Oscar nominated and Polaris Prize winning composer-arranger-violinist-keyboardist-loop pedal maestro-extronidaire, Owen Pallett, has been recently challenged by his friends on Facebook to “do more” with music criticism. Citing Ted Gioia’s essay in the Daily Beast which states that music journalism has become little more than celebrity gossip and lifestyle reporting, Pallett was challenged, and in essence challenged himself to write true, academic, musical criticism – breaking down why a song is popular, what makes it so catchy, and why these songs reached the heights they did.
Slate magazine immediately picked this up and has been publishing his works all week on Katy Perry’s Teenaged Dream and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky.
As nerdy and as stupidly boring as this might sound, in actual fact it is completely engaging and an alarmingly refreshing take on popular music. These articles are highly suggested reading for people of any type of musical education or background.
Here’s the video for Owen Pallett’s new track, The Riverbed:
