Seabrook on Low

Reading Seabrook's in-depth analysis of Low, and of the situations surrounding its creation leaves me feeling like I should pick up the violin again.

Reading about Bowie's particular methods for putting his albums together and realizing just how much thought and consideration went into it along with how much improvisation and spontaneity makes it seem, paradoxically, like music theory isn't really needed.

Though talent definitely is.

Talent and technical know how. I never knew there were so many different synthesizers and loopers and devices involved in the album's production. Or that so many were even in existence in the 1970s.

Aside from opening up the world of music producing for me, reading so much of Seabrook's analysis of an album I'm fairly familiar with made me realize that music is the only thing that can be criticized and written of in a technical fashion simultaneously while still appealing to a popular audience.

If book reviewers wrote about how an author uses the subjunctive mood or subordinate clauses, or Oxford commas, most readers would not get much out of their reviews.

Similarly, if video game reviewers included details about the programming language and techniques that a company used to make their game in their reviews most gamers might be intrigued but would likely regard that discussion as irrelevant.

Music (and art, to some degree) is the only thing in which popular criticism can involve technical language that is directly about its subject's creation. What's more, I think including that technical speak does increase the enjoyment of what's being criticized.

Reading Seabrook's song by song breakdown while listening to Low definitely made some things I'd missed much more apparent (like the funeral bell in "Warszawa"). At the same time, though, a little more conviction in his linking the characteristics of Low to Bowie's point and life would be appreciated.