PJ Harvey – “The Wheel”

Five years after Let England Shake — which some reputable music bloggers consider to be one of the best albums of recent memory — PJ Harvey is back with a new song, “The Wheel,” from her upcoming album, The Hope Six Demolition Project. While Harvey is known for dramatically changing her sound and persona from album to album, this song feels like it’s on the same path that Let England Shake was, as it maintains the folk-inspired music and lyrics drawing on war and conflict. However, it’s clear that this isn’t going to be a rehash of that album, and the song feels like the the logical next step from it.

On “The Wheel,” Harvey is broadening some of the themes from Let England Shake, turning her focus to more global politics rather than only her homeland and also touching on more contemporary subject matter instead of drawing entirely from the more distant past. But the main theme — the cyclical nature of war and terrible things done in its name — is fittingly still here, illustrated by the metaphor of the titular “revolving wheel” that keeps spinning as children disappear. The video shows Harvey in Kosovo, which she visited while working on the album, but the lyrics themselves don’t specify the conflict she is referring to.

Harvey is known for not repeating herself on her albums, which is why it’s ironic that “The Wheel” is book-ended by two very noticeable repetitions. First, there’s the intro, a burst of chaotic noise with handclaps and a recurring saxophone part that lasts over 1:20 in the unedited version. Then there’s the outro, where Harvey repeats the phrase “and watch them fade out” over 20 times, which lasts 1:25 and is reminiscent of one of her most famous songs.

I’ve become obsessed with the outro in particular. In the context of the song, it is referring to the 28,000 missing children, but it’s easy to start thinking of other meanings it could have as she keeps repeating the phrase. And the fact that she says “and watch them fade out” so many times, over and over, speaks volumes in and of itself — just like the wheel keeps turning, we keep watching children fade out, and Harvey keeps singing it, shifting between a sense of accusation and resignation. In the world of art about war, “watch them fade out” is a worthy successor to a similar refrain: “so it goes.”

Nervous Trend – “Shattered”

I mentioned Nervous Trend in my earlier swipe at Savages, but wanted to give them their own post because I think this anonymous group from Australia (with a singer from Chicago) might be the best rock band in the world. That isn’t some kind of writerly hyperbole that is only meant to capture attention — I actually believe it. Their latest release, “Shattered,” accomplishes more in two songs and six minutes than most rock bands do in a lifetime.

One of my many complaints about music lately is bands who adopt the attitude and style of punk, but don’t actually back it up with any substance. Nervous Trend actually have something to say, and “Shattered” pulses with an urgency that demands attention and lyrics that sharply combine the personal and political. The title track lasers in on how women are frequently seen as not being “whole beings,” using a brilliant analogy of being shattered into pieces: “Which pieces of me do you want today?” singer Jen Mace asks. “Do you see a virgin? Do you see a whore? Do you see a plaything? Do you see a savior?”

The second track, “Decency,” is a scathing criticism of hypocrisy from those who claim to be decent (also known as “the virtue squad”), but spend their time limiting the rights of women. Mace ends the E.P. with her most impassioned vocal delivery, almost reaching a scream: “This is not your proselytizing. This is my life. This choice lies with me. Fuck your decency.”

None of this is groundbreaking material in the world of feminist-leaning punk, and part of why I’ve been less invested in punk lately is that these sort of lyrics can feel like going after low-hanging fruit for easy cred points. This is exacerbated by bands that intentionally sound sloppy because it’s “punk,” giving the impression that they care more about the message than the music. Nervous Trend care deeply about both, and the pointed lyrics are matched by the music itself, which is tight and roars with purpose while being inspired equally by goth and punk rock. Mace also has one of those voices that cuts through everything around it, and she throws herself completely into these songs while sounding melodic rather than shrill.

I’ve often felt like a grumbly baby about rock music lately, but hearing this band reminds me that, when it’s done with this level of skill and commitment, pretty much nothing is better. Nervous Trend have made themselves hard to find with no social media or Spotify, but their music speaks for itself, and those who find it will be moved.

