"Hamilton" as American Propaganda

I recently saw the musical 'Hamilton', which was an enjoyable depiction of American nostalgia for its own myths. That much isn't new. What's new is that this is being successfully marketed to the current generation of narcissistic millennials. Getting them to take any interest in history beyond their own short life span, let alone past the 20th century, is quite a feat, even if what they end up learning ends up having a healthy dose of nonsense.

As both a foreigner and a reactionary, it's interesting to see the American founding myths in all their peculiar detail. Identifying the nonsense stories other people accept uncritically about their own history is much easier than identifying one's own. The US ones are particularly interesting to me - I have a strong fondness for this country, but I still view it as as an outsider, as a) I came across this stuff much later in life, and b) my summary of the American Revolution in one sentence is "the bad guys won". Incidentally, this would make a great tagline for a future reactionary version of the play, 'Hutchinson: The Musical".

Of course, if you want to get the record set straight, Moldbug is of course the best source. And with a little of the alternative perspective on the matter, the most interesting thing about the play is what gets left out.

The second most neglected perspective in the history of American Revolution is the Loyalists. For the most part, they simply don't exist. "America" was fighting King George. The fact that there were substantial numbers of native-born Americans who were philosophically and practically opposed to the War of Independence gets mostly elided. How many, exactly? Hard to say. I've seen numbers floated around as being 20%, but this doesn't mean that 80% were Patriots, as a large number were on the fence. I'd take all these numbers with a grain of salt.

The musical actually does better than I expected - there's one scene where a Loyalist is giving a speech in opposition to the Congress (unpersuasively, of course) , and he then gets mocked by Hamilton. That they don't present a good case for the opposition is not surprising - that they acknowledge the opposition existed, and was American, was frankly a pleasant surprise.

So the Loyalists, uncharacteristically, weren't the Elephant in the Room being ignored here. What was, then? What is the faction you almost never hear about in the re-telling of the American Revolution?

The answer is simple: British Parliament.

Britain in the musical, like in nearly all popular retellings, is represented by King George III. He is depicted as being in charge of the whole affair, pulling all the strings from across the sea. It's like the whole musical, like the country itself, lives in a bizarre alternative universe where the Cavaliers somehow won the English Civil War. In reality, the issue had been decided twice, first with King Charles being separated from his head, and then in case the message hadn't been received, again with the Glorious Revolution chasing King James II out of England, all the way to France in fact. By the time of the American Revolution, the verdict had been in for over a century - when push came to shove, Parliament was in charge.

But you can see clearly why this very quickly becomes awkward for the standard narrative. The American revolution was about establishing democracy (praise be upon it) for the first time ever! Except that the government being overthrown was in fact democratic, in various different forms, from at least 1215 onwards. Quite a pickle, no?

Aha, the apologists respond, but there was no democratic representation among the Americans. No taxation without representation, and all that. What an injustice! I'll let Mr Hutchinson field this one:

The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay, therefore, was the first that took any publick of the Act, and the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764, which they took care to print and publish before it was possible for him to receive it. And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their [6] members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons.

I have this special reason, my Lord, for taking notice of this Act of the Massachusetts Assembly; that though an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet it was only intended to amuse the authority in England; and as soon as it was known to have its advocates here, it was renounced by the colonies, and even by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable. 

In other words:

Massachusetts: No Taxation without Representation!

Britain: Hmm. Would you like some representation then?

Massachusetts: No, absolutely not, it would never work!

Comedy gold.

So if the big injustice that Alexander Hamilton was fighting against wasn't really a lack of democratic representation, what exactly was it?

Beats me. Beats Hutchinson too.

And this is the odd sense that comes after all the great songs are over. It's the same feeling I had years ago watching Michael Moore documentaries. In the moment, the strange web of narrative seems oddly compelling, until you leave the theatre and try to distill it into a sentence. And lo and behold, the main thesis is that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris shot up a school because Lockheed Martin had a factory somewhere nearby making parts for satellites. Phrased thus, you realise that this is an insane argument, and you can't believe you fell for it in the first place.

That's where I get to on Hamilton. Once you leave the theatre, odd reactionary thoughts come back in. You mean he was a hardworking immigrant who loved his newfound country so much that he... immediately worked to overthrow its government? Hmm, that doesn't sound so good. Wait, no, he was a poor penniless orphan who wanted to rise up the ranks, and so he realised that helping foment a war and rising up the command would be a great way to do this? Wait, that even worse. Much worse, actually.

