Today's Lesson: Smug Literary Allusions

If there's an overarching bias in music, it has to at least partly involve tone. Simply take a lyric like "baby I feel so bad." If it's sung by Taylor Swift or Britney Spears, it sounds trite. If it's sung by the likes of Aimee Mann or PJ Harvey, it's lauded for its simplicity. If Bob Dylan sings a stream of conscious rant, it may be perceived as another great literary achievement in songwriting, but if those words were lifted and put on a Collective Soul album, critics could easily bash the band for trying too hard to be profound.

I'm as guilty as anyone regarding this show of discrimination. My basic defense usually falls back on the fact that an artist has paid their dues and repeatedly impressed. I also take into account the context of the lyric.

Case in point for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the song "We Call Upon the Author." It's from his excellent CD Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

Cave has been known to be quite the intense fellow, so his latest album with the Bad Seeds came as a surprise because of its liberal use of humor. I usually like to line up Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! alongside another band who is big into literary composition: The Dirty Projectors. In the liner notes of that band's last album, Bitte Orca, there is a photo of the band's cagey frontman Dave Longstreth staring into the eyes of Nietzsche. The photo was ridiculous, ripe for parody. The same can be said for the album, an example of Brooklyn hipsterdom run a mock.

As much as Bitte Orca grates me, I can't help admit that I gave Nick Cave a pass for pulling a similar trick throughout Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! That album is rich with literary references that if done by any upstart indie band, I would most likely dismiss as woefully pretentious. But it fits Cave perfectly. Why? Most likely because Cave has the luxury of amassing years of credibility. But even if Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! was his debut album, I could still give his literary references a pass because they're so damn funny. A band like Dirty Projectors may sing about reading Bukowski on a rooftop. Cave just shouts the bastard down.

Bukowski was a jerk, Berryman was the best

He wrote like wet paper maché but he went the Hemingway

Could an artist other than Nick Cave get away with writing a lyric like that without sounding pretentious? Probably. Could any other artist do it with such a shit-eating grin? Likely not.

We Call Upon The Author - Nick...