If you google the words “art and tragedy”, one of the first results to pop up is a post on r/ArtistLounge that asks, “Is tragedy required for being an artist?”. Of course, you probably read that question and thought, “Absolutely not, ya weirdo.” However, depending on who you ask, that answer may vary, despite how unthinkable that notion may be to you. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard ill-fated news about the personal life of an artist I patronize, only to read a comment that crawled out of a festering pit in the dark corner of a forum that says something to the tune of:
“That means the next album is going to be amazing!”
To which I retort, “Does it? And even if it does, why are you stoked about that?”
I could write something brief about this concept on its own, but an off-hand chat with FBC co-founder Matt Drufke about an artist of whom we share similar sentiments spurred a whirlwind of my thoughts, bottled up over decades of music fandom, on the artist-consumer relationship and expectations thereof.
Why do we expect what we expect from artist to artist and band to band? Are we in the right to have any expectations at all? Should we let the knowledge we gain from seeing the skeletons in an artist’s closet sway expectations, good or bad?
For reference, the initial artist that brought on this blabbering is Frank Turner, an English singer songwriter whose main works bridge the gap between folk and punk rock in what I consider to be a more widely-palatable way than most acts that fall under the “folk punk” label. Frank’s music was a staple for me in my greater college years and paved the way to my discovery of bands that make my plethora of playlists what they are today; mostly unbearable to every woman I’ve dated, but very special to me.
I say all of this to express that since the time I was regularly listening to Frank (around 2009-2015), not only have my feelings on Frank’s work faltered in general, Matt and I are of an accord that the records he’s put out since that era have been egregiously inconsistent; so much so that I’ve since phased him out of my regular rotation in favor of other bands that I found through his works. Every album that Frank’s put out since 2013’s Tape Deck Heart that I’ve given chances to has contained one or two songs I like, one or two songs that I vehemently despise, and I end up being indifferent about the rest. He’s dropped albums every couple years since I stopped regularly listening, with his most recent album, Undefeated, dropping last May. I don’t think I’ve given any of the albums after 2018’s Be More Kind more than a passing ear, and honestly, given what the next paragraph has to say, I don’t know how much drive I have to get back on board the Frank train.
Shortly following the release of his last album, it was announced that Frank’s 5 year marriage to actress and musician, Jessica Guise, was ending. As rumblings about Frank re-entering the studio have skittered about various internet forums over the last year, ruminations about what effect the divorce would have on the works swiftly followed. Now, I will preface this by saying that, from what was reported, it seems the divorce is the result of Frank’s behavior on tour. Speculation has labeled “behavior on tour” with plenty of the usual suspects, including a lot of bloodthirsty commenters jumping to the assumption of cheating , but there’s not much more to go off of from what was presented at the time, and there’s been no further info. Whatever it is, I of course say, “Booo, Frank. Shame on you, Frank.”, but I don’t have much more to say on it because 1) I don’t actually know if that’s what happened, as the info that was provided was minimal and the discourse following it was mostly conjecture (and frankly, I was already burned out on him to the point of not caring enough to follow up on it), and 2) if it was cheating, putting cheating on the same level as various forms of assault and harassment has felt strange to me for a long time. Am I wrong for that? I truly don’t 100% know where I stand on it outside of you are free to support or not support whoever, and all I can do in that scenario is have my own opinion. Obviously, cheating is bad. You aren’t going to catch me arguing that. What I’m saying is that if you like an artist who’s worst controversy is an affair, I think I’d have a hard time condemning you with the same fervor I’d condemn someone wearing a “Free Ian Watkins” t-shirt (for the love of god, if you don’t know who he is, do NOT look him up if you’re easily disturbed. Fuckin’ yikes).
However, if we’re being realistic in holding adultery to the same level of condemnation as assault and harassment, we’d have to accept that we’re probably going to run out of artists very quickly. Sadly, while it’s not a requirement, creativity does have a tendency to bloom from trauma, which drives many broken people to the arts. However, until recent years (like, probably way more recent than you think), many creative-types (even greatly-admired famous ones. Go figure.) were much more likely to flop on top of the rush that comes from a scandalous romantic fling than flop onto the chaise lounge in a therapist’s office to soften the blow of that trauma. Unfortunately, that was mostly the norm for a good while. Now, as a creative type, I’ve never cheated and don’t ever hope to, but that doesn’t make me better than those who have. It just means my trauma response manifested as an anxiety that would break me to my core if I even entertained the idea. And sure, promiscuity (or really any negative activity) as a means of coping is starting to become less of a norm as the stigmas of therapy the wider field of mental healthcare start to wane, but there’s a long way to go. Shit, if I had a nickel since starting stand-up for every comic I’ve heard say they won’t go to therapy because they think it’ll “make them not funny anymore”, I’d have enough money to develop the sense to run for the hills and never ponder my god-forsaken medium of choice ever again. Just to reiterate; I am in no way condoning cheating. I am saying, however, if you are pearl-clutching about any particular instance of adultery in the entertainment industry, I’ve got bad news for you. Furthermore, we should all be in fucking therapy, but that’s a much more modern sentiment that it ought have been over the years.
Anyway, I digress. The point I want to dissect is the psychology of how we (or at least I) shape expectations of the music we consume. The last time I tried to give one of Frank’s albums a fully fair shake was 2018’s Be More Kind. There were two songs I got down with, but where as most of the previous albums were just plain old forgettable to me, two songs on Be More Kind made me straight-up angry. I always try to remember that art is subjective and some things just aren’t my cup of tea, but no; these two songs were *bad*. Bad in a way that made me angry. Those two songs were “Little Changes” and “Make America Great Again”. Notably, each of those songs were separately bad for one of two reasons that I realized makes up the criteria I think many hold musical artists to from record to record; sound and lyrics.
Sound
Okay, to start with “Little Changes”, Frank’s band usually sounds like the musical milkshake you’d get by blending up acts like Billy Bragg, Bruce Springsteen, and Descendents. For “Little Changes” however, Frank apparently wanted to switch things up a bit. It resulted in a toy piano-laden soft pop tune about trying to be a little bit better than you were the day before, and frankly, it drove me up a fucking wall. It wasn’t really the lyrics, and it most definitely wasn’t the message (I actually love the message it’s trying to convey). It was just the composition. It caught me off guard in a negative way. I had a visceral reaction to how out of place it felt. Remember when you had to do group slideshow presentations in school? Imagine you are giving a killer presentation about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and a third of the way in, one of your group members added a slide about their favorite kind of cookie. It’s not that I think you shouldn’t have a favorite cookie (I do. It’s the chocolate chip oatmeal cookie at Potbelly), but if you put a slide about it in the slideshow about the Franz Ferdinand assassination, I’m gonna at least be like, “Hey, what the fuck, dude?”
I say all that to pose a bigger question; Why do we expect some bands’ sounds to evolve over every record, and some to never change their formula at all? What is the determining factor in that? And why did I give Frank so much shit for simply trying something? The juxtapose this particular song, I present two bands; The Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket, both fronted by Kody Templeman. I cite these two bands because not only does every Teenage Bottlerocket record sound the same, but every Teenage Bottlerocket record also sounds like every Lillingtons record. When The Lillingtons disbanded and Teenage Bottlerocket formed, Kody and the gang went full “hold my beer” on the concept of “don’t fix what isn’t broken”, and it turns out that Ramones-core leather jacket punk was the thing that wasn’t broken. Unless you were religiously familiar with these two bands, I would bet good money that if I played a playlist of ten random songs from both acts, you wouldn’t be able to mark which songs were by which band. How do I know that? Because I love both of those bands, and even I wouldn’t be able to do it, and despite all of that, I wouldn’t ask Templeton to change a god-damned thing. I love the sound of both bands. Admittedly, my reaction to “Little Changes” was mainly due to an extreme shift in genre, but I think I’d have the same reaction if Teenage Bottlerocket even attempted a song in anything other than 4/4 time, and I fully cannot explain why that is.
On the other hand, let’s take a look at someone like Beck. Beck’s bread and butter is variation in sound and composition, not only between albums, but even between songs on a given album, and people eat that shit up. I don’t follow Beck super closely, but I don’t think I’ve ever had an issue with a song of his. However, for me, this begs several questions; Why does Beck get a pass in my book when Frank doesn’t? Is it simply because Beck set a precedent for doing so? Could Beck ever switch up a song enough to piss someone off the way Frank did for me, or does the fact that he’s constantly making variations make that specific phenomenon impossible? And most importantly; Should I lighten the fuck up about Frank experimenting with “Little Changes”? Much to ponder here.
Lyrics
Where “Little Changes” fell short on sound for me, “Make America Great Again” committed what I believe to be the lyrical equivalent of war crimes that should get one locked in Abu Ghraib. Once again, I have no issue with the message Frank’s trying to convey; I agree with it wholeheartedly! It’s a hopeful folk-rock tune that plays on the infamous MAGA slogan to advocate for ensuring racists don’t feel safe to spew their hatred and making compassion the norm once more. The issue I have with the song, however, is that the previous sentence I just wrote is a paraphrase of the whole fucking chorus:
Let’s make America great again
By making racists ashamed again
Let’s make compassion in fashion again
Let’s make America great again
Like…what the fuck is this horse shit, dude? And before you bring it up: I’m not even going to go into how he just rhymed “again” with “again” four times in a row. Somehow, that’s the least of my issues with this song.
The lyrics for the whole song sound like what a 13-year-old in his first punk band (that will inevitably just sound like Green Day) would think a protest song should sound like, mixed with some hokey “I’ve been all over this great nation” sentiments that only Woodie Guthrie would’ve gotten away with. And you know what? If a 13-year-old wrote this song, I’d be like, “Hell yeah, dude. You tell ‘em.” However, because this song was written by a then 37-year-old grown ass man who I know was at least capable of writing good lyrics at one point in his life, I wanted his head on a pike for it. Why, though? Why did these words that I agree with, fundamentally, give me such a visceral reaction?
Look, I get it. There are much worse artists than Frank who’ve gotten much more commercially successful off of music with terrible lyrics. Trust-fund-backed social media influencers have been doing it for over a decade now, and the Black Eyed Peas did it before them. However, I’m not asking for every song to be drowning in metaphor and deep wordplay either. Believe it or not, for as much as I think the Black Eyed Peas were annoying, I also think Thom Yorke is annoying.
Am I just asking for a modicum of cleverness? Frankly, I don’t even fucking know, because there are also songs with even simpler lyrics that I enjoy. The lyrics to literally every Andrew WK song are just the word “party” being stamped into your forehead until blood starts dripping into your eyes, and I’ll be damned if I’m not ready to party when one starts playing! So again, I ask, why do some artists get a pass where some don’t? And again, most importantly; should I lighten the fuck up about Frank writing “Make America Great Again”? Much to ponder here.
Is there a purpose to me writing this piece? Probably not. Did writing all of this out help me to answer the questions I’ve posