Thus Spake Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
And apart from the Nietzsche pose on the cover, the title of the imminent LP (Master and Everyone) is also philo-theological, isn’t it? Perhaps it refers to some kind of Eastern religion where a guru is called ‘The Master’? In fact, I have a recording of BPB belting out four Hare Krishna devotional songs over 35 minutes. So….
I can�t find the link now, but Will Oldham was once asked if he was religious. He didn’t say yes or no, but said if there was an answer, it was in the music. One has to listen to the music to find out; that�s all he could say. Good answer, I thought. Isn’t this what makes music and all the other arts so uncannily compelling? Rather than pointing toward an object, such as a God or the artist (whichever is the greater), art is itself and nothing else. It is made of the world, for sure, but what compels our attention is the glint of the unworldly. One notices the distress this causes hack reviewers as they struggle to categorise genuine artists such as Mr Oldham (’Hillbilly Gothic’ indeed) and how fans rush around buying up every possible item of merchandise to assauge the anxious feeling that somehow they’re missing out on something, which they are, of course, as their consumerist frenzy indicates.
So, instead of rushing to label or interview an artist, one is confronted with the likelihood that, if one wants to get closer to what art is � and let us not exclude God from the realm of possibility � one is required to study a work of art in itself. Such is the task of the critic.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Music Is My Hot Hot Sex
- I love you because you look like Jim Reeves
- Bonnie Bonanza
- Albini Hello, I’ll be adding to the weblog alon…
- Wisdom and radiance
