Category: Music
Rashid Khan, RIP
2023 CWT retrospective episode
Here is the link, here is the episode summary:
On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including the most popular and underrated episodes, the origins of the show as an occasional event series, the most difficult guests to prep for, the story behind EconGOAT.AI, Tyler’s favorite podcast appearance of the year, and his evolving LLM-powered production function. They also answer listener questions and conclude with an assessment of Tyler’s top pop culture recommendations from 2013 across movies, music, and books.
And one excerpt:
COWEN: That’s a unique experience. You have a chance to do Chomsky. Maybe you don’t even want to do it, but you feel, “If I don’t do it, I’ll regret not having done it.” Just like we didn’t get to chat with Charlie Munger in time, though he’s far more, I would say, closer to truth than Chomsky is.
I thought half of Chomsky was quite good, and the other half was beyond terrible, but that’s okay. People, I think, wanted to gawk at it in some manner. They had this picture — what’s it like, Tyler talking with Chomsky? Then they get to see it and maybe recoil, but that’s what they came for, like a horror movie.
HOLMES: The engagement on the Chomsky episode was very good. Some people on MR were saying, “I turned it off. I couldn’t listen to it.” But actually, most people listened to it. It did, actually, probably better than average in terms of engagement, in terms of how much of the episode, on average, people listen to.
COWEN: How can you turn it off? What does that say about you? Were you surprised? You thought that Chomsky had become George Stigler or something? No.
Fun and interesting throughout. If you are wondering, the most popular episode of the year, by far, was with Paul Graham.
Why is the quality of recorded classical music so rising? (from my email)
…hypotheses as to why we are blessed with the avalanche of fine new young musicians:
1. (I feel the evidence for this one is conclusive) Technology (e.g. YouTube) allows young musicians anywhere in the world to see what the world standard is. If you see someone performing at skill level X, which years ago you would have dismissed as out of reach, you know you, too, may be able to do it. The bar has been raised. Members of the LA Phil famously declared Boulez’s music “unplayable” a few decades back. Now it is standard repertoire. The global standard is now local, and musicians rise to the challenge.
2. (I feel the evidence for this one is less conclusive, but still strong.) The increasing pervasiveness of pedagogy. Decades ago, one assumed that the best teacher of violin playing (e.g.) was a great violinist. This is like assuming the best coach of running backs is a great running back. Over time, while the “exposure to a great player” tradition is still strong, a parallel tradition of “exposure to a great teacher” has emerged. These teachers understand biomechanics, clarity of terms in instruction, technical developments, etc. See e.g. Paul Rolland (RIP), another one of the Hungarian exiles, whose string teaching method is superb but who personally was not a major performer.
From anonymous, someone in the world of classical music…
My classical music listening for the year 2023
2023 has been one of my very best years for classic music listening. I’ve discovered an unusually high number of excellent recordings, and made a lot of progress in understanding many composers better. Most of all, that would be Bach, Scriabin, Byrd, Handel, Robert Ashley, and Caroline Shaw, but by no means exhausting the list. For whatever reasons, I’ve just had an immense amount of emotional energy to put into these discoveries.
I thought I would write up a list of my favorite new recordings, but there are too many of them. Here are just a few:
Handel, The Eight Great Suites and Overtures, Francesco Corti. My whole life I’ve preferred these for piano, say by Richter. Corti is converting me to the harpsichord versions.
Frank Peter Zimmermann, Bach, sonatas and partitas for solo violin, volumes one and two. These are some of my favorite works to buy multiple versions of. I started off preferring the Milstein recordings, which still are wonderful. Last year went through a Biondi phase, now am enamored of these. I never tire of these pieces.
Monteverdi, Vespro Della Beata Vergine, conducted by Raphaël Pichon, covered here by the NYT. Monteverdi’s greatest work, and this recording has been receiving special praise from many quarters.
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!, the complete score (for the first time recorded), John Wilson and Sinfonia of London.