The final thought, however, that the honest foreigner must admit to himself, is this: I wonder what equivalent stupidity I've believed about my own history?

Truthfully, I don't quite know. But if I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Earl Scruggs has some pretty cool friends

Apropos nothing, the great Earl Scruggs, playing 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' (which he in fact wrote), the best banjo tune perhaps since Duelling Banjos. Check out both Steve Martin and Paul Shaffer making cameo solo appearances.

 

More Thoughts From Coachella

Last time's thoughts here and here.

-Concert festivals are one of the very few ways to a get a relative price measure of the popularity of artists at any given point (other than record sales, but ain't nobody got time for anything that boring). Award shows will rank artists who came out with new records that year, but what about ones who didn't? How do you compare the likely popularity/impact of old classic bands (e.g. The Pet Shop Boys) with relatively new but rising stars (e.g. Lorde)? Simple - see who gets scheduled later and on the larger stage. The promoters must make an estimate of who's going to be popular and who's not, and are one of the very few head-to-head comparisons we observe. This isn't a market price of course, just one sampling of informed demand, backed up by actual valuable time and resources. There's a second estimate, of course, which comes from the crowds, which is what the promoters are mostly trying to assess. Sometimes they get it wrong - they badly underestimated the popularity of Bastille (who really became hot since the lineup was first set), and this drew crowds away from the relatively overpriced Neko Case. If you want a sense of the distribution, look at the font sizes used in their poster.

-Sooner or later, corporate organization beats hippie organization, even for hippie events. So you want a chilled out vibe and cool art installations? That may be so, but do you think a massive tent, pyrotechnics and copious numbers of portapotties are going to organize themselves? Not likely. All the art installations in the world aren't going to count for squat when there's nowhere for people to take a dump, believe me. You're better off worrying about logistics first and outsourcing the damn art installations. There's a reason that Burning Man, the ne plus ultra of hippie festivals, is organized by a group called Black Rock City LLC.

-After attending a few of these, it's clear that concert promoters really value professionalism. The bands that get invited back multiple times are those that can be relied on to turn up on time, play lots of songs that are polished and well-rehearsed, and keep boring blather between songs to a minimum. The artists that get passively aggressively cut off halfway through the last song when the set time is up are those that droned on about worthless nonsense (Kings of Leon last time, Beck this time) or worse, those who turned up late (Cee Lo Green). It's fine to smash your guitar, as long as you wait until the set is finished or have another one ready. In this case, Empire of the Sun are the first band I've seen to smash a guitar and then perform an encore (not involving a guitar) afterwards.

-Among the odd list of unacceptable items to bring into Coachella is 'flags'. Yes, really. I couldn't tell if they were more worried that their audience are nationalistic soccer hooligans waiting to form running gangs based on the presence of a Mexican flag, or children who might poke each other in the eye with the sharp stick the flag is attached to.

-I thought I was in denial about adulthood and the appropriateness of attending massive festival rock concerts. Then I got there and saw a lady pushing a child who was either 2 or 3, sitting in a pram. In 37C heat. There is no way that ended well for either of them.

-Seeing some of the big name DJs perform (Calvin Harris, Fatboy Slim) made think that the type of performer they most resemble is not actually a musician, but rather a conductor. They command a massive wall of sound, as often as not prepared by others, and their skill is in putting it all together. Listen to the Faint's memorable description of a conductor, adjust for the slight differences in the mechanics, and see if the rest of the words ring true:

Confident with your back to the audience.
Tremolo strings begin with your gesturing wrist.
Start the orchestra slow with an elegant aire,
Then a circular sweep crescendoing swell.

Your arms are calling out,
They wave like a swarm of sound.
You pull the sound from scores of notes,
You step the stage and take control.

-The combination of attractive young people and general atmosphere of a paean to hedonism made me think of both Dylan and Goethe. From Dylan:

God bless them pretty women,
I wish they was mine,
Their breath is as sweet,
The dew on the vine,

The riposte comes from Goethe:

If e'er upon my couch stretched at my ease, I'm found
Then may my life at that instant cease.
...
When to the moment I shall say
"Linger awhile! so fair thou art!"
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway,
Then to the abyss will I depart!

This post brought to you by the Greek and MW, who both hate my music posts.

Ave Atque Vale, Mr Seeger

So Pete Seeger died last week. I meant to write about this earlier, but didn't.

I always loved Pete's music. Granted, I'm sure I shared virtually none of the man's politics. As Mark Steyn points out, he was a staunch communist until right towards the end. Maybe that should put one beyond the pale. But if one only listened to artists whom one agreed with politically, we conservatives would have pretty slim pickings indeed.

