#44. Club Med Sucks-Rebellion vs Selling Out. Always have a ground floor meeting with Suge Knight.
I hate golf! I wanna Play Lacrosse!
16 Opi Rides Again – Club Med Sucks
Todays theme is revolutionaries and rebellion in rock versus the notion of “selling out”. First of all if you think this is gonna be another tome about the evils of selling out you are mistaken. my view is that rebellion and then selling out are part of a necessary cycle in rock and pop music. It’s like an ecosystem or an economic cycle. Boom and Bust. Feast and Famine. Necessary or everything stays the same. Nothing would progress.
I wouldn’t call my views a theory. Remember I was trained as a Mathematician so I don’t really believe that there are absolute truths or accurate models in any soft science. Further once you get down to the lower rungs of the social sciences and then go below that to pop music history/journalism, you can pretty much make up whatever you want and call it a theory if so inclined. I’m not inclined.This is just my handy way of looking at things. A playful framework. A cosmology.
The story of rock and all pop music is one of a dynamic interplay between the true revolutionaries, rebels and troublemakers and those that follow. In my cosmology three distinct groups follow the innovators. Those that then domesticate the sound,those that then defang it, and those that make it a tool of “the man”. This is an endless cycle so as soon as a revolutionary style or movement has been completely co-opted and become a tool of the establishment a new revolutionary cycle begins.
Revolutionaries>Domesticators>Defangers>Tools of the Man>Revolutionaries>Domesticators>….. got it?
I suppose my views only differ from your typical run of the mill music critic or pop theorist in two ways.
I believe:
1. The selling out process is not necessarily a bad thing
2. Any of the three selling out stages can produce great music. Especially the first selling out stage: domestication.
In fact the “great” rock artists usually credited as innovators are actually the domesticators.
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, etc etc. The great works of all these bands were built on the works of earlier and remarkably similar innovators. But there is nothing wrong with that. The genius of these bands is not only did they make the innovations more powerful and sometimes palatable, they actually moved the audience and institutions towards their taste and sound.
Mudhoney>Pearl Jam>Stone Temple Pilots>Creed
Yardbirds>Led Zeppelin>Detective>Montrose
Too long ago? Too obscure? Ok how about over a longer period?
Yardbirds>Led Zeppelin>Black Crowes> Train
Another consideration there are also smaller cycles within these greater cycles. Subcycles. And sub-subcycles within those cycles. It’s all very Fractal if you delve into it deep enough. But that’s another discussion
As an example all disco music can be seen as a late Defanged stage of Funk. But the song Staying Alive by the Bee Gees is kind of a kick ass track within the genre. If a Disco song can be described as “powerful” this song is powerful. But the trick is it’s in the words. And when three dudes are singing in falsetto it’s hard to tell what they are saying.
There is another version of this song that John Morand and I mixed for the movie Kids. It brings the darkness in the song out. So within the Disco subcycle Staying Alive (1977) and the Bee Gees are domesticators. They aren’t the innovators but there is a lot more gravity to this song than a s song like Funkytown (1980)
Remember this is not an academic theory. It’s a playful framework for looking at artists within the bigger picture of Rock and pop music. Plenty of artists that were not revolutionaries or innovators have made great records. And plenty of artists that started out in the conservative part of a stylistic cycle later became revolutionaries and innovators.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Selling out is such a loaded term. But it’s partly because there is a real financial basis to the selling out part of the cycle of innovation in pop music. Let’s conduct a little mental exercise.
Interscope had the local Kinko’s design the sign in their lobby.
Consider the company that produced, manufactured and distributed an artists first “revolutionary” record. Could that company obtain capital through bank loans or bond sales? If yes this artist is NOT likely to be a true revolutionary or innovator. It is more likely that this artist is a domesticator. Again not a bad thing. This situation suggests that their is already a commercial pathway built for this artist to spread it’s influence. Likely this was built partially on the work of other similar artists.
Dude. There is no way in the world I’m making fun of these guys. And it’s pretty hard not to cause in this picture there is a man wearing a leather corset.
Conversely if that company had to rely on their own meager private capital, gangsters or other informal sources of capital, (like threatening to throw vanilla ice off a balcony.) Then the artist is more likely to have been a revolutionary. A true innovator.
I know this seems crazy but my little mental exercise seems to neatly and simply highlight the innovators and revolutionaries in rock and pop music.
Punk Rock. (an easy example)
Informal capital: SST records Black Flag
Formal capital: Geffen Blink 182.