The History of Rock and Roll

When I attended community college a few years ago, I decided to challenge myself by taking difficult courses that would expand my knowledge base and prepare me not just for attending a four-year institution, but also for the real world that lied ahead. That was how I spent Tuesday and Thursday afternoons taking a class called “The History of Rock and Roll,” which was taught by a U of M grad student who walked us through a chronological history of music with intricate PowerPoint presentations while challenging us with impossibly difficult essay questions like “describe some of the differences between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.”

I won’t lie: sometimes, the class was so difficult that I thought about giving up. As the subject matter got more complex, eventually reaching mind-boggling subjects like “grunge,” it was tempting to walk out of the classroom, drop out of school, and look for janitorial work. But I stuck with it, and with enough hard work and dedication was able to earn an “A” in the course — something that remains one of my most impressive adult achievements.

What stood about the course, besides the difficulty, was how it turned something as exciting and life-affirming as rock and roll into another boring classroom topic that was rooted in objectivity. The course’s curriculum inherently made authoritative judgments over which bands were worth including and which would be left out of the history it was teaching us. The class stuck to the classic, practically official rock and roll canon — also seen in places like The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — tracing a linear line from artists like The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan to more contemporary music that was influenced by them.

One of my longtime insecurities as someone who writes and talks about music is that most of these canonized artists have never done much for me. This ranges from liking their songs, but not feeling any emotional connection to the music (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin) to outright disliking artists that are considered legendary and hugely important (The Rolling Stones — ugh). In all cases, I recognize the band’s influence and how they helped innovate rock, but even the most detailed and fascinating of PowerPoint presentations couldn’t make them feel as important to me as they seem to be to everyone else.

Not loving these bands has always made me feel alienated and sometimes even stupid. If I can’t like these artists that are universally considered to be incredible, maybe I don’t understand music. So I’ve spent a lot of mental energy reflecting on the canon and why it has never worked for me like it does for everyone else. My biggest issues are that the canon has two major biases: it is heavily skewed towards men, especially “rock gods,” and it is also biased towards older artists who came first, because obviously nobody in the last 20 years has innovated music. If you like listening to music that was made by women after 1980, the canon isn’t going to have much for you, and I can’t get behind a history that excludes so many artists.

Music does have a history, but the canon tells it incorrectly. It focuses on a single path that goes in a straight line, when a true, honest history of rock and roll is made up of different branches and curves off that path. One of my favorite things to do as a listener is find a specific genre or style of music, and try to piece the history of it together myself by connecting the dots between various bands. This way, the music tells the story rather than a professor or a bunch of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voters, and it stays true to what I enjoy about it, which is the process of discovery and the subjectivity.

The best example of this different way of viewing music’s history was from a random blog I stumbled upon online when I was searching out female-fronted punk music. A very devoted, possibly crazy person compiled a series of 12 CD-Rs that served as a reference of female punk from 1977-1989, and gave them to some friends, one of whom uploaded them online. I listened to it and was astonished at how comprehensive it was — it combined relatively well-known artists like Blondie with some of the most obscure bands imaginable, like German groups that released one song on a cassette in 1981 and gave it to three of their friends. What made it so enjoyable wasn’t just that I liked the music, but that the series was mixing artists of all levels of popularity and obscurity together and forming an entire story of a certain niche of music — one that is completely ignored by the traditional canon.

While the canon is based on exclusivity and favors artists who are popular and “important,” this collection made no judgments and included seemingly every female-fronted punk band that made a song in the time frame. A powerful feeling I got from it was that no band is more important than any other, and everyone who makes music is in their own way contributing to its history. Even a band that released literally one song was remembered and viewed as important in this context.

Rather than making certain music sacred or unimpeachable and clinging to bland objectivity, I prefer that collection’s more subjective and inclusive take on history that focuses on the music rather than what people have written about it. Obviously, a class can only discuss so many bands and a museum can only have so much space, but that’s why a History of Rock and Roll course and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are ineffective. The real history of music is sprawling and defined just as much by outsiders as the most popular artists of all time, and to reduce it to such a small number of popular artists is antithetical to what makes music great.