DAVID SYLVIAN BIOGRAPHY - ON THE PERIPHERY Only available from sylvianbiography POP FROM THE INSIDE OUT. Even as David Sylvian shifted away from the mainstream of popular music, he was always inclined to categorise himself as a pop musician, finding other pigeon-holes such as Avant Garde of Ambient too restrictive. In his own mind, even though this may have seemed at odds with much of his output as his solo career progressed, Sylvian still retained a pop sensibility. This is where he was when he started his career with Japan, and this was the genre that he continued to stretch, so far in the end that it became almost unrecognisable. Back in the late 1980s, Sylvian was certainly moving away from planet pop but he had not migrated to the far reaches of musical experimentation that he would. Just after the release of Secrets of the Beehive, which was an acoustic album of real poise and elegance, he was casting around for inspiration and focus. As is described in detail in On the Periphery this period of Sylvians career was dominated by personal issues and insecurities surfacing and obscuring spiritual and musical direction. It led to a protracted period of 10 years where he produced no solo albums, leaning instead on collaboration with an array of artists to get him back on track. From within this environment, Sylvian produced a record entitled Pop Song which in many ways seemed to articulate the struggle he had working within an industry that he was trying in a way to redefine for himself. But to simply see Pop Song as a crude kick at the pop music industry was to underestimate its importance, as this excerpt from On the Periphery explains. Not only was the song something that had a depth to it that was not immediately apparent, but it also saw Sylvian working once more with synthetic sound, which had been the basis of so much work with Japan, and which signalled directions that would be taken later in his career as well. Excerpt from On the Periphery Chapter 6. Pulled by the Undertow Pages 124-125 In what seemed like a pointed swipe at the world he had left behind, the release of Weatherbox was timed with the release of a solo composition entitled Pop Song. The title of this single was viewed by many as hugely ironic, as it seemed as if it was anything but. The slightly discordant musical score was accompanied by an overtly critical lyric that pulled at the fragile edifice of ephemeral pop music, pointing out its superficiality and propensity to irritate. I’ll tell you I love you / Like the stars above you / Like my favourite pop song However, such black and white pigeon-holing of Pop Song seemed somewhat at odds with Sylvian’s own feelings about the piece. The at this stage constantly Gauloises-smoking Sylvian, with his passion for, and growing interest in art, photography, quality cinema, and painting described Pop Song thus. “I think it is possible to take a song such as Pop Song on different levels. I do believe it can be taken seriously, after all I love the genre and the form of the pop song, or it can be taken as something of a critique. I saw it rather arrogantly as a possible blue print for the future of pop music.” Pop Song saw Sylvian experimenting with the tonalities, tunings, and quarter tones in the programming of synthesisers, improvising to tape. However, he detected something in this experimentation that he felt was worth pursuing, and placed a vocal with the piece. It really represented Sylvian’s re-acquaintance with synthetic sound after years of playing acoustic instruments. Just after its release, Sylvian expanded somewhat on the song, which many had just discarded as a minor irrelevance on his musical journey. “It’s a strange piece, a real one-off. A lot of different interests brought it into being. It rekindled the fascination I had when I went into music in the first place, and got me working with synthesisers again. Lyrically, it’s kind of playful, dealing with what I see in popular culture which is, basically, a waste of creative potential and a willingness on the part of the public to be party to that…. It frightens me that people depend so much on those vacant icons which give people nothing in return. Pop Song doesn’t delve too deeply into all this. It’s playing the game in a sense. Being subversive from within.” Most commentators at the time suggested that Sylvian knew that Pop Song had no real chance of commercial success, and was equally aware that it was likely to bomb. But this view seemed too simplistic, and gave little ground to the fact that Sylvian was an artist, and as such naturally wanted to appeal to an audience in order to convey his message. When asked if he wanted the piece to chart, he replied: “Yes of course, because the whole point of it was to make a statement from within the media I’m criticising.” It was also very easy to forget the milieu in which Sylvian was composing at this time, and the influences and listening habits he had, which were very different from the increasingly avant-garde “family” he surrounded himself with in later years. Rumours abounded towards the end of 1989, for example, that he had recorded material with American pioneering musician Laurie Anderson. This was in fact not the case, but was something at the time that Sylvian did not dismiss as a future venture. He also expressed his desire to work with Kate Bush, and was effusive about Peter Gabriel, especially his work Passion. So, suggesting that Pop Song was attacking the industry he was involved in from within was very true. Sylvian himself at this stage was far from an outsider. Whatever the whys and wherefores, and whatever the subtleties of the genesis of this tune, it was most assuredly a direct or thinly veiled swipe at the more superficial and cosmetic elements of the popular music scene. Four words that represented one line in the song summed it all up perfectly, “Wild, unwise, trivialised, untrue”. youtube/watch?v=MfBHZfuNEVc&feature=kp
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 15:24:39 +0000
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