Armen-Gurgen Movsesyan

Writing 130
Eric Rawson
Essay #2
Spring 2012

Pop Music Doesnt Suck: The Electronic Music Revolution and Emergence of Complex Tonal
Harmonies in the Popular Music - A Review of Dirty Loops and Caravan Palace

Brief Background on Pop
In the late 60s, with the rise of the main record labels like CBS, Warner and MCA, the
focus shifted from attracting accomplished musicians to finding the most marketable sound.
Record labels became notorious for contractual abuse, coercion and other tactics that intended to
marginalize the artistic community and milk the most cash out of it. Since the profit potential of
rock and popular music became increasingly obvious to producers, 20
th
century music took a turn
towards advanced technologies for recording and distributing as well as other stage and visual
innovations. With these developments, jazz and contemporary classical music, which did not
emphasize the use of these innovations, were almost completely overshadowed.
With the gradual dwindling of the jazz and classical scene, it also became less important
for popular music to demonstrate complex harmonies. Popular music became more accessible
to the average listener and thus a preferable business subject for record companies.
With the advent of modern recording and audio technologies, popular music began to
incorporate electronic sounds from early disco to hip-hop, techno and house music scenes.
Today, you cannot find a pop hit that does not include the heavy thud of a bassy techno backbeat
or the cosmic noises from a synthesizer. An even more recent development is the use of more
complex tonal harmonies characteristic of older genres. We may soon witness the emergence of
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a new subgenre in popular music that utilizes elaborate melodic ideas in conjunction with
electronic sounds, putting in question the idea that musical beauty, tonal complexity does not
matter in the modern world.

Dirty Loops:
The average person likes to hear something he can hum in the shower. A common saying
goes A jazz musician plays three thousand chords for an audience of three, a rock star plays
three chords for an audience of three thousand. You cannot get down to tunes like Autumn
Leaves and Stella by Starlight. But the quality of musicians has not necessarily dumbed-
down. Record companies simply prefer that musicianship always come second to the business
model. The quality of music seems to drop every decade. Recently, however, one group of
exceptional musicians decided not to make any sacrifices in their musicianship while combining
elements of modern electronic music. Comprised of pianist Jonah Nilsson on vocals and piano,
Henrik Linder on bass and Aaron Baron on drums, the band went viral with their brilliant
reharmonizations of popular songs like Justin Biebers Baby and Britney Spears Circus.
While their arrangements demonstrate immense knowledge of complex harmonies often found in
jazz and fusion music, they do not detract the electronic groove that attracts the modern
audience. In this way, Dirty Loops manages to preserve the characteristics of jazz while
following the current music trends.
The virtuosity of the band members makes this high level music possible. Baron has an
incredible sense of melody in his drumming, highlighting all the right moments of the songs with
tasty, dynamic and complex rhythmic fills. Nilssons vocal range easily rivals that of prominent
pop vocalists like Adam Lambert and his sense of artistic direction lends depth and creativity to
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the arrangements. Linder exhibits a sense of timing that most musicians envy, as well as a
technique that allows him to effortlessly improvise to any groove. Besides the lyrics, the covers
are virtually unrecognizable from the originals, wowing listeners because of how fresh and
intricate Dirty Loops manages to make these otherwise stale and repetitive tunes sound. But can
the band keep up their hype if they begin to release more original compositions? Are fans just
looking for another hip remix of a famous pop classic or a taste of Dirty Loops unique song-
writing abilities?
The band announced upcoming original material some months ago. The ultimate test will
be whether this material can overshadow their debut cover hits and propel them beyond the cool
cover-band status. It will be a tragedy if audiences continue to look for more rearrangemments of
cringe-worthy pop tunes rather than new compositions. The excitement may indeed be more
about the bands extraordinary ability to revitalize cruddy pop tunes. Certainly, true fans that
have followed the band since their videos went viral on YouTube expect killer originals.
Dirty Loops has already proven themselves in terms of individual musicianship and
creative potential. The question stands whether they can excel the expectations and develop a
substantial repertoire of their own material. The success of their material will speak to the
general sensibility of the modern audience toward pure, jazz and fusion oriented creations. It will
no longer be about how dope they can make Rihannas Rude Boy sound.
The pop music scene may be heading towards an era where musicianship trumps cheap
aesthetics, stage antics, shallow lyrics and power chords. More importantly, this change can
revitalize the music industry by stressing the role of the musician over the pretty boy or girl with
the most marketable image. It may even help raise older genres like jazz from the dead and offer
them a critical role in this music revolution.
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Or, bands like Dirty Loop may just serve as a catalyst for more musical mediocrity,
giving the industry an incentive to put out million-dollar hits just to give these bands a raison
dtre.