Grunge (a subtle example)
Informal capital: Sub Pop Records. Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Nirvana*
Formal capital: Major Labels. Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots
*theres a strong argument to make “Nevermind” the breakthrough record for Nirvana not Bleach. In this case Nirvana becomes a domesticator.
The Paisley Underground/1980′s hollywood psychedelic and americana movement (an obscure example)
Informal capital: Enigma records. Green on Red, Rain Parade, The Three O’clock , True West.
Formal capital: Slash Records. Dream Syndicate. Geffen. Lone Justice. Rough Trade (1989). Mazzy Star.
Hip Hop (the main course)
Informal capital: Ruthless Records NWA
Formal capital: Def Jam/Sony/CBS Public Enemy.
I got to admit this last one surprised me. I assumed i would be putting Public Enemy in the informal capital/innovator category. But i have to go with my theory. And upon reflection you are not really an innovator or revolutionary if you don’t really have a lasting influence. Ouch. But now that i’ve sat quietly and thought about it i got to say Public Enemy did not have much influence on Hip Hop. Compare the two production teams. Dr Dre (NWA) and The Bomb Factory (Public Enemy). I mean there is no comparison. Dr Dre virtually created two decades of Hip Hop.
Every year the Vikings fans get weirder and weirder. I mean I get the cheese thing with the Packers. But clocks and Vikings? I don’t get it.
Public Enemy seemed revolutionary at the time because of a little trick. A misdirection. They were overtly political and it’s easy to fool us into thinking an artist that is literally singing about revolution is revolutionary. But it just ain’t true. Also consider that Public Enemy had a lot of appeal among white children of the privileged elite and the music intelligentsia. Obviously it’s not very revolutionary when the elites are mostly the ones embracing you. I imagine this was very frustrating to Chuck D on some level ’cause I’m not sure that this was NOT who he was trying to address. In the end Public Enemy biggest contribution to pop culture ends up being Flavor Flav.
So finally bringing it home to Club Med Sucks. This song was in reaction to a similar situation.
By 1982 west coast hardcore was getting pretty stale. It was becoming a form of stylized rebellion. And in lieu of actual rebellion and revolution, we were getting a lot of lyrics about rebellion and revolution. Further it was the children of the privileged elite that were now embracing the punk movement. Sure signs of the inevitable decline.
My roomate Paul MacKinney, his girlfriend and I were all sitting in the Laundromat at College V B dorm at UCSC. The Laundromat walls were covered in punk rock and cliched lefty graffiti. It was Sunday night and we were doing our little ritual. Laundry and a can of Fosters. We were all just sitting quietly reading the graffiti. Suddenly Paul jumped up, started scrounging around in his bag and pulled out a marker. He then jumps up on the closest washing machine and scrawls across the wall “Club Med Sucks” followed by the Anarchy symbol. This was so funny that I did an actual spit take. It was perfect.
2 years later I was in that Laundromat again and I could still make out “club med sucks” underneath the latest whitewash. I knew then It was perfect fodder for a Camper Van Beethoven song. And more timely than ever. Within days it was a new Camper Van Beethoven Song. In the song we have privileged elite private school kids sing about not wanting to go to Club Med. Privileged elite kids sing about hating golf and wanting to play lacrosse. Opi Rides Again was always tagged on the front of this song to make the contrast into Club Med Sucks all the more jarring.
Punk is dead. Long Live Punk.
OPI RIDES AGAIN: (Instrumental)
[E]-[C]-[E]-[C]-[G]-[F#]-[B]-[A] [(REPEAT x3)]
[LINK:][C]-[D]
CLUB MED SUCKS:
[E]-[C]-[Bb]-[C(bass E)]
[E] I don’t have to go to [C] school for an entire [Bb] week [C(bass E)]
[E] I just want to go [C] down to Newport [Bb] Beach [C(bass E)]
[E] Mom and Dad want to [C] tell me where to [Bb] go [C(bass E)]
[E] They wanna go to [C] Club Med San Car-[Bb]-los [C(bass E)]
[E] Club Med sucks [C]-[Bb]-[E]
[E] Authority sucks [C]-[Bb]-[E]
[E] I hate golf [C]-[Bb]-[E]
[E] I wanna play la-[C]-crosse [Bb]-[E]
The people there, they are so stupid
They exploit the poor and the weak
I want no part of their death culture
I just wanna go to the beach
Club Med sucks
Authority sucks
I hate golf
I wanna play lacrosse
[E]-[C]-[Bb]-[E]-[E]-[C]-[Bb]-[E]-[E]-[C]-[Bb]-[E]-[E]-[C]-[Bb]-[E]
Club Med sucks
I hate golf
Authority sucks
I wanna play lacrosse
September 6, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Public Enemy’s production team was the Bomb Squad, not Factory. Just semantics, really.
