The Canonization of Music: From Breath to Bottled Lightning

Two Different Viewpoints

can·on¹

/ˈkanən/

noun

1.

a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged.

“the appointment violated the canons of fair play and equal opportunity”
2.

a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine.

“the formation of the biblical canon”

A Letter to Alan Cross

Alan,

I need help with this:

What would you consider the song that has the most purely canonized ‘this is the version of the song’?

By which I mean:

A song where no one thinks that they sort of prefer the live version instead of the canon version (so no Hotel California).

A song that is exactly as long as it is, to the second. So, nothing that’s had a radio edit (no Meatloaf) They will notice a bar is missing, let alone ten. (Sorry Rage against the Machine).

It came at a time when everyone’s stereos were good enough that they had stereo FM systems in their cars good enough that the average person couldn’t differentiate it from the original pressing. (So, sorry Steely Dan).

It was at least as good as actually seeing the performance live, if not better (heresy, but I’m going somewhere with this).

Don’t get me wrong; a recorded live performance could fit as The Version; see Summertime and Janis. Definitive. But not canon.

So; what’re we looking for?

We’re looking for songs that everyone would notice if something was…. off.

The Canon Version.

Most people don’t notice when God Only Knows is mysteriously mixed in stereo.

No one cares when Pearl Jam replaces their radio singles of their entire first breakthrough album with a new drummer 20 years later.

No one cares. ‘Wait a second; that’s not Dave Krusen, that’s Matt Cameron, what’s going on here?’

So what’s canon?

Certainly not Nine Inch Nails, who’ve found a way to release entire albums that include twelve songs, representing only about three in total.

Not November Rain, which always gets cut on the radio.

We live in a world where my favourite version of Fiona Apple’s ‘Extraordinary Machine’ doesn’t exist; I only have it because it was leaked and saved on my hard drive and has since been replaced by corporate bullshit, or, depending who you ask, her real actual true vision.

Bear with me, we’re getting to my thesis.

We used to live in a world where you only heard music once. That way, that one time, and then it was gone, fleeting.

Then the gramophone. And suddenly, single moments in time were captured. Replayed. You might not have afforded yourself the luxury of going to see Billy Holiday but damn if she wasn’t on the radio, if you listened to the right station, in the right neighborhood.

You could argue that Robert Johnson is canon; that we’d be lucky to have a single song and he’d still be canon. And yet, scientists and audio engineers have ‘proved’ his recordings ran off speed, giving him that weird otherworldly sound. So, apparently, even his collected works of what? 23 songs? Not canon either.

Ok. What is my point? What is my thesis?

For a long time, a fucking long time, music was breathing and moving and being bored and never captured. Lightning in the sky, unexpected and mesmerising.

Then Edison built the technology to start putting lightning into that bottle.

Then all through the 1900s, white men, academic men, (or dropouts working for Rolling Stone), Lester Bangs, zines, ‘No, THIS is the definitive version of this Grateful Dead’ jam, and we got carried away with defining, with capturing that one moment.

So, here’s my question, Alan. What song was the crazy crest of the perfection, the thesis, of the canon version of a song?

I was gonna say Smells Like… Easy. Obvious. Everyone would know if you replaced one piece of that song.

But you know what a better example is? What I’m really talking about here?

That fucking vocal crack in Gimme Shelter. That song can’t live without it, and you’ll never replicate it. That’s Canon. And I’m not even a Stones fan.

So… My thesis?

We went from music can’t be captured, to the gramophone in the late 1800s, to experimenting all through the 1900s, and then developing a shared ‘understood’ language, a canon, and it culminated in the one vocal crack. A woman in a nightgown pulled out of her apartment in the middle of the night, probably paid twenty dollars, and sent home. THAT was the crest of the wave.

Then came hip hop, sampling, remixes, entire acts who dance all night in front of pre programmed computers and don’t press a single button (bless them), remasters, extended cuts, reimaginings, musicals mixed out of medleys in Dolby 5.1 mashups, and then a complete splintering of the very idea that you could go out and buy a couple dozen books about rock history 1920-1990 and feel like you captured it, like you were educated, like your record collection was well curated and you were awesome enough to love Joy Division but understood the Sex Pistols were a boy band.

The Canon existed for a very brief time, and the best thing we got out of it was John Cusack’s finest film.

What’s interesting about Spotify is that the gramophone is more modern than Spotify.

The gramophone created the box, and created the system, and created ‘oh but you don’t have THIS single?’.

Now we can say ‘Fuck you I torrented that shit, uploaded it to SoundCloud, and now your song has been sampled more times than ‘Genius of Love’ ever will be (sorry David Byrne), and I ain’t paying you shit, Spotify. No one owns canon anymore’.

I’ll buy me a t-shirt and join that band’s Patreon though.

So: Alan. What song do you think is canon?

Curtis

Chat GPT Version

Music has been a form of expression that has eluded capture for centuries. It was once a fleeting and ephemeral experience, until Edison invented the gramophone in the late 1800s, capturing single moments in time to be replayed. The gramophone paved the way for the canonization of music in the 1900s, with white academic men, dropouts working for Rolling Stone, and Lester Bangs, among others, trying to define the “definitive version” of songs.

However, the canonization of music reached its peak with the iconic vocal crack in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” That song can’t live without that crack, and it’s impossible to replicate. That’s the canon. The vocal crack, that moment of pure raw emotion, is what made it the crest of the wave of canonization.

Then came hip hop, sampling, remixes, and acts that perform in front of pre-programmed computers. The idea of a well-curated record collection and the notion of capturing the essence of rock history from 1920 to 1990 was completely splintered. The canon existed for a brief time and the best we got out of it was John Cusack’s classic film.

With the advent of Spotify, the gramophone is becoming more modern, creating a new box and system. But with the ability to upload music to SoundCloud and the option to torrent, the idea of a “definitive version” is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The canonization of music is no longer about capturing lightning in a bottle, but rather, it’s about experiencing it in the moment.

In conclusion, the canonization of music has come a long way since the breathless moments of pure raw emotion to bottled lightning. The brief existence of the canon and the iconic vocal crack in “Gimme Shelter” will always be remembered as a testament to the peak of this journey.