There was more to Seeger than that. I suspect that to people who didn't listen to his music as music, which probably includes many conservatives, all they saw was the politics. But many of his songs weren't explicitly political - even if he was avowedly of the left, and that fed into what he wrote, the songs stood on their own. It's not hard to see how different political outlooks shape the writings of both Asimov and Heinlein. I would probably find more to agree with the latter on than the former, but I love the writing of both of them. So it is with Seeger.

As well as being a wonderful chronicler of all sorts of folk music, political and otherwise, there was still a warmth of spirit. This is something that we on the right often lack. Not all of us - Jay Nordlinger is wonderfully generous of heart without losing conservative principle. (As it turns out, he isn't a fan of Seeger, and for quite fair reasons). Seeger's desire for what he perceived as good for the world was blinded by a blinkered naivete about human nature and the steps needed to implement the ideas he had, which caused him to sympathise with leaders who did terrible things. And yet, as Mr Conrad said about colonialism, the idea alone redeems it (or at least some of it). The warmth of spirit that led him, very unfortunately, to communism, was not thereby totally wasted.

The song of his that best illustrates this is one I like greatly, entitled 'Well May the World Go':

Well may the world go, 
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I'm far away.

Well may the skiers turn,
The lovers burn, the swimmers learn
Peace may the generals learn
When I'm far away.

...

Sweet may the fiddles sound,
The banjos play the old ho-down
Dancers swing round and round,
When I'm far away

...

Fresh may the breezes blow
Clear may the streams flow
Blue above, green below,
When I'm far away.

Well may the world go, 
The world go, the world go,
Well may the world go,
When I'm far away.

The point is not the specific list of what one views as the good. Rather, the striking thing is the even more basic presumption - that when one is long dead and gone, and there's no longer anything to gain by it, that one nonetheless earnestly wishes for the world's welfare. That this thought occurred to him so strongly that he wanted to sing about it. Can you think of any song writer today to whom it would even occur to sing about such a thing?

Which is why, when all is said and done, I shall miss the old man. His songs were some of my favorites.

Yes, well may the world go,

Now he's far away.

It's white, Jim, but not as we know it

What happens when the whitest band in history covers the second whitest band in history?

A whole metric buttload of awesome, that’s what.

\

24 carat solid rolled gold.

Get your lack of money for nothing, and your lottery tickets for free

I've come to the conclusion that a large amount of existence of small local bands can be explained by option value.

The bands themselves exist because of the out-of-the-money option that they’ll strike it big and become the next U2. In the meantime, they’re playing in tiny venues to small crowds of people, and making no money. I have no particular stats on that, but plausible McKinsey job interview style estimates of revenue from a 200 person show suggest that even if the margin is really high, hourly wages are going to be pretty damn low. Steve Levitt famously argued that there’s a reason the average drug dealer lives with his mum. To follow the same logic, there’s a reason that small bands on tour are looking to crash at random people's houses – they’re poor.

But perhaps less appreciated is that option value probably explains a lot of the audience presence too. Their option is that maybe if the band becomes big then they’ll be able to boast that they heard them first and listened to them in a tiny venue for no money before anyone knew about them. The more insufferable ones will also go on to complain about how they were much better before they sold out. I have a family friend who once went to a concert in Liverpool in the sixties that featured both the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers before either of them were big. (Apparently the concert cost £1 to attend, or something equally hilarious). It’s a pretty rad story. But you’re going to listen to a lot of no-name bands before you hear the next Beatles.

Sure, some people just like live music, and prefer small venues, and want to support small acts, and actually just enjoy that type of music. But those are boring and obvious hypotheses. Freakonomics taught me that when you really understand the world, the truth will always turn out to be both hilarious and counterintuitive, in a way that makes for great cocktail party conversation.

Trauermusik

In January 1936, King George V was in seriously declining health. He had suffered from pleurisy and pulmonary disease for a number of years, and it had become apparent to his doctors that the end was near. (So much so that his doctor, Lord Dawson of Penn, on January 20th took the step of announcing that "the King's life is moving peacefully towards its close."). The King died on the night of January 20th, apparently hastened by a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine from his doctor.

At the time, German composer Paul Hindemith was in London, and meant to be performing the next night the English premiere of a viola concerto he had written, 'Der Schwanendreher'. With the death of the King, the concert was cancelled. The BBC, however, decided that they wanted Hindemith to be involved with the musical choice for the occasion of the King's death.

