EVERY GENRE PROJECT - May 4 - Big Music
Genre of the Day - Big Music
Album of the Day - This Is The Day by The Waterboys (1985)
May 4, 2024
I can concur with my personal belief that the UK produces some of the most creative, forward-thinking minds in the popular music landscape. So many British musical figureheads are able to explain their music in such an analytical, birds’-eye view, but manage to combine a broad understanding with on-the-ground creativity. I could listen to some of my personal British favorites like Sade Adu, George Michael, and Paul McCartney talk about music all day. It doesn’t always have to be profound: Adele’s quote “It’s about divorce, babes” when talking about her album 30 sticks with me just the same. There’s also times when that type of inquisitive speak about music veers into the pretentious (Matty Healy, though I love The 1975). Today’s genre toes that line, and how you feel about that really depends on your enjoyment of the music, I suppose.
The term big music is a lot to shoulder. So what’s exactly big about it? As with many niche British rock genres, Big Music was vaulted into existence by a single band. Actually, it was with just one song by a particular band. The Waterboys, who I’d like to imagine dreamt up their compositions on waterbeds, released the song “The Big Music” in 1984. This ambitious, outlandish bid at rock distinction actually worked, as music critics actually started referring to their sound as well as the sound of adjacent bands as Big Music.
The largesse of that sound came from the green expanses that inspired traditional Celtic music, with the influences of a couple huge rock movements to add that extra oomph and go truly big. It added post-punk jangly grandeur, the across-the-pond patriotism of heartland rock, and a touch of new wave poppiness to make it extra anthemic. My guess is the intention in blowing up their songs with so many stirring, massive elements would make these songs endure for long beyond a few years. And many did: U2 was grouped into big music before breaking off to other flavors of alternative rock and Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is more of a lasting staple than the song for which the genre was named. So The Waterboys did cause a massive ripple effect in rock music.
The album begins with the blare of Spanish horns to situate the listener in an arena-sized sonic world, before the opening song gives way to maximalist jangly, sax-infused new wave. “The Whole of the Moon” is their most streamed song, and seemed to elicit the most excitement from my RYM compatriots, many of whom deemed it the only song to transcend to Big. It features instantly-memorable, Joel-esque piano riffs as lead singer Mike Scott lyrically reaches for the celestial plane. Replacing the piano riffs, Celtic strings swoop in on “The Pan Within”; it’s still spacious, while shrunk down just a tad. It occasionally falters such as the downright clunky “Old England”, which tries to convey the withering of the British empire through lyrics as vague as “where criminals are televised / politicians fraternized / journalists are dignified.” Besides that, the album does achieve an exuberant, multilayered sound that I feel Big aptly describes, and Scott infuses it with vocal gusto such as on the blues shake of “Be My Enemy” and starry-eyed lyrics. So try it on for size yourself.