WO new records this demonstrate strikingly the difficulties that pop out month music seems to be in at the moment. Abbey Road, by the Beatles, has marvellous moments of music. Several of the songs are very beautiful ("Because" must be one of the loveliest they've done). Others are funny, clever, dramatic, showing the Beatles to be in complete control of their arf. Yet, taken as a whole, the record seems strangely rootless and confused.
At first I thought it was as self-indulgent and empty as their previous double LP. Apart from one or two songs like "Dear Prudence" the music of the double LP had the feeling of being chumed out by a well-oiled machine which was operating with great efficiency without really caring about the effect it might be having on For where it was actuauy going.
Abbey Road, now that I've heard it a few times, I think there is more seriousness and feeling. But it is significant that the most effective side of the record consists largely of a medley of unfinished old songs. These are worked together into a musical kaleidoscope that comes off well - partly because no further coherent statement seems necessary in i But musical gymnastics aren't enough. As if acknowledging this, the medley ends with an attempt at a synthesis:
"And at the end the love you take Is equal to the love you make."
accept that as is usual with the Beat reactionary supposition that the internal world (the amoun if love you can drum up) is what shapes the external world (the amount you receive). So that looked at the other way round, if you're being ruthlessly exploited and alienated, or if your family is being burnt alive by napalm, it's your own fault for not loving people enough.
Or, alternatively, if you do love them enough you won't mind these things happening to you and therefore won't do anything to change them.
But even granting the more positive side of this sentiment, the idea seems tacked onto the record, rather than growing out of it naturally.
The record seems to lack coherence - musically as much as anything else. It is just that the Beatles, as individuals, are now taking such different musical paths? And that Paul's camp contributions, in particular, detract from the work of the others? Or is something more serious wrong? As with the previous double LP, the constant references to the music of the past seem arbitrary, and suggest a loss of direction and committment. "When I'm Sixty Four" was a great song because the nostalgic style of the music fitted the words so pertectly and appropriately. Whereas the use of a similar style in Honey Pie and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is merely quaint.
There are many moments (like George's "Here Comes the Sun") when the music warms into sincerity and wistfulness. There are other times (most of them in John's songs, especially "Come Together") where the old urgency and ension is felt. But the ironic sensitivity toward the lives of ordinary yearnings and visions, peple the uneasy excitement and rebelliousness that have marked earlier Beatles recordings these are largely missing, in spite of the originality and effectiveness of many of the sounds.
I really hope the Beatles won't allow themselves to get so embroigled in the ethics of Big Business and Showbiz that the mere production of a musical commodity (any musical commodity will seem enough to them so long as the result is professional. I reall lope they won't get so isolated by their wealti and fame that they won't know who they're singing for any more or care about the lives people lead and the effect the songs might have on them). None of this need matter if "Pure Entertainment" (the Capitalist Spectacle) is all pop-music is about. But the Beatles themselves have led me to think pop means more than this.
In fact this is a really remarkable record first political pop record to come out of this - Ine country.
Not that the politics is overstated (though the social realism is sometimes a little facile).
Nor does the record suffer from the pretentiousness and egocentricity that have marred many DECVIOUS attempts revolutionary statements in pop. These statements in the past have tended to restrict themselves to the "golden anarchists"
younger generation demanding freedom to fuck and turn on without the interference of their elders. When the Doors, for example, shout "we want the world and we want it now" they express a generalised discontent well enough in fact it's good rousing stuff, the kind of thing pop can do supremely well and ought to do more often. But there is no discussion about who the world belongs to at the moment and how it got there.
The Kinks, on the other hand, are the first pop group (to my knowledge) to pin the blam learly and unambiguously on Class Societ They do so by looking at the problem throug he eyes, not of a discontented youngster, bu of a member of the older generation. Arthur.
the subject of the record, has been a model citizen. He has chased dutifully after all the carrots (a semi-detached and a car, etc.) that soclety has held out to him, and he has accepted all the Churchilian myths of patriotism, discipline and authority. But now he has got some of the comfort he has worked for (and at the same time the Empire has expected, Arthur finds that his tife is empty collapsed). Far from and pointless. Without ever admitting it to himself, he dimly perceives that he has been the victim of a monstrous confidence trick This theme is explored with subtlety and originality, and every word is absolutely rooted in the experience of ordinary people. Some of the songs "Yes Sir, no Sir", "Shangrila"
"Brainwashed" ought to be heard again and again. In fact the LP should have been s op-record of major impact and importance Yet sad to say, the Kinks have failed to find musical idion that does full justice to their theme. There are some good, chunky rock passumental ending to Austrand the and some and the powerful instrumental ending to good tunes (like "Shangrila"). The whole thing would be great live, and I hope we'll all get the chance to hear the Kinks performing it. But basically the music is too conventional (nearly all of it is traditional 4/4 pop) to score very deeply on a record. If Beatles have neglected content in favour of form, then the Kinks have neglected form in favour of content. In both cases, the final result is unsatisfactory.
Nevertheless, the Kinks record is breakthrough. I only hope other groups (and the Kinks themselves) will have the guts to follow Ray Davis's courageous lead. Let's hear a few more pop-singers speaking out like Ray Davis in "Brainwashed":
The aristocrats and beaurocrats Are dirty rats For making you what you are.
They're up there and you're down here ou re on the ground ar rey re up with the sta All your life they've kicked you around And pushed you around Till you can't take any more To them you're just a speck of dirt But you don't want to get up off the floor Mister you're just brainwashed They give you social security Tax-saving benefits that grow at maturity Yeah, you're conditioned to be What they want you to be And to do what they want you to do Yes you are, yes you are. vet down on vour knees Songs like this raise a crucially important going to remain popular merely because provides people with easily assimilated, tuneful and lively music - a latter-day opium of the people laced (in the case of groups like the Beatles) with a dash of uplift? Or is pop going