Caravan Palace:
No one would have thought that the melodies of French gypsies would be popularized by
electronic music. The use of ethnic melodies in popular music, however, is quite common.
Jenifer Lopez hit On the Floor, uses the melody from the popular Brazilian tune the
Lambada as the main hook. Listeners can easily recognize these age-old melodies. Caravan
Palace goes for the same idea, but with melodies akin to those of the gypsy subcultures in
European. But rather than helping the music of the gypsies find a place in popular music,
Caravan Palace throws these melodies awkwardly into the mix. The melodies do not ring
throughout their pieces, drowned out by less authentic instrumentals created by the band
members and other riffs that have no relevance to the gypsy melodies. At best, whatever
presence Caravan Palace has in the electronic music scene will be short-lived because the
strategy of implementing ethnic melodies to add a flavor to otherwise average songs has been
done to death.
Rather than complimenting the gypsy melodies with the electronic sounds, Caravan
Palace lazily integrates them in their compositions. While the brief trills, acoustic
embellishments and solos are cool, they come and go without any significant impact on the
music. Ironically, these few seconds where the band highlights the gypsy motifs are arguably the
best, proving that Caravan Palace should reverse their compositional approach from passively
using the gypsy sounds to actively working around them. Otherwise, the few memorable
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moments in their songs will quickly dissipate into the average, uninspiring electronic loops.
Their watered down, diluted versions of these gypsy tunes do not work.
Rather than trying to absorb or abuse the sound of this music subculture, Caravan Palace
should embrace it. Although gypsy music may be far less popular than the electronic-oriented
pop, it is far more unique and enjoyable. Actually, the tunes that demonstrate the more involved
use of these gypsy motifs prove to be their best.
Their tune Je Mamuse demonstrates the sharp dip in quality that their compositions
take when the electronic noises drown out the gypsy melodies. The first minute of the tune is
sweet, subtle, and pleasantly modern. The rhythm swings in the gypsy-jazz fashion, the violin
hums the old Parisian themes stylishly accompanied by electronic backbeats until the grungy
synth sounds engulf the melody and kill the lively swing feel. Je Mamuse quickly turns into a
tasteless dub-step imitation with only a fraction of the cultural charm the tune exhibited.
Much like in Dirty Loops, Caravan Palace showcases an exceptional batch of musicians.
The current band line-up, consisting of Sonia Fernandez Velasco on vocals and clarinet, Arnaud
Vial on guitar, Hugues Payen on violin, Camille Chapelire on clarinet, Charles Delaporte on
double bass, and Antoine Toustou on the mixer and trombone has a chemistry that is difficult to
achieve with a larger band especially with a unique and challenging style of music. The members
exhibit the rare ability to stay out of each others way, leaving room to make their individual
contributions to each song and thus broadening the creative palette of the tunes. After Payen
throws in a tasty riff on his violin, Vial responds with intricate gypsy waltz phrases on guitar. All
the while, Delaporte backs them on bass according to the groove of the moment, the statement
that the other band members try to make and the overall mood of the composition. But the
artistic direction that the band chose to go for fails to make the best use of their talents.
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Caravan Palace will not likely start any trends in the popular music scene unless they
clean up their act. The band needs to focus their direction to have a hope of making a lasting
impression on the music scene and becoming a stronger force in the electronic music revolution.
Ultimately, listeners and critics will determine how the electronic revolution will conclude, the
path that pop music will take and where bands like Caravan Palace will stand when the standards
for this genre have been set. Regardless of what happens to this movement, listening to good
music will always be an art of its own.
















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Works Cited:

Caravan Palace. Self Titled. 2008. CD.
"Dirty Loops." Myspace.com. Web. <http://www.myspace.com/dirtyloopsswe>.