Says this suburban white guy.
September 6, 2010 at 5:08 pm
If course thanks for correction.
September 6, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Just in case Opi doesn’t get it’s own entry; who or what is Opi?
September 6, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Andy grifiths son on the show. Had a bouncing whistled tune like this
September 6, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Love this song and love today’s post. Now if only some mathematically inclined fellow fan could come up with a similar “playful framework” for how fans fit into all of this. Because I don’t know about y’all, but I always feel this incredible sense of Poser Guilt whenever I like the popular songs. I mean, I’m never gonna be the jackass screaming out “SKINHEADS!!!” at a CVB show (in fact I’ve never, ever screamed out any song title at any show in my life….it just seems presumptuous and rude) but I notice that I make it a point to ratchet my frenzied dancing down a notch or two whenever that song comes on. And it’s hard, because I truly love it and what red-blooded cracker girl doesn’t want to jump up and down like a freak when David Lowery is singing about licking your knees? But I have this ridiculous and immovable sense of loyalty. I’m busting out my best moves for the new songs, baby, for the more obscure songs. And I just sort of pray to the gods that the jackmasses don’t discover “When I Win the Lottery” or “Hippy Chix”.
And I don’t think this is just me. When we were discussing today’s post this morning, my boyfriend commented that one of his favorite lines about selling out in rock and roll is from the Cracker song “Get Off This”.
“Is it true that you have sold your soul?”
I say “hey man, i don’t know
Lend me a quarter won’t you?
I’ll call my accountant.”
Later, when he was teasing me about gearing up to leave a comment (he consistently refers to this as gearing up to “stalk David”) he suddenly grew serious and gave me this cautionary warning: “Whatever you do, don’t quote ‘Get Off This’, it was one of the more popular songs and you’ll look like a poser.”
September 7, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Nah if you were a poser you would be afraid to talk about the popular songs. Sometimes they are popular because they are just really good.
‘Get Off This’ has one of my favourite Cracker lyrics: “If you want to change the world, shut your mouth and start to spin it”. I choose to interpret that non-ironically: there are a lot of whiners out there in the world I would like to say that to. As in, Quit yer whining and do something about it! Be a man of action. That sort of thing.
September 6, 2010 at 2:35 pm
So then, let’s try this:
Woody Guthrie>Bob Dylan>Martin Sexton>John Mayer
Cool.
September 6, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I see that evolution a bit differently: Jack Bruce > Sting > Dave Matthews > John Mayer
…but then who is Bruce’s antecedent? I would definitely put Cream in the “domesticator” category.
September 6, 2010 at 2:51 pm
This is a great framework, because it applies to music just as well outside the narrow confines of rock music. The ghost of Miles Davis will haunt me for calling him a Domesticator, but he needed the power of Columbia Records to make Kind Of Blue define modern jazz. Miles moved the world towards his taste, but he didn’t “invent” the music.
In the early days of the record industry, all sources of capital were independent, but recorded music was new and innovative to the record buying public, since all recorded music was new and innovative to the listener. Even after big record companies like RCA and Columbia had national reach, they still looked to the independents to find artists. Sun Records in Memphis was built on informal capital, so Elvis-on-Sun nicely fits the frame as an Innovator.
By the 1960s, major record companies started to become interested in locking up performers as early as possible–made lucrative by the serf-like terms of recording contracts–so they did not wait for Indies to find artists, and went out and found Bob Dylan on their own. The reason is simple–if an indie has popularized an artist, they probably have a manager and you get into a bidding war, but if you can get them early you pay a lot less.
If one of those early Minnesota era Bob Dylan tapes (widely bootlegged) had been released on some sleepy folk label, I still have no doubts that Dylan’s natural power would have ultimately asserted itself within a few years, but the key Dylan album was Freewheelin, which redefined folk music overnight as a songwriter genre, so Dylan’s power came as a Domesticator rather than an Innovator.
The intellectual model here is basically Hegelian: Innovator>Domesticator>Defanger>Tool roughly parallels Hypothesis>Antithesis>Synthesis. Marx always said that Hegel understood the process of change but he forgot about the Material Base, and your framework has a very material component underlying it.
September 6, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Excellent. So Im an anti authoritarian capitalist Marxist. i’ll accept that.
