of anyone’s valuable time. Now where’s that Tolstoy..