After debating that morning about what to perform, eventually it was decided that Hindemith should write something new for the occasion. And so, between 11am and 5pm on January 21st, he did, and it was performed live that evening in a radio broadcast. The result is the beautiful 'Trauermusik' ('mourning music', or 'funeral music'). The strange combination of tonality (giving a clear melody) but non-diatonic structure (giving the non-standard chord progressions) give a sense of sadness and complexity that seems appropriate for the death of a monarch of over 25 years reign.



This beautiful piece was written in six hours. 

Trauermusik for the King.

Trauermusik for the Empire.

Trauermusik for the age when a dignified and solemn British public mourned their departed monarch by listening to classical music on the radio.

And the White House burned, burned, burned!

Anything on the heels of the last post is bound to be flippant. So it goes.

So why not go the full flippant? I finally came across a youtube clip of the Canadian song about 1812 that Gary Brecher referenced in his series of posts on the War of 1812.

To fully appreciate it, you need to know the original 'Battle of New Orleans', by Jimmy Driftwood (although I grew up with the Johnnie Horton version), celebrating the American victory at the Battle of New Orleans.

Anyway, let's just say that the Canadians focus on some of the more neglected bits of the war. Without further ado, 'The War of 1812, by 'Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie' (safe for work, despite the strange band name):



Comedy gold!

The real humor is not actually any disagreement on the events of the war, but on how you choose to label the belligerents. From the American perspective, they were fighting the British, and it's respectable to take a bit of a beating from them, even getting your capital burned down, because the Brits were, after all, the major superpower at the time.

But from the Canadian perspective, the Americans invaded Canada, and were repelled by Canadians. As such, it was Canada beating America, which suddenly sounds a lot funnier. America lost to Canada? Really? You can seen why the Americans aren't keen to remember that part of the tale.

Of course, the distinction is entirely a modern one. What was invaded was British North America, which later became Canada, but at the time was part of the British Empire.

As long as you understand both views, I find it funnier to describe them as fighting the Canadians, because the failed invasion of Canada is one the more farcical bits of North American history. Although nothing beats the Fenian Raids. Now that was ridiculous!

How did I not know about this?

The great Desmond Dekker:



Music this good was being played in 1968? Unheard of!

(via Steve Sailer)

The Marketing Genius of Bruno Mars

Like the tobacco industry, you need not want to purchase a product to respect a well-constructed business strategy.

Consider the example of singer Bruno Mars. If you need to understand him in a single picture, try this one:



(via)

He sings cliched romance songs aimed at a young female audience, selling the fantasy of himself as some kind of mix-race romantic icon. Look at him, cheesily holding the hand of some adoring fan and singing directly to her while someone, presumably her friend, takes a photo.

Again, I'm not the target demographic here, but his stuff is well designed.

In particular, here's his famous song 'Just the Way You Are':



First of all, it's marketed broadly at the only demographic still paying for music - impressionable teenage girls.

It begins with pure boilerplate about some hypothetical beautiful girl.

Oh, her eyes, her eyes
Make the stars look like they're not shinin'
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly without her trying
She's so beautiful
And I tell her everyday
Yeah

So far, so ordinary. The tune is catchy, the sentiment prosaic.

But then it gets interesting. No, not interesting the way the Iliad is interesting, or the way Yeats is interesting, but the way that a well-constructed ad-campaign is interesting.

I know, I know
When I compliment her she won't believe me
And it's so, it's so
Sad to think that she don't see what I see
But every time she asks me "Do I look okay? "
I say...

These lines flow on effortlessly from the previous ones, constructing a narrative of a pretty but insecure girl. Makes sense.

Then you stop and think, and realise it makes no sense at all. Think back to the really pretty girls you've met. How many of them were in the category of:

a) Being really pretty, but for some reason being really insecure about that fact, and thinking instead they were actually quite ugly

vs.

b) Having known by at least age 10, if not earlier, that they were really hot, as evidenced by being treated nicely by strangers, complimented by adults, having men of various ages stare at them, and all the boys want to kiss them.

Reader, it is a very strong rule that the attractive women of the world generally know that they're attractive. Look at the model in the film clip - do you really think it's credible that 'when he compliments her, she won't believe him'? Don't make me laugh.

So we can be quite sure that song isn't really aimed at girls who are actually pretty but think they aren't. Those girls are unicorns. Rather, it's just aimed at girls who think they aren't pretty. They are a much larger demographic, due to the sad reality of the bell curve - only 2.5% of the population will be two standard deviations above the mean.

