Fighting The Law of Diminishing Returns
Written by Rbt. B. Rutherford // August 3, 2010 // Backlog // 8 Comments
The law of diminishing returns holds that one can apply a particular skill or work towards a particular goal, and that after a certain result is achieved, the output of the same effort will decline in yield. To put it as a simple example, you can look at popular opinion regarding the careers of Metallica or U2. Here we have two bands that rose to success on a surge of topical, challenging music, creating some of the best rock records of the last 30 years. The sense of urgency in their early work, their hunger and their passion, is palpable. With their early records, they hooked millions of people to their sound and created a rabid fan base, respectively. And then Metallica released The Black Album, which some people consider the death knell for metal. U2 had their own misstep with Pop, and although both bands have continued to find commercial success, the general critical regard is that both of these bands lost something in the fire, and that each record they release gets them further and further away from what it was that made them great initially.
It’s safe to assume that regardless of popular opinion of these two bands, when they go into the studio to make a record, their intention is to dig deep into themselves and try to create art that reflects the digging. Perhaps they have mined the ore in themselves and that those things inside of them, the powerful voice and the artistic strife, do not replenish.
As music fans and consumers, does this law of diminishing returns apply to the music we hear and connect with? Do we reach a point of saturation and cease to find the spark of enjoyment we once had when we discovered the joy we feel in music? Do we find a comfortable aesthetic rut and stay there? Is this why oldies stations are still around, so that we can scratch at the phantom itch of our youth? It seems that the ease with which we can access virtually any album ever made with the click of a mouse and can transfer dozens, hundreds, thousands of albums from jump drives while we talk to friends over coffee, complicates matters slightly. It seems like this ease of access discourages thoughtful listening and encourages quantity over quality. On the flip side of that coin, do we abandon comfort for a dizzying approach to music listening that leads us down a path where we grow to disdain musical forms, stripping out a connection to melody and rhythm for something else entirely?
What about music criticism? If taste drives music consumption, what of the buzz bands who burn brightly and as quickly as shooting stars through the blogosphere and fade from the collective consciousness without leaving so much as the tiniest lasting mark. Does the speed of information work against our ability to truly discover things for ourselves?
As a musician and a writer, the law of diminishing returns casts its shadow on everything I create. Not in the act of creation, but in the raw, irrational light I cast my work in after I have completed it. As a critic, as well, I find myself questioning my ability to hear anything without applying my own accumulating baggage, and I doubt the work of others for the same reason. But what I think is really scary is the thought of becoming someone for whom music does not move deeply; that in this age, as everything starts to truly rush by in what feels like an ever increasing pace, I will lose the wherewithal to be thoughtful in my consumption of music, and that that loss will leave me in an eventual rut where I will simply pull back from the new and the emergent and build a rickety nest of old records by The Replacements and Steely Dan and Neutral Milk Hotel to hide in. That I might find myself stuck in a hazy state of sentimental song snippets, a widening chasm that carries only echoes.
There has to be balance somewhere, in the comfort of the familiar and the challenge of the new, and I’ve been thinking about the balance alot this week because I came across an album I’ve owned for more than a decade and quite possibly have failed to give the attention it deserves. It’s a compilation by a Cuban doo-wop (who knew such a thing even existed?) group called Los Zafiros. It is a reissue called Bossa Cubana that was released in 1999 and found its way into my stacks as a promo CD, in an unadorned paper sleeve. I listened to it, enjoyed it, and then moved on to whatever cool thing was happening in Chicago at the time.
I pulled it out last week and dusted it off, and I am giving it the attention it deserves. I don’t want to spend a lot of time describing it, because I am trying to just listen to it and let it truly settle into my hippocampus, other than to say that the songs presented here constitute an intoxicating blend of Cuban rhythms and American vocal groups of the 60′s, punctuated by staccato electric guitars and seamless harmonies.
We sow seeds in ourselves when we listen to music. Some seeds we tend and help flourish. Others we let wither and thusly give them back to the great ether of forgetfulness. This week I am grateful that this seed outlasted the drought I imposed on it, and I am posting the record here as penance and as a reminder that just as crops must be rotated to keep cultivated soil replenished, flowers don’t burst forth from soil constantly tilled. Only thoughtful cultivation will yield a bounty.
Enjoy!
