Hi, it seems some of you have the opinion that my views are in the direction HIP Police and that Sting is just doing his won thing without any claims to HIP. Well have a read of this and it seems he has out Hipped me...
Here are some quotes from the Stern interview Hipper than HIP ------------------- "I have heard countertenors, Sopranos and Altos interpret his (Dowlands) songs, but I believe that my interpretation is much closer to to shakespeares time as them, as I sing with a normal voice." STING "Everything that I sing is exactly has he wrote down with his ink" STING THE NORMAL VOICE -------------------- "As crazy as it sounds the big step forward in the rock music was the use of microphones which means we can sing again with normal voices" STING So in the end here we have it he believes that what he is doing is closer than any other singer he has ever heard. It is not just only he owm interpretation it is in his view the closest. He also has this concept of "normal" voice, this is quite ridiculous, every voice is a product of the culture that it lives in. Here is a question I would like to ask him. The singer who would sing Dowland with a "normal" voice would also have sung contrapuntal madrigals. I would like to hear 5 of these "normal voices" singing a 5 voice madrigal by Marenzio, live and without the overdubs he uses on his CD. This concept of a normal voice is weirder than anything the early music world has ever dreamt up. One thing which I find interesting is why sting is not interested in Broadside Ballads, which have in some ways have more in common with pop music. COMPLEX MUSIC ------------------------ "Dowlands music is complex...." "I believe that more complexity in rock music would do it a lot of good" "recently I heard Debussy's music, so refined so complex..." "there is a part of the brain that yearns for complex musical structures" STING It all sounds a bit juvenile, a pop musician who has a bad conscience for playing pop music and now has to prove that he listens and plays complex music. What he says about rock music and complexity shows that apart from not being exactly immersed in renaissance culture he doesn't even know what is happening in the 21st century. Strange that 2 leading rock magazines have the headline "Prog is the new Punk". There are a number of bands in particular "The Mars Volta" that are combining the energy of alternative rock and punk with the complexity and arty quality of 70's rock bands such as Yes or genesis. Funilly enough in one interview they said they loved everything Yes did until they started sounding like the Police with "Owner of a lonely heart". Ironic, that the singer of the police is now saying rock is dying. BIG IN AMERICA ---------------------- Maybe some of you guys in America can tell me when the first performances of Dowland were because Sting says... "In the whole of america his songs were hits, even in America" Now call me an idiot Sgt Early music Police, but in Dowlands lifetime was it possible to have a hit with the population of America? Revolution ------------- He also says that rock music in not revolutionary but that "Stravinsky" was. Didn't he write "Fighting in the neo-classical streets"? FAZIT -------- I have no problem with sting making a "I like Dowland and I will play it just how I like" CD. Good luck to him. But when he starts claiming some sort of "normality" for his voice and proclaiming modern pop culture is over, and that he believes he has the answer to authenticity, while at the same time seeing the early music world as too interlectual (too complex ?) one has to ask if it is his own frustration. A bit like Dowland being frustrated by the younger generation ignoring him, I think one passage that will have a great deal of meaning for Sting in the spoken passages. If this is the case it would be sad if frustration were the voice that gets the most attention for early music in the mainstream press these days. I think in the end this CD is not worth all the fuss that we have and especially I have given it, but the questions it has brought up about the position of early music now, are fascinating. All the best Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
