Power Dynamics and Creative Archetypes within bands (was Radiohead vs. Beatles)

Tarden... whoa, you're gonna beat the unmentionable DP for most successive posts in a row there.

With regard to Fleetwood Mac, maybe there should be another archetype- the Mastermind, or The Power Behind The Throne. Other examples don't spring immediately to mind, but I know they are there.

And your dictator phenomenon is clear evidence of why these band dynamics are so *important* to the continued development of a band- that the conflicts and frictions between talents create interest as much as the talents themselves. Even with the name still in place, but the contrary voices sacked, the cracks are starting to show. Simply the idea of having to live up to the legacy of a band's name may still have whatever it takes to provide the conflict which leads to interesting music. Or maybe people get nostalgic and are willing to be more forgiving, just because the name is there.

Case in point- a band like The Verve. They started on the Beatles group dynamic, with McCabe and Ashcroft pulling in different directions, yet balancing each other. By the last album, when Ashcroft's dictator tendencies were starting to show, and the session players were being brought in, the magic was already starting to go, but the shadow of McCabe still hung enough over the material to give it some spark.

Also works with the original dictator example of the Velvets- to my ears, neither Cale's nor Reed's nor Nico's nor Tucker's solo materials, though still they are good and solid and sometimes even classic- none of them have quite the *power* as when all those talents were working in opposition to one another. By Loaded, the magic was already gone- but the name was still there, so people will still listen to that abysmal record.

Dual Axis- of *course* they can be seen while still in operation, they are probably the easiest to spot while in operation, simply by looking at the song credits. If you see a Morrissey/Marr style dichotomy on every track, you can bet there is a Dual Axis at work. Dual Axes who split into two separate dictators are the most interesting splinters, to me, though it's interesting to see who will have the most successful career of them- both Bjork and Jason Pierce came as surprises to people. I remember when Spacemen3 split, everyone had thought that Sonic Boom was the brains behind the operation, and Pierce the sideman- yet Pierce's Dictator side project because so successful that it dwarfed the band which spawned it.

Interesting that RickyT brings up Throwing Muses and the Pixies, bands in both cases, where the "little sister" (literally, in one case) ended up having the initially far more lucrative and successful solo projects. For a while, I thought Tanya Donnelly was the maddest woman in pop, leaving first Throwing Muses, then The Breeders, like she was determined to be the Richard Hell of 4AD. And then Belly went Top 40...

Anyway, I think Paul wants his dinner now... ;-)

Maybe there should be a Vampire dynamic?

This aspects alone would have made the Velvets a "group", rather than a dictatorship- though it was the presence of individual artists in their own right (Cale, Nico) that made them the quintessential "collective" in the early years.

And Insistution- you mean in the "Assylum" sense? Hmmm, as in the Arkestra type of group, obviously invented by Sun-Ra, but currently evidenced by the rag-tag band of escapees that is Primal Scream at the moment... interesting archetype, yes definitely.

Yes, without Morrison and Tucker no VU sound. I was talking about who was the power within the group. If Lou didn't like it you didn't do it and he was notorious for berating band members.

Tarden mentions F.Mac but not one important thing with the Mac: who was fucking who; who controlled who off-stage. (Key issue also with Abba...)

VU: Cale in his book sidles up to but then back away from the big Factory rumour in 66, that he and Reed were junkie-lovers. That book is SO abt rage at betrayal.

Beatles: think I mentioned this over on Courtney-Love, where, ahem, other topix held sway. Lennon-McCartney vs Lennon- Epstein, Lennon-McCartney vs Lennon-Ono, Lennon-Spector vs Lennon-Ono. Lennon = Mr Triangle.

(To risk the wrath of Neuro, wheresoere he be, male fans are hatefully jealous towards eg Yoko or Courtney because GUESS WHO GETS TO FUCK THEIR IDOL!! The weird girl or the sad fanboy? For flip on this cf Sylvia Plath fans re Ted Hughes...)

Nick Kent once said an interesting thing — perhaps the only? — abt Roxy Music: a strong group because they had THREE FRONTMEN, just like the Rolling Stones. This is long ago, and I can't now recall who the three might have been in his mind (tho presumably not Eddie Jobson/Mick Taylor). Is this at all true? (Seems a pity to allow NK not a SINGLE insight to call his own, after 50 years as a Rock Crit Supremo...)

Re: Pistols. Steve Jones when young not articulate in interview (too shy to try), and widely taken to be just a yob-idiot. Well, bollocks, to coin a phrase: the great seducer, the Sex Addict, the group's founder... Just cz someone doesn't put across in the press doesn't mean they don't have HUGE presence behind closed studio doors.

RAW SPICE: One of the reasons I think they were somewhat agin this surfacing is because the dynamic of behind-closed-doors does actually grind against the sold-on dynamic of the image. (I think they were wrong to be nervous at all: it rekindled my interest, esp.the entire story of the not-so- evil shafted first manager who went on to nurture POPSTARS! Hurrah!!)

The reservation I have with Kate's list is that I think it gives priority to a formal property [the creative-shape w/o the actual historical names]: actually I think avatars and archetypes gain as much from the true- story of who did it first, and what they did with it. eg suppose we [for sake of argt] accept that (as Omar said on the original thread) Radiohead = Waters-era Floyd (in dynamic if not in sound), then part of what looms, consciously or not, in Radiohead's own idea of their own story, is how they might want to do the PF thing and NOT FUCK UP or GO CRAP. Part of the Anxiety of Influence includes the Will to Complete the Precursor's Arc (so as to absorb/efface him...).

