My Mainstream Moment

On my Facebook page I like to have the "Favorite Music" and "Favorite Books" section of my profile reflect what I'm listening to at the moment, rather than my all-time bests. My tastes and fits of swooning shift too frequently for the latter. During my most recent update several days ago, when I substituted Blackstreet's "No Diggity," Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" and Bruce Springsteen's "My Hometown" for Real Estate, Stars and the Dismemberment Plan, I looked up and realized more than half of my favorite music were multiplatinum, ultra-mainstream musicians. Shock of all shocks! What happened to annoyingly elitist standards?

I think this shift happened because I increasingly like production standards. In "Landslide," the bass notes are so crisp and wonderful and in "No Diggity," the piano chords sway so fluidly, as though they're not piano keys, that they're impossible not to appreciate. There's something wonderful to be said for hearing each note exactly as it's meant to be heard, lo-fi production be damned. There's no reason to ignore a hook when it's staring you in the face, especially when it's those piano chords of "No Diggity," which no one can resist, even the most reticent of dancers.

Pop songs aren't inherently vapid because they're pop songs, either. In "You Can Call Me Al," from Paul Simon's "Graceland," also listed on my Facebook page these days because of its sheer brilliance as an album, the verses' lyrics are genuinely moving. They're just hidden by a non-sequitur of a rhyming chorus ("If you be my bodyguard / I can be your long-lost pal..."), a simple horn part that lends itself well to a harmony, a needlessly showy bass breakdown and a catchy music video starring Chevy Chase (which is above). A friend tells me that Jens Lenkman sometimes covers the song live, sans chorus, because he also appreciates the song's words and thinks the chorus only interferes. Lenkman knows what he's talking about. When Simon ends the song, singing about the lost tourist who "sees angels in the architecture / spinning in infinity / hallelujah," his melody jumps a few notes on "Hallelujah," as though the beauty of the world is sometimes too much bear. Simon's right about that.

Update: And my Facebook page's musical preferences are now all snobbish again.