This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Friday, January 4, 2019

The Wrecking Crew Ruined Music.

I've looked everywhere for a critique on them, yet every single search result praises them as greatness.

The name in itself might be fake. The music definitely was. They were paid well to produce hits. They were basically the Monkees, Partridge Family and much more. They were corporate musical hacks for hire including coverage for modern genres. They were a form of hair stylist, plastic surgeon or public relations. They had a formula to transform rudimentary songs into substantial epic schlock schtick. It was the mixing of pure cheese with commercialism. They were a form of Muzak. They were the original auto-tune.

This means the big names they played for were also fake. Simon and Garfunkel were not that good after all. Their success was dirty. Same with the Beach Boys and all other losers who hired them.

Jim Sullivan must have regretted it. Not only did he sell out, the attempt failed anyway. There's absolutely no information. If one wants to get to know Malcolm X, Alan Watts or Bukowski, they are extremely accessible. Sullivan could have been an alien. Well, not that, but there's nothing to go on but fake music and a few still photos. His story as is explains nothing to nobody.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not sure I understand this line of reasoning. Are you saying bands that can't play their music well enough professionally should not use studio musicians?

Do singers get a pass on this rule?

What about Michael Jackson, for instance? It has long been said the band Toto played the music on Thriller. Toto, like the Eagles before them, consisted of renowned LA session musicians who formed a successful band of their own.

I'm not a fan of either band and I may agree with your thinking here but the thought could use a bit more explication. I seem to hear you saying because the record company employed the musicians they were "corporate?" and no organic musically. Is that it? Thanks.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Thanks for the comment. I tend to be cryptic. It's not deliberate.

I can't get past that the Wrecking Crew and Funk Brothers were involved in so many songs.

There's no beginning or end to thought. Perhaps I am subconsciously fumbling around with Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

I think they killed Jim Sullivan's spirit. When Hemingway lost the creative drive to write, he gave up on all life. Hollywood seems to have brain fvcked Sullivan to a point in which he lost his soul.

Jackson and Sinatra were diva performers. They needed the big stage with fancy instruments and so-called production values.

I'm starting to think Sullivan played solo or with only a few people for drums and bass.

His voice was an instrument. Life was all good and easy for Wrecking Crew members making money off of other's creativity. They were creative in the Led Zeppelin sense. Their whole beings weren't fake but enough so to me to quit caring.

I attack Sullivan and say Lenny Bruce, but I try to save wrath for folks perceived much worse. Those guys tried. They were in over their heads. They were greatness and still failed. Malcolm X was pure brilliance yet still got nowhere and then killed.

I don't trust or respect anything in the medium. It seems to be part and parcel of why the world is so badly structured. The Wrecking Crew were pigs as far as I can tell. They took the easy way out. They were sell outs.

I never got into Thriller. I do remember Massachusetts almost lost the football team precisely due to losses from an M.J. tour. Kraft is considered a hero for not taking the big bribe money from Connecticut. People care more about sports than Assange. But I'm digressing everywhere.

I'm starting to think the Beatles were fake. Maybe they should be the next idols due an image beat down.

Jackson seemed like a good guy and easy target. Sinatra was definitely a turd, although talented. Elvis was a jerk informant, yet with great vocals.

I liked TOOL and System of a Down. Radiohead. Audioslave. They were the last bands I cared about. Maybe all this sort of stuff is spun into generational divide and conquer. I don't see much good coming out of the internet for knowledge and awareness. It felt like diminishing returns each year and then 2016 was the screeching halt.

I try to spark people, as in e.g. this Jim Sullivan story seems sort of interesting. Then it leads to Wrecking Crew and that's an obvious real historic group meriting social critique.

I want to boycott everything. But we can't win anyway? I end up cynical and grouchy like Bukowski but still breathing.

Sullivan wrote some very impressive, complex songs. Wrecking Crew probably found them easy to spruce up. My thinking is silly songs don't offer much room to build on. Sullivan was inspirational. Others lie, cheat and steal. They take and never give. Jim Sullivan was the true talent compared to Wrecking Crew, imho.

Sullivan and Bruce took the zeitgeist too seriously. They gave it power it didn't deserve. McLuhan seemed to break it down. He was a true hero. Bruce and Sullivan could still be alive but they had too many demons.

There's the episode from Seinfeld in which the waitress told Jerry she didn't respect his profession. I feel a tremendous lack of respect for Wrecking Crew. And now finding out about MoTown, what is real? Is anything legit? Or from Pink Floyd- Is there anybody out there because the numbness is not too comfortable.

Money and art do not mix. That's my problem with it. I also want art to put a spotlight on the human condition. That's not done by thinking money unless it is the Floyd tune and that's one of their worst songs, imho.

I am liking Echoes by Pink Floyd. T.V. is something to quit. There's nothing artistic about it. It's insidious. That's the word. Wrecking Crew was insidious.