September 6, 2010 at 4:02 pm
good stuff. Without treading on the whole logarithmic spiral on the many opinions of the evils of selling out, can a single band or artist go from revolutionary to tool of the man?
Soul Asylum started out on Twin Tone and really was instrumental in creating a new direction along with fellow Minneapolis bands Husker Du and The Replacements. Then they made it to A&M records and the production values got a bit tighter, but the label wouldn’t put the capital behind them and the band languished. Eventually they ended up with Sony with the promise that the capital would be there, the production values tightened more and they had big hits. Could the different phases of their career be all 4 parts? Or were all 3 bands post-punk enough to start in the 2nd phase as Domesticators?
Guns N Roses fooled the College Radio Intelligentcia by releasing their first EP on a faux British indie label, giving them lots of cred to get a huge college buzz so that when Appetite came out on Geffen, college rock was already behind them not aware they’d been already duped by Geffen. So for them, the capital was already there, just hidden. Sneaky. And then I suppose they would be the Domesticators to the Dolls’ Revolutionaries.
I suppose another part to apply to this would be a logarithmic spiral, which I just decided to look up on Wiki to make sure I was thinking of what I was thinking of and I run into this: “Bernoulli chose a figure of a logarithmic spiral and the motto Eadem mutata resurgo (“Changed and yet the same, I rise again”) for his gravestone”
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bernoulli)
Neat. I gotta stop now before my head implodes.
September 6, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Or for that matter, could you consider Elvis having begun as a Defanger and ending up a tool? I was curious of this as well.
September 6, 2010 at 5:47 pm
H! Hegelian dialectic applied to the rock music sellout cycle! What a blog.
Somebody fill in the sellout cycle for me:
CVB -> Cake -> ??? -> ???
Yeah, Chuck Berry -> early Beatles but didn’t the Fab Four go from domesticators to innovators somewhere around Revolver/Sgt Pepper and certainly on Magical Mystery Tour.
I used to love hanging out in that College 5 laundry room.
September 6, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Maybe me favorite post yet. My neck is sore from nodding in agreement.
I also thought that this could give rise to a sort of 3 Degrees of Separation parlor game: Start with an innovator and arrive at the tool in 3 steps or less.
For example:
Desmond Dekker to The English Beat
Mother Maybelle Carter to Alison Krauss
Neutral Milk Hotel to (could it be?) Fall Out Boy
I’m all verklempt.
September 6, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Models of music lineage are typically used to rationalize one’s preconceived notions. As with all the dismal sciences, the usefulness of a model can only be measured in its usefulness of explanation and prediction.
The best thing that can come of a model of musical history is that one can learn to appreciate more music – rather than dawdle on the correctness of choices.
(And if innovation were the sole criteria for musical goodness, then we’d constantly be spinning Captain Beefheart for our girlfriends).
September 6, 2010 at 7:11 pm
touche.
September 6, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Perfect comment.
I would say that idea applies to models of any creative lineage. For me it always breaks down to two sides divided by a very porous border: appreciators vs creators. I myself have been a good and bad example of both, many times over.
September 6, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I think the post is pretty clear about it
“This is just my handy way of looking at things. A playful framework. A cosmology.”
It is way too tempting to try to find examples that don’t fit the mold and debunk it…which would only matter if this were presented as a concrete theory…which clearly it ain’t.
So keep it in the spirit intended and it can be both fun and perhaps edubucational..for example I’m now youtubing some Desmond Dekker as I’m really only familiar with 1 of his songs and drdoug’s post now has me listening to something new. Well something old, but new to me. Curiously it is fitting right in with my preconceived notions. Which I won’t attribute a quality to…
September 6, 2010 at 9:01 pm
Captain Beefheart got his break as another domesticator of blues (diddy wah diddy). As David mentioned, some conventional artists can become innovators. We may not know Capt. Beefheart’s name if he had not been a musical late bloomer.
September 6, 2010 at 6:18 pm
1. Not that I give a shit, but I tried hard to come to the defense of P.E. I’d like it if someone could though.
2. Can any of you come up with “family tree” (innovator> domesticator> defanger> tool) for Cracker or CVB? Everything I come up with for Cracker ends up too ugly. Interestingly Cracker’s easily a defanger if you the Stones, the Dead or even the Pixies are domesticators. (Not in a bad way, like he said so many times.) Anyone?
September 6, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Using your theory…NWA isn’t even an innovator…you might have to give that to Phila’s Schooly D. He and Ice-T are reputed to be the first gangsta rappers.
Following your theory…Dr. Dre is a domesticator who later became an innovator. Thoughts?
