Soured cream

No, the cream does NOT always rise to the top. It might seem obvious to some, but the most famous musicians are not the best musicians, and I’ll tell you what, many of them don’t even know “all the chords”.

Whilst studying music and sharing lodgings with the usual hotchpotch from other faculties, a flat-mate made some comment about the then-Oasis lead guitarist which led to a troubling discussion.

“Hang on, so, you’re saying you’re a better guitarist than Noel Gallagher?”

I confirmed.

“Alright, then how come he’s sold millions of albums and you haven’t?”

Of course, this wasn’t a discourse at the cutting edge of musical debate, and my learned friend should probably be pitied for his quasi-Pilkington, squashed-worm’s eye view of the world, but it struck me how readily he had plotted a graph of talent against fame where the latter evidently guaranteed that you had the lion’s share of the former. That I might whisper the notion of having a better grasp of an instrument played by someone who has sold records by the truckload - especially when I was only a teenage bedroom-musician with a greasy complexion and a low threshold for snakebite - marked me out (in his eyes) as colossally arrogant.

In reality, being a great guitar player is no guarantee of great song-smithery, and many wonderful songwriters have only a rudimentary grasp of their instrument (sometimes literally). If Noel’s to be celebrated for anything (he doesn’t mind me calling him Noel) then it should be for his songs - and specifically his choruses - but clearly my friend had long since blurred Gallagher’s technical merits and songwriting skills; his fame and his talent, and felt there was no other explanation for this success: he looks like Captain Scarlet, but I guess he must be talented. Surely all these people can’t be wrong?

Much more recently, a work colleague asked me for a CD of songs by bands I had been in. I provided and, knowing the sort of character I was dealing with, wasn’t wholly surprised when the next day he made me his very first port of call, armed with a splurtation of half-baked recommendations and mincing-machine musical cliches which, I’m guessing, were somehow supposed to suggest his deep understanding of the material.

“I just felt at one point you seemed like you were all sort of fighting to do your own bit.” It was intended that I should reluctantly agree to this; a comment I’m sure was derived from some semi-understood or overheard idea about group improvisation which he had tried desperately to recall as soon as he had heard the first non-diatonic chord on the disc. I politely rebuffed the idea and mumbled something about it being more of a nu-soul thing, yet continued to absorb another 10 minutes of full-on mouth-slurry.

The point of my tale is what made me smile during our conversation the next day, when the topic of my former musical exploits arose again. He asked a few questions about the make-up of the bands themselves, and I mentioned that one of the singers he had heard was a full time musician - as we all had been at the time of recording - but now singing with a touring band, playing her own music, playing at festivals and had recently been doing some backing vocals for Pulp. And it was the mention of Pulp that brought about a tangible shift in his perception of what the band was all about, and even how it now sounded to him. All of a sudden there were the first chinks of praise beaming into the room, and an admission that “yeah, I could tell she’s got a good voice”; yes, stuff he could have said the day before but chosen not to, but it was (not really) mysterious how he suddenly found the words for this following the rudimentary revelation that a fifth of the band had performed with Jarvis Cocker. Now, I’ll tell you that she is hugely worthy of her success, but I can categorically confirm that her moments on big stages and approval from celebrities has not miraculously improved her past recordings. They sound the same now as they ever did: good.

Jamie Cullum certainly has his detractors … is a sentence I’ll try and end here. But, I have heard him freely admit that he his not the best pianist or singer in the world, the UK, or any of its cities come to that. He has said that we have music colleges chock-full of talent as great or greater than his own; he just happens to have been in the right places at the right times and someone saw something in him they could sell and sell well. For what it’s worth, I don’t see any harm in Jamie Cullum at all - as opposed to many a jazz-head who seem to view him as some sort of fatal E-number attack on the overactive frontal lobe of John Coltrane’s legacy - but he isn’t the greatest exponent of his instrument. This shouldn’t surprise anyone - it doesn’t surprise him - so it is worth reminding anyone who still harbours some belief that the cream of the crop really is the cream, that the music business is a business and they are giving you the cream they think you want, hoping it will be a long time after it’s been opened before everyone decides it stinks. To bring back Jamie Cullum, I’m not saying he’s off, I’m just saying he might not be the best thing to put in your coffee.

If Music were a football club, you can be sure that there would be a glut of talent in the youth ranks that never makes it to the starting XI and, of course, there are stacks of reasons for that. Sometimes people decide that for all their talent, the climb to success is just way too steep, they decide that this is not something they want to do full time, or find themselves at a time when the club is overflowing with ‘tricky wingers’ and there really isn’t room for one more to come through, i.e. you don’t do something that Music needs right now, but you might have more luck down the road at Retail/Catering or Other Clerical FC. For myself - and I don’t pretend to be any sort of virtuoso or some unearthed gifted songwriter that’s been left to rot in the reserves for way too long - I believe that I have met the sufficient level of talent to be a ‘famous’ musician (this actually means simply that I can hold and strum a guitar) but that what I do on my instrument or in my songs is not something that is necessarily saleable. Like any job, if I applied to work for Music I would surely be asked, what can I offer Music? And frankly, pfft, is my answer. The music business is a business, and I was told that long before I realised what it meant. Talent in your playing is not a key to the director’s office at Music, though a talent for persistence and hard work might allow you to sneak in after hours when no-one is looking. That you can sing louder, play faster or drum harder will not award you anything if Music can’t hang a pound sign on it. The day Music released Crazy Frog was surely the day that talent got a disturbing wake up call. If people will buy that, they will surely buy a turd in a feather boa singing Ten Green Bottles if Music gets its marketing strategy right. Of course, Music is a diverse world and, thankfully, some people will always value musicianship or good composing, and I include plenty of pop music and pop music fans in that. But let’s not kid ourselves that even those people are the only people that could have done it; sometimes they were just the lucky ones, or the ones that could convince a few people, for a short time, that they were as talented as their hype.

As if all cooks were fat, all peasants phlegmatic, all statesmen stately. As if all who love and are loved were beautiful. As if all good speakers had a fine voice.

- Bertolt Brecht

I turned to him as he slurped the foamy head from the top of his freshly poured pint and said, “You know I’m the better guitarist right, Noel?”

“Of couse!” he said, “you know all the fucking chords for a start.”