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Los Zarifos – Bossa Cubana
1. Bossa Cubana
2. La Luna En Tu Mirada
3. Mirame Fijo
4. Dichoso Mar
5. Por No Comprenderte
6. Y Sabes Bien
7. Cancion De Orfeo
8. Mi Amor, Perdoname
9. Cuando Yo La Conoci
10. La Caminadora
11. He Venido
12. Puchunguita, Ven
13. Herido De Sombras
14. Si Corazon
15. Mi Oracion
16. Un Nombre De Mujer
17. Canta Lo Sentimental
8 Comments on "Fighting The Law of Diminishing Returns"
most thoughtful, touching backlog yet. thank you.
Another thoughtful column, Robert, and some killer music in there. However, I take issue with this sentence: “As a critic, as well, I find myself questioning my ability to hear anything without applying my own accumulating baggage, and I doubt the work of others for the same reason.”
I feel you on the first part. As for the second, (and get ready for my tirade here) I feel like it’s a distressingly common mistake to project your own accumulating baggage onto other writers based solely on your own experiences, tastes, mood, stage of your life, etc.
Call me reactionary. I mean, I get a lot of hate mail regardless of what I write, but it specifically irks me when someone’s like, “Oh, you’re just (insert breezy dismissal here) because you’re (insert argument for mental/ intellectual/ emotional fatigue) or nothing will ever be as good as (insert life-changing album here).”
I do think it’s fair to make assumptions about other critics’ tastes and attitudes, especially if they’re laid bare in that person’s writing. But giving in to creeping doubt due to personal predilictions is like putting a dull knife to the throat of creativity.
That said, I have used the term “GBV-esque” more times than I can count…
@ Wenzel – I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s kinda the point I was trying to make, although you certainly fleshed it out better than I did. I was not defending my practice so much as pointing out pitfalls. I stated that I find myself questioning my role as a critic and that that leads to projection, my overall point being that it’s a scary, and perhaps unhealthy, thing to think about. I talk plainly about my doubts by pointing out their irrationality, and the fact of the matter is that there is plenty of thoughtful insight to be found in music criticism, and I still make my way through the growing list of favorite critical blogs, columns, and various other news mediums more often than I care to admit.
I think that your statement sums it up best: “giving into creeping doubt due to personal predilections is like putting a dull knife to the throat of creativity.”
Throughout the paragraph you referenced, I talk about things that worry me as an artist, a critic, and as a listener. A 20-minute tour of the internet will reveal examples of every type of situation I describe, and my point is that those are the things I want to avoid, if possible, and that to do so, I will need to be more thoughtful in the musical roles that I hold.
Ah… gotcha. Chalk another one up for my favorite brand of logic: The John Wenzel Ships Passing in the Night Memorial School of Argumentation.
another great backlog bob. As another layer to your diminishing returns metaphor- the convergence theory in economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-up_effect) makes the assertion that due to diminishing returns, poorer areas will catch up to richer areas at a certain rate. Perhaps the baggage that builds around certain music allows us to explore genres and artists that we may not have otherwise been open to listening to?
Ooohhh! I like that idea, Stubbs. If our favorite bands just kept making great music, would we ever look outside the box for something “new”?
Thanks, Robert for another great article. I was really struck by the line: “But what I think is really scary is the thought of becoming someone for whom music does not move deeply.” I have this same fear about literature. I find myself looking with more intensity for the next novel that will really capture my imagination and make me lose track of everything else. Because of this I have shelves of half started novels, and I often spend months reading challenging stuff while my friends cruise through popular lit.
Your article this week reminded me to find a quiet place and take the time to be moved deeply – by one of the many barely listened to albums on my ipod or the Brothers Karamozov that I’m halfway through after many months.
This idea is so important to understanding why we enjoy the music we do, I’m glad you’ve hit on it.
Throughout my life and my various stages of music listening, I find myself moving in and out of what I’ll call my “blue” periods, for lack of a better term. I know I’m not alone here, but I find myself indulging in the sadness and heartbreak certain music brings to the surface for me and its that music in particular that I search out. Love, both requited and not, is the stuff of a lived life for me…and its the stuff of so much music! Unfortunately, I lack a certain bit of self control sometimes and wonder if my indulgence in sad heartbreak music turns into a drug of sorts…scratching that itch, as you say, that feels so bad its good. In other words, is art imitating my life or am I trying to get my life to imitate the art I consume?!? (“Sorrow found me when I was young…”)
Anyway, just this week I was trolling through my ipod thinking, “What the fuck? Every single record on here is depressing as hell!” It’s these very moments when I am jolted from my blue reverie and reminded that I better listen to some funk music quick-like, lest I slip over the edge into the darkness, never to surface again…