As a music blogger, there are a few rules I try to stick to in my writing. One is I'm not keen on describing an artist, song or album as 'underrated'. I've used it but I haven't gone overboard. Describing even relatively unsuccessful bands like Prefab Sprout or Scritti Politti as 'underrated' isn't simply supremely lazy, it's also inaccurate. Critics loved those two groups and they both retain loyal, if small, fanbases. Yes, it would have been nice had they been more popular but that's irrelevant when it comes to the claim that they haven't been evaluated properly. When pressed, I'll try to use 'overlooked' instead. And don't get me started on the inane 'criminally underrated'. (Just once I'd like to find an artist or group who is 'criminally overrated')
Another is to try to scale back talking about importance and/or influence. Yes, I am well aware that The Velvet Underground & Nico is a deeply influential album. I imagine everyone who follows pop music history knows this. You know what else? It's actually quite a brilliant album. I don't have it on heavy rotation on my home stereo or anything but I always enjoy it whenever I put it on. It having influenced David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, Pixies, etc., etc., etc., is nice and interesting but it doesn't change how I listen to it. The Velvet Underground's debut album could've influenced no one of note and it would be every bit as good.
Finally, I really try to stay away from saying that a work of recorded music "hasn't aged well" or sounds "dated". Call me a massive hypocrite but I don't think it's wrong to discuss an album that has aged well but there's something about the opposite claim that bothers me. Honestly, I don't know what 'dated' means. Synthesizers do not sound like relics of the past to me. Like much in music criticism, it seems like the sort of thing that people can be very selective about. So, a fairlight synth is hokey but Kraftwerk's acclaimed 1982 album Computer World with sound effects nicked from a Little Professor calculator has somehow aged like a fine wine. Ultimately, it isn't the music that ages, it's us. I used to be on Twitter a lot and I once said the following about not enjoying Belle & Sebastian's album The Boy with the Arab Strap like I used to: "It has aged well but I haven't". I mostly meant it as a joke but I came to realise it's true. I aged out of their work even though their songs sound very much the same as they always did.
And yet...
Starting up this blog on number one hits in Canada has forced me to examine singles from the fifties that I either hardly noticed earlier in my lifetime (I was born in 1977) or wasn't aware of to begin with. When it comes to Jimmy Dorsey's "So Rare" (minus that awful chorus) and The Bobbettes' "Mr. Lee" this has been a pleasure; when it comes to Pat Boone and Jimmie Rodgers, not so much. But the distinction is an easy one: those first two are great, the others aren't. But it's another matter when it comes to "My Special Angel" by Bobby Helms because it makes me wonder the following: was it once a great song but just isn't any longer?
It's an impossible question to answer especially since I have no way of knowing what it sounded like twenty years prior to my birth. My grandpa Roy was a big fan of Jim Reeves who was at the forefront of mainstream Nashville country, a scene that attempted to remove the pedal steel guitars and fiddles (and, it must be added, virtually all the character) from a commercially waning genre that wished to compete with rock 'n' roll. It wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that he thought similarly highly of Bobby Helms, a crooner who is now only remembered for the definitive version of "Jingle Bell Rock".
For a generation that had survived the War and the Great Depression and were now busy starting families all over North America, I can see the appeal of people like Helms and Reeves. These gentlemen possessed formidable voices, effortless and soothing. People who'd been through enough hard times of their own probably weren't about to embrace singers who had nothing to impart except for their own struggles. The Nashville sound offered escapism which is what many people's parents wanted. I get all that.
And yet...
"My Special Angel" is a chore to get through. It's so dreary, so devoid of life, so lacking in spark that it couldn't possible inspire anything in anyone (What do you know? Maybe being influential is important!). Not exactly dreadful, just painful and cringey. I feel guilty disliking it this much because Helms is sincere and he's singing from the heart and Grandpa Roy would've loved it but these reasons aren't close to good enough. Has it aged badly? Impossible for me to say but there's no question the culture has aged out of it.
Score: 3
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