this won’t make sense to some of the people who are reading this, but i just finished listening
to ‘rhapsody in blue’ from start to finish and i’m convinced it’s the best thing
ever written and recorded in the history of things written and recorded.
i bought my first vinyl copy of ‘rhapsody in blue’ when i was 13, and i’ve never gone for a month
without listening to it.
our generation most likely won’t leave much of a cultural stamp, and that’s heartbreaking.
not to sound like a cranky old guy, but where is anything that we’ve done that’s even remotely
comparable to ‘rhapsody in blue’?
and before you dismiss me as a crank, go listen to ‘rhapsody in blue’ and then go listen
to anything recorded in the last, oh, 40 years and tell me that it’s in any way comparable.
or go listen to anything recorded in this century that even dares to hold the hem of ‘rhapsody
in blue.’
dismiss me with evidence, but don’t dismiss me as just a crazy old crank drinking brooklyn
lager and listening to george gershwin.
really, go listen to it, start to finish. and then listen to top 40 pop radio for 15 minutes.
if i were objective and dispassionate and able to objectively assess our music compared
and contrasted to and with george gershwin’s ‘rhapsody in blue’ i would make
the following simple pronouncement/statement: we suck, and i’m certainly not exempting myself.
my work compared to ‘rhapsody in blue’? nothin’.
in ‘rhapsody in blue’ there’s nuance and complexity and subtlety and bombast and about
1,000 different musical vernaculars all exuberantly fighting for primacy with one another.
and the end result is fucking flawless, from start to finish. even when it lags it’s still confident
with where it’s going to end up. 12 minutes in? sure, it starts to meander, but so full of
life and confidence, that the lagging is filled with pregnant anticipation.
and the orchestral bombast contrasted with the delicate piano passages? fu…u…ck.
flawless. it’s like orgasms made out of chocolate and vicodin.
you might think i’m nuts, waxing absurdly rhapsodic about ‘rhapsody in blue’, but go listen to it, start
to finish. listen. it’s so fucking good. as i said, the best piece of music ever written and recorded.
ok, that’s all.
goodnight,
moby