Here is the Alex Ross New Yorker classical music recording list: “I can’t remember a year of so many pleasure-inducing, addiction-triggering albums.”
You also might consult these 2023 recommendations from Gramophone, the ones I have heard are excellent, the others are high expected value.
It is a marvel that such a revenue-poor, streaming-intensive musical world is generating so many new and amazing recordings for virtually all kinds of classical music. This is not what I was expecting five to ten years ago.
Another marvel is how many world-beating recordings are coming from young performers who do not have mega-strong preestablished reputations. A lot of them I have never heard of before.
Most of all, I am pleased to see that beauty is proving so robust.
Merry Christmas everybody!
Denny Laine, RIP
My favorite non-classical music of the year 2023
I liked these best:
Lankum, False Lankum. Claims to be Irish folk music, but has ambient textures and is designed to alienate its core audience.
Yaeji, With a Hammer. A mix of English and Korean, house and hip hop. She lives in Brooklyn.
Boygenius, The Rest. Four songs, twelve minutes.
Christine and the Queens, Paranoia, Angels, True Love. Three CDs, weird, still growing on me. By some French person.
Paul Simon, Seven Psalms. Now he is partly deaf, and he was already singing about dying.
Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily, Love in Exile.
Cecile McLorin Salvant, Mélusine. Her track record (and consistency) at this point is simply staggering, and you can put her on a par with the very greatest of female jazz vocalists.
Irreversible Entanglements, Protect Your Light. From a free jazz collective, still vital.
Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles.
Ches Smith and We All Break, Path of Seven Colors. From the year before, but I discovered it this year, a blend of Haitian vodou and jazz.
I will be doing a separate post on classical music. What do you all recommend in these categories?
Addendum: And, via Brett Reynolds, here is a Spotify playlist for those.
My Conversation with the excellent Brian Koppelman
Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is the episode summary:
Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions, and his podcast The Moment, which explores pivotal moments in creative careers.
Tyler and Brian sat down to discuss why TV wasn’t good for so long, whether he wants viewers to binge his shows, how he’d redesign movie theaters, why some smart people appreciate film and others don’t, which Spielberg movie and Murakami book is under appreciated, a surprising fact about poker, whether Jalen Brunson is overrated or underrated, Manhattan food tips, who he’d want to go on a three-day retreat with, whether movies are too long, how happy people are in show business, his unmade dream projects, the next thing he’ll learn about, and more.
Excerpt:
COWEN: Thank you. I have some very simple questions for you about the history of television to start with. I grew up in the 1970s and I’ve long wondered, “Why was TV so bad for so long before the so-called Golden Age?” Maybe you could date that to the 90s or the noughties, but why weren’t shows in the 70s and 80s better than they were? Would you challenge that premise?
KOPPELMAN: Well, I also grew up in the ’70s. I was born in ’66. I’m not sure that the hypothesis that it was bad is correct. It certainly wasn’t, in general, as an art form, operating on the level that cinema was operating on or the level that music, in part, was operating on during that time.
But if we look at, say, children’s television, I could argue that Jim Henson and Sesame Street, for what it was and aimed at what it was aimed at, was as important as any television that’s on today. I would say that Jim Henson moved the art form forward. He figured out a use case for TV that hadn’t really been done before, and he created a way of thinking about the medium that was really different.
Then, look, Hill Street Blues shows up in the ’80s and, I think, figures out how to use certain techniques of theater and cinema and novels to tell these TV stories. Like any other business, when that started to connect, then people in the business started to become aware of what was possible.
Yes, it was a function of three channels, to answer your question. Yes, in the main, of course, TV was worse. No doubt about it, but there were high points. I think those high points pointed the way toward the high points that came later. For me, NYPD Blue is the network show that’s fully on the level of any of these shows that came after. David Milch cut his teeth on Hill Street Blues.
