Now, some people say this is great outsider music (records were even reissued). I remember Adam saying in a lesson that he considers a musician as someone that can keep a beat (I agree with this notion). So I looked around for other 'avant-garde' musicians. Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Harry Partch, keep the beat; they also seem to all know what they are doing. They are exploring new areas of music.
On the other hand, the Shaggs are simply playing off key, off beat 60s rock music. It would seem to me that any group of non-musicians could accomplish that feat simply by trying to reproduce their favourite song.
Is this outsider ('avant-garde'?) or bad music? If an off beat off key song can be music, then can't any sound or combination thereof also be considered music? Woudln't the latter make the entire concept of music obsolete?
Please help me, I'm lost!
Last Edited by on Apr 09, 2011 6:26 PM
According to Wikipedia once described them as "...sounding like lobotomized Trapp Family singers."
Outsider art is always an difficult topic to wrap your brain around. Sometimes it's a folk form; sometimes it's just a way a person choses to express themselves. I went to a museum, maybe it was the Alcott house? I don't remember for sure. There were a bunch of paintings in one of the buildings by local artists. They were painted before photography became widely available. It was clear that the artists hadn't been classically trained. I probably know more about shading from high school art classes than they did, but they were very earnest about their work, and historically it represents a whole movement. Are they good? They are certainly historically and culturally important, and some of them are better than others.
With music, there are all sorts of parts that go together to make what we usually consider 'good' music. There is melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics, balance, range, tempo and all sorts of little things that make it sound like what we expect. Even the quality of the recording makes a huge difference. So, what if part of that is off? If you sing beautifully but write and perform vapid lyrics, is that music? What if you write like Bob Dylan but sing, well, like Bob Dylan? What if part of your stage act is trying to connect with the locals? Sometimes too polished a sound will make you sound out of place.
And sometimes, on top of all of that, maybe you have talent but you are never instructed in the proper way to do things. Sometimes that shines through in the middle of otherwise miserable performances.
And then there is stuff people like because of the camp value or the hipster 'authentic' value.
I'd argue that any sound or combination of sound can be music. That doesn't make the idea of music obsolete though. It just means you need to make a couple more subdivisions in the categories. In poetry and art there is 'found' art. Sometimes it's a poem that is just a snippet of writing from an advertisement. Sometimes it's a shortcut for people who want to be 'avant garde' but really aren't, but sometimes it can be really good. In art, Worhal jumps to mind.
I love the Shaggs! I find them a refreshing change from the manufactured blandness of mainstream stuff. Also, the lyrics give an insight into the weird world of teenage girls minds....Very odd... Unfortunately the Shaggs grew up, and they ended up doing covers of a couple of old standards. All the weirdness had evaporated with becoming adult. I think Frank Zappa said the Shaggs were better than the Beatles....But then Frank had some odd thoughts in his time.