(And not it's not JUST abt "hims": Destiny's Child seek to absorb/efface the Pointer Sisters AND Labelle — to take the earlier project and make it theirs, to turn s/he who has priority into a mere bodged pre-echo...)

Phil Manzanera, I'd presume? If for no other reason than he's the only non-Bri(y)an Roxy I can usually name off the top of my head.

Another thought -- when the dictators/totalitarians clash (or collaborate), à la Hitler and Stalin or Mao and Pol Pot. I'm thinking specifically of the Zappa/Beefheart connection here, but I'm sure that there are others that escape me at the moment.

Other stuff -

Public Enemy are an interesting case because the dual axis is so tilted in one person's favour but it's still a dual axis: it's more like a binary star, or a King Lear model of a pop group - Flav is essential to ground Chuck (and group declines artistically when *Flav*, not Chuck, hits personal bad patch). XTC might be another example of this.

Hip-hop - does it work differently to rock, because social relations within and between crews are so central to the whole thing?

Kate (and Paul!) - on the same lines would very very very much like some personal insight into how group dynamics impact on a scene where nobody yet is famous eg. the London indie one, for instance. Names can be changed to protect the innocent.

Yes, sex is central, both in the band and in the fan-star relationship and in the way records are consumed and heard. This is what inhabiting songs is all about - the commingling of you/the singer/the song/your love object/their love object etc etc

Amazed nobody's mentioned the Manics yet. And indeed the way rupture can tilt group dynamics - Nicky Wire and Barney Albrecht are more fascinating figures than Richey and Ian Curtis because they get anxiety-of-influence forced upon them (and then some): the expectation to follow/be/rebel against/replace/erase/honour the departed.

There should have been a "theoretically" in the Nicky Wire sentence, I think. He's not actually interesting no.

Anybody who disparages a drummer doesnt know much about how bands work. The drummer is probably the least recognized and undervalued part of any *great* band. Bottom line is that the drummer controls the tempo and groove of a band in a live situation. He is the guy that is holding it all together. Think of Mo Tucker, Stephen Morris, Stuart Copeland, or Keith Moon; switch them around and you have completely different bands, the feel changes entirely...

btw, no I am not a fustrated drummer. I just know what separates good bands from great ones.

The other issue is Kraftwerk as a Machine: Why do rock people automatically assume that electronic projects are completely devoid of personality because there is not a some skinny dork crying about a failed romance? The facade of Kraftwerk is just that, a facade. If anything, Kraftwerk are somewhere between a dual partnership and a dictatorship. Ralph comes up with the ideas and bounces them off of Florian.

Devo, Orbital, Autechre or Boards Of Canada go through the same process that rock musicans do, it is just marketed differently to different audiences. The social aspect of writing rock music and writing electronic music is not a radically different process, the surface of things might be different but the underlying structures are very much alike. You are still dealing with other people and the same dynamics arise whether you are using guitars or laptops.

still, this is a very interesting thread. The creative relationships between members of a musical project have such a huge bearing on how the music turns out.

having said all that, i'll tackle a specific band example just to contradict myself. regarding the radiohead q in the original question: i remember reading a thom yorke quote somewhere that was something to this effect, "we work like the UN...and i'm america." charming? sinister?

REVIVE ?

I love this thread

Aye, this thread is amazing.

Just discovered this thread - love it.

Another dynamic not discussed above is the sort of "revolving door" - where there seems to be one bandleader/dictator steering the ship, then he leaves, then one of the other dudes steps forward and holy shit he's a genius/dictator too. Then he leaves and another guy steps forward. Two main examples: Pink Floyd and the Byrds, probably others.

I'd write a big long post about the changing power dynamic of Embrace over the years, but no one would read it...

I'm quite interested in what I'll call the Neurotic Driving Force,the Damon Albarn, the Chris Martin; someone who writes most of the music but not all, and does so in collaboration with the rest of the band, and who the band wouldn't exist without.

Sonic Youth has that dynamic.

I get the idea that Bono's one, too,and if he didn't bully the others into making a new record,they'd have stopped years ago. But the fucker can't. let. go. Why not?

Damon Albarn, Chris Martin and Bono? Not a great advert for the Neurotic Driving Force?

Exactly! Danny McNamara's one too, and the most interesting one for me because he's had decreasing influence on the actual music at various points, yet still can't. fucking. stop.

i dunno- bono is the lyricist but u2 would appear to be a band where everyone has a fair amount of creative input to the finished product.

Adam Clayton? Creative?

(shags the groupies, takes the drugs, and not much more.)

U2 famously split songwriting royalties equally, regardless of creative input

i think i'd recognise a clayton bassline ahead of a bono lyric. but anyway, the edge is hardly just the guy that picks out bono's riffs.

i think i'd recognise a clayton bassline ahead of a bono lyric

Difficult to know which is worse

I perhaps didn't phrase things as well as I could; the Neurotic Driving Force may be the most creative member of a band, but needn't be; songwriting and creative input may be equal, but the NDF is still the one who makes the band exist, and necessarily hogs the limelight as a result, even if they themselves aren't especially talented. So Bono, I'd suggest, fits perfectly.

I'd be interested in parsing the dynamics of relations between bands / artists and producers, too.

What to call the collective of four songwriters all pulling in roughly the same musical direction? Like Teenage Fanclub.

Also, 10cc were an interesting variation with four individual authors that could sort of be groups into two different pairs (Godley & Creme being the "artistic" pair while Stewart/Gouldman were the "catchy pop songs" pair)