As for PE’s influence on rap…I can’t really say with authority. However, The Bomb Squad produced all the tracks on Ice Cube’s “Amerikka’s Most Wanted”. I easily put that album over anything NWA (who you call an innovator) ever put out.
I like the “defanging” term. I grew up in a white neighborhood in Philly…and 1987-1990 I listened to a lot of rap…the rap music passed onto me by my black friends from high school. Our high school was OUTSIDE of the neighborhood and downtown.
A huge majority of white kids in my neighborhood – DESPISED rap circa 1988-1990. I guess the suburbs WERE very different! My neighborhood friends couldn’t understand why I would listen to it – and busted my stones for listening. 5 years later, when nearly the entire rap genre was mostly defanged (IMO), rap reigned supreme in the same white neighborhood that previously rejected it.
Now that I’m reading this – I ask – which albums did Dre innovate on? I just youtube’d 1996′s “California Love”…which I would say is definitey defanged but still killer party music. Snoop’s early stuff…domesticated…but awesome and hilarious and funky.
By 1991 – I was on to rock. That’s where you came in, David.
p.s. – class homework must be to figure out what category Camper and Cracker fit in. I’m not touching that!!!
September 6, 2010 at 7:15 pm
This is exactly what i did not want to argue about. but again the source of capital is also important. NWA were definitely innovators. ruthless records was puportedly all laundered drug money. DR dre was in NWA.
September 6, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Was just having fun recalling all that music…and plugging it into your framework…making a case…good fun…
I ain’t never got gaffled like that – I used to do the gafflin.
September 6, 2010 at 7:19 pm
but your point about the bomb squad on ice cubes Amerikkka is a very good point.i missed that in their discography.
I really started out with the notion that NWA and PE would be innovators. i was surprised by the fact PE recording dates were later and major label funded.
that’s why i won’t call this a theory. to many ambiguities and grey areas.
September 7, 2010 at 1:43 am
Another way to think about this Framework is as an approach rather than a theory. We could approach albums by asking how long it took to record them, and I think we would find some interesting insights if we compared important albums based on their net recording time. But recording time isn’t a theory, its a means of comparison. Its important and illuminating to think about albums based on their source of capital, but not the only one.
I feel obligated to point out that Capt Beefheart’s first records were on A&M, at the time an independent and not part of EMI. From that point of view, the good Captain was funded by less formal capital than his high school pal Frank Zappa, who recorded for MGM.
In David’s cosmology, Beefheart is more innovator and Zappa more Domesticator. In terms of their influence on other musicians and fans, that’s fair, even if Frank’s musical development preceded Van Vliet’s by some years. “Wowie Zowie” was accessible in a way that “Zig Zag Wanderer” was not.
September 6, 2010 at 7:54 pm
While I totally agree with your thinking, and thoroughly enjoyed this post, the pseudo-math of it reminded me of Strong Bad’s “Property of Ones.”
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail39.html
Yes, my brain makes strange connections. (I know that this kind of fake mathy-ness is exactly why you were reluctant to call it a “Theory,” but I can’t help it.)
September 6, 2010 at 11:10 pm
The connection I made was to an old xkcd strip outlining purity: http://xkcd.com/435/
September 7, 2010 at 12:37 am
I’m so glad someone posted this! I was trying to figure out how I could find it in his backlogged strips.
September 6, 2010 at 10:08 pm
such an excellent song. I was hooked the first time I heard “authority sucks.”
your theories in this post are interesting. cycles? I have never thought of “selling out” as part of a cycle, but it does make sense if you really think about it.
when led zeppelin started allowing their songs to be used in cadillac ads I was pretty disappointed. of all the bands I did not want to see go that route it still happened. maybe it was inevitable. maybe selling out is inevitable. but some things should be sacred, ya know?
September 6, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I recall reading a comment David made on this song a few years ago roughly as: ‘What Rage Against the Machine would’ve sounded like in high school, only they would’ve been serious.’
September 7, 2010 at 2:50 am
I am reminded of a quote I attribute to Todd Rundgren: “Louie Louie is More Than A Feeling is Smells Like Teen Spirit forever amen”
September 17, 2010 at 3:48 pm
great stuff. just found the blog and am catching up. i’m the opposite of a math guy but loved this fascinating angle. scary if you’re right about flavor flav.
http://www.mylifeinreview.net/
October 6, 2010 at 10:54 am
Beefheart was never on A&M. His first 2 albums were on Buddha, primarily a bubblegum label. Then he went to Warner/Reprise for Trout Mask.