Girls who think they're not pretty are, sadly, probably right. But don't worry, Bruno Mars, this hunky romantic guy is here to tell you that you're actually beautiful and just don't know it! Sure, you may not be able to get him directly, but buy his CD anyway! Plus some other Bruno Mars surrogate will surely come along in your life soon.

Then the chorus makes a great segue:

[Chorus:]
When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause girl you're amazing
Just the way you are
Yeah

Notice how effortlessly the song shifts from the third person (she is beautiful) to the second person (you are beautiful). The song is now unashamedly being sung to the audience, just like the first photo. You, listener, are perfect! You shouldn't change anything, just be yourself. 

Talk about mainlining an IV drip of the most saccharine form of feel-good self-esteem culture. There's no problem that can't be fixed by feeling good about yourself.

Admittedly, this sentiment is perhaps less toxic in the area of attractiveness, where a good chunk of the effect really is fixed at birth. (It's more problematic to encourage students to feel good about the fact that they just failed the maths test). Maybe it's just not fun to realise that you're not that attractive, and this is just a palliative.

Perhaps. But the risk is twofold. First, you might just end up with unreasonably high expectations, and end up with nobody, instead of someone who's actually in your league. And secondly, you might think that self-esteem excuses you from self-improvement, especially in the areas where you can make a difference. 

I leave it to the reader to decide the extent to which the phenomenon of excessive self-esteem is a problem among modern American youth of both sexes.

(Also, if you want to hear a really catchy cover of the song that will make you hate yourself as much as I do, check out here.)

Cause once I blow they know that I'll be the woman

My corner solution song of the moment is 'Hyperactive', by the Dollyrots. Imagine everything you secretly like about Avril Lavigne, but in a group not yet sufficiently popular that listing to it is socially unacceptable. If that isn't a recommendation, I don't know what is.

It also raises a question that I've thought about before in the context of the Ting Tings - it seems vaguely emasculating as a guy to be a backup musician in a band with a female lead singer. This is particularly true in the case of the Ting Tings, since it's very obvious that the guy has all the musical talent out of the two - when the girl isn't actually playing any instruments in a two person group, it's a bit of a giveaway. Maybe he's just found a clever marketing scheme, similar to the way nightclubs hire attractive door girls and bartenders.

Frankly it's emasculating to be a backup musician in general (this isn't just my view, incidentally). But it seems likely that you're going to get even less attention than normal when it's a female front(man). The teenage girls seem more likely to be there because they idolise the girl. Maybe some of that will rub off onto you, but I'm sure it's less than usual. If adoring fans turn up backstage, it seems less likely that they're their for their special musical souvenir than in the case of an all-male group. This goes even more so if the girl is highly obnoxious - if you land the job as the drummer for Courtney Love or Alanis Morissette, you should really consider where you went wrong in life.

Still, as a man of science, I'm always willing to update my views. The comments to the Dollyrots video include a fair number of references to the single guy in the band being attractive. And this is true even though I had to look their names up on Wikipedia to make sure he was actually a guy, as the haircut is not exactly a giveaway. Maybe the lack of internal competition for the groupie love is more valuable than I think. At a minimum, he's certainly getting more tail than if he'd gone to medical school.

Help is on the way!

Do friends and colleagues accuse you of being 'too masculine' or 'too heteronormative'? Thankfully, today's selection of musical items can help provide timely relief to ease the burdens of excessive manliness.

To insulate against the charge that 'your musical posts suck and are boring', these offerings came directly from reader suggestions. Proving that my readers are just as depraved as I, we have not one, but two cover versions of the Carly Ray Jepsen hit, 'Call Me Maybe'.

The first, via Athenios, is a choral and orchestral arrangement:

The second, via The Hammer, is done by Ms Jepsen herself, along with The Roots and Jimmy Fallon:



And in case this pushes things too far in the opposite direction and you need to resuscitate your male bona fides, here is the great Johnny Cash, via Hector Lopez:



Don't say I don't do nuthin for ya.

A Memo to United Airlines

George Gershwin is rolling in his grave every time you play your sh***y bastardised adult contemporary version of 'Rhapsody in Blue'. There's a good reason that the original song didn't just have one small section of the melody looped repeatedly with an easy-listening drumbeat in the background.

Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor (BWV 578)

If I had to submit a candidate for the category of 'music video that adds most to the underlying song', this would have a very good chance of victory.

Which, given the song, may seem odd at first, but being able to visualise the different voices is incredibly interesting.