There’s a wonderful book by Brett Martin, called Difficult Men, that’s about showrunners. It starts, in a way, with Bochco and Milch in that time period. It’s a great look into how this idea of showrunners created modern television. HBO needing something, all these business reasons underneath it, but how people who came up through, originally, Hill Street were able to go on and start this revolution.
COWEN: In your view, how good, really, was I Love Lucy? Is it just a few memorable moments, like Vitameatavegamin? Or is it actually a show where it’d be good episode after good episode, like The Sopranos?
And from Brian:
I don’t know Wes Anderson. I don’t know him, but I met him once. I love his movies, and I love that his movies are 90 minutes. The one time I met him, we were screening a film. He invited some people who happened to be in town, who he knew were film people, so I got to watch a movie with him. Afterwards, we were just talking about movies, and I said, “These movies of yours — they are 90 minutes,” and he said, “Yes. I found that the concepts I’m interested in don’t really support a journey that lasts longer than that.” He’s an incredibly disciplined filmmaker. I was like, “That makes total sense.”
Recommended, interesting and entertaining throughout.
Brazilian music bleg
What is new and good in Brazilian music? Say in the last ten years. Any genre. As usual, I thank you in advance for your wise counsel.
The culture that is Porirua (New Zealand)
The residents of a small city in New Zealand have been enduring sleepless nights for months due to drivers blasting Céline Dion songs from their cars in the early hours of the morning.
According to Agence France Press, car drivers in Porirua, a town of some 60,000 people, north of Wellington, have been loudly playing the singer’s tunes as late as 2 a.m.
They have been cranking up the volume on the Canadian songstress’s most famous ballads, including “My Heart Will Go On” and “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now,” according to AFP.
The nocturnal music-playing tends to begin as early as 7 p.m., continuing for many hours thereafter, Porirua Mayor Anita Baker told the news agency.
It’s part of the “siren battles” trend that has taken place in New Zealand for several years, which is particularly popular with indigenous people from the Pacific Islands.
These battles involve rival crews competing to blast the most powerful and clear sounds from loudspeakers attached to cars, or even bicycles, to win the title of “siren king.”
…They “love” Dion because they like “anyone with a high pitch and great tone in their voice,” the mayor explained to AFP.
Here is the full story, via the excellent Samir Varma. I have had very good fish and chips in Porirua.
*George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle*
By Philip Norman, a wonderful book of course. My “problem” (not with the book of course) is just how much John and Paul tower over the proceedings, from the very beginning. Here is one excerpt:
He [Hanton, an early drummer for the Quarrymen, a Beatles precursor] felt excluded from the others’ practice sessions at the art college and resented Paul, who was more than competent on drums as well as guitar and piano, for continually finding fault with his performances.
And:
John’s leadership remained unchallenged, but Paul was ever his zealous adjutant; convinced that they could be spotted by some talent scout at any moment, he called for maximum effort, however late the hour or sparse the audience. And Stu Sutcliffe’s bass playing, though now reasonably competent, was clearly never going to satisfy Paul.
Recommended, I will read every page. You can order here, Norman’s other bios are great too. And if you are wondering, a few of the most underrated George songs are the early instrumental “Cry for a Shadow,” “Don’t Bother Me,” and the much later “You.”
Music podcast of me DJing for Rick Rubin
When I visited Rick over the summer in Italy, he asked me to DJ for him for many hours, maybe about seven? This was amazing fun but also an intimidating challenge! Anyway, this 90-minute podcast is the result of those sessions, edited and produced by Rick of course. Here is the episode summary:
Tyler Cowen has long nurtured an obsession with music. It’s one of the few addictions Tyler believes is actually conducive to a fulfilling intellectual life.
In this bonus episode, an addendum to Rick’s conversation with Tyler, Rick sits with Tyler as he plays and talks through the music that moves him: from the outer bounds of the avant-garde to contemporary pop music and all points in between.
Recommended.
Songs Sold for a Song
In our principles textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I discuss securitization and give the interesting example of music securitization with the picture at right (I’m pretty proud of the caption.)
But what has happened to these big purchases of song portfolios? Ted Gioia runs the numbers and finds that the rock stars sold at the top and the financiers are taking a bath!
On Thursday, Hipgnosis announced a plan to sell almost a half billion dollars of its song portfolio. They need to do this to pay down debt. That’s an ominous sign, because the songs Hipgnosis bought were supposed to generate lots of cash. Why can’t they handle their debt load with that cash flow?
But there was even worse news. Hipgnosis admitted that they sold these songs at 17.5% below their estimated “fair market value.” This added to the already widespread suspicion that current claims of song value are inflated.
Hipgnosis’s share price actually dropped after the announcement.
Last year, I predicted the following:
“Don’t be surprised if the folks at [private equity group] Blackstone end up owning all those songs. But if it happens, they will probably acquire the music at a sharp discount to what those songs were worth just a few months ago.”
Can you guess the buyer in the deal announced on Thursday? Yes, it was a Blackstone-backed fund. And they definitely got that discount.
But there’s one part of this story that I love.…It confirms my sense that karma is at work in the universe, and everything tends towards justice and fairness—if you’re willing to wait long enough.
Here’s that element of karma. The old rock stars actually did defeat the system. They screwed the man, and did it big time.
By my measure, Bob Dylan sold out at the top, and gets to laugh at the financiers who overpaid him. The same is true of Paul Simon and Neil Young and all the rest.
When I launch my hedge fund, I’m going to invite them to join me as partners. They are shrewd operators, every one of them.
What should I ask Masaaki Suzuki?
Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is the opening of his Wikipedia page:
Masaaki Suzuki (鈴木 雅明, Suzuki Masaaki, born 29 April 1954) is a Japanese organist, harpsichordist and conductor, and the founder and music director of the Bach Collegium Japan. With this ensemble he is recording the complete choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach for the Swedish label BIS Records, for which he is also recording Bach’s concertos, orchestral suites, and solo works for harpsichord and organ. He is also an artist-in-residence at Yale University and the principal guest conductor of its Schola Cantorum, and has conducted orchestras and choruses around the world.
He is not just an incredible artist, he is one of the most remarkable achievers of our time. So what should I ask him?
Why is the minor key rising in popularity?
Another telltale sign of sad songs is the minor key. This rise in minor key songs has been dramatic. Around 85% of songs were in a major key back in the 1960s, but in more recent years this has fallen in half.
My favorite guru of music data analytics, Chris Dalla Riva, has sent me this chart showing the increasing share of Billboard #1 hits in a minor key. (By the way, I highly recommend Chris’s Substack Can’t Get Much Higher.)
Here is more from Ted Gioia.
Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time?
I’ve been reading and rereading biographies of Bach lately (for some podcast prep), and it strikes me he might count as the greatest achiever of all time. That is distinct from say regarding him as your favorite composer or artist of all time. I would include the following metrics as relevant for that designation:
1. Quality of work.
2. How much better he was than his contemporaries.
3. How much he stayed the very best in subsequent centuries.
4. Quantity of work.
5. Peaks.
6. Consistency of work and achievement.
7. How many other problems he had to solve to succeed with his achievement. For Bach, this might include a) finding musical manuscripts, b) finding organs good enough to play and compose on, c) dealing with various local and church authorities, d) migrating so successfully across jurisdictions, e) composing at an impossibly high level during the four years he was widowed (with kids), before remarrying.
8. Ending up so great that he could learn only from himself.
9. Never experiencing true defeat or setback (rules out Napoleon!).
I see Bach as ranking very, very high in all these categories. Who else might even be a contender for greatest achiever of all time? Shakespeare? Maybe, but Bach seems to beat him for relentlessness and quantity (at a very high quality level). Beethoven would be high on the list, but he doesn’t seem to quite match up to Bach in all of these categories. Homer seems relevant, but we are not even sure who or what he was. Archimedes? Plato or Aristotle? Who else?
Addendum: from Lucas, in the comments: