“Through Being Cool”: A Nerd’s Guide to Pop Music*

Medulla,
I think you hit this subject on the head with the approach that prog rock and vocoder-laden electronica are the staples of nerd music. Yes’s “Close to the Edge” is another 12-minute prog odyssey guaranteed to tape up the bridge of your glasses. The bands Daft Punk and Air are particularly tasty in their use of vocoder and other electronics. The soundtrack to the film “Moog” and anything by the Moog Cookbook make your Differential Equations homework seem like a Thursday night kegger. Probably the greatest example of vocoder use comes in the form of Wendy Carlos’s take on Beethoven 9th Symphony, 4th movement. It’s not pop, but required listening for nerds. In the vein of Pop Music proper, I think the likes of Weezer, the Rentals, and early Fountains of Wayne can join nerd forces with They Might Be Giants. Finally, in my opinion the epitome of nerd music is…. Meco’s “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk” album. There you will find 15+ continuous minutes of Star Wars themes set to disco, not the weak 4-minute radio edit. This album’s two tracks should be the music for the all night dance-a-thon at next year’s Sweater Party.

Steve-

Would you like to get married?

I’m with you on all of this stuff!

“Close to the Edge” is fabulous stuff. Oh, man! I still get goosebumps when that huge pipe organ comes in about 2/3 of the way through the piece.

Don’t get me started with Moog Cookbook! Right on with Air and Daft Punk exploiting the vocoder, too. I forgot about those two.

I think Weezer gets admitted into the nerd rock annals on a provisional basis because of Rivers’ self-deprecating lyrics and Buddy Holly look. However, there are moments when they flat-out RAWK like regular rockers–for instance “Say It Ain’t So,” and various songs off Maladroit and the Green album. I can’t think of specifics right now.

I’m not intimately familiar with Wendy/Walter Carlos, but she/he has been on my check-out list for years.

Is that Meco album recent or really old? I seem to remember hearing disco Star Wars on the radio when I was a little kid.

Any reason for differentiating between early and current Fountains of Wayne? I’m a fan of all of it. “I celebrate their entire catalog.”

Two other thoughts about “Bein’ Green” and Kermit that didn’t really fit in the article, but are amusing to me nonetheless:

1) Have you ever thought about the logistics of Jim Henson’s singing as Kermit? Singing is work enough, but singing a whole song in a muppet voice? That’s tough work! I wonder how many takes it required.

2) Have you ever considered the logistics of getting Kermit to ride the bike while singing “Rainbow Connection” in the The Muppet movie? It’s not like his legs were heavy enough to move the pedals. I haven’t seen that movie in ages, but I wonder how they created the illusion of Kermit riding the bike, (while SINGING, nonetheless.)

First of all, yes, I’d get married.

The Meco record was released in 1977. It’s the only movie soundtrack to hit #1 on the pop charts. I went to a traveling exhibit on disco a couple of years ago that named “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk” one of the top 10 reasons that disco died. It was ahead of “Disco Duck.”

I feel like there was a definite shift in the “radiation vibe” between Utopia Parkway and Welcome Interstate Managers when FOW went from nerd pop to mainstream pop. While many nerds can relate to pining over Stacy’s mom in the form of Rachel Hunter, so can every other guy with a pulse. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy their new stuff, too. It’s just not exclusive to nerd-dom anymore.

The Wendy/Walter Carlos phenomenon is truly a heartwarming story. Walter Carlos was a musician/scholar who was friends with one Bob Moog in the early days (60s). They helped each other out on various projects, bouncing ideas and music off of one another. When Moog finally perfected his musical behemoth, Walter capitalized on it. He interpreted the works of J.S. Bach through the Moog synthesizer and some groundbreaking recording techniques in the days before computer recording or MIDI sequencing. The result was the 1968 CBS Records release of “Switched-On Bach,” the first to offer classical music to the pop-loving public. This album gained enormous popularity staying in the top 40 for 17 weeks. It sold over 500,000 copies and went platinum ironically making this all-electronic project the best-selling classical album in history. Many people, however, do not know either the name Walter or Wendy Carlos. At the time of Switched-On Bach’s release, Walter was undergoing a gender change. He was taking hormones and I believe had some of the cosmetic surgery required. Thus, he stayed far from any press or limelight, proving that 1) avoiding the public eye can be done and 2) a record made of very good music that can stand on its own two feet will be recognized. Wendy Carlos went on to have success recording subsequent classical Moog albums and composing film scores; among them are A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron. She is also an amateur astronomer and is fascinated with eclipses.

http://www.wendycarlos.com

What an interesting life. I just reserved Switched On from the library. This all reminded me that one of my dad’s cassettes, “Switched On Classics,” was in heavy rotation when I was in junior high. That, and Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.”

I agree with what you’re saying about Fountains Of Wayne, they seem to have…I don’t know if “matured” is the right word…but I notice a common theme of office work on Welcome…and I wonder if that is a specifically nerdy topic. Granted, all kinds of people work office jobs, but how many of them are inspired to sing about it? I guess in comparison to other common subjects in pop songs, that’s way over there on the nerd continuum.

Anyway, there are some really beautiful moments on that album, it’s one of my favorites by any group. I’m blown away by the ballad-ey type of stuff: “Hackensack,” “All Kinds of Time,” “Halley’s Waitress,” “Fire Island.” I would kill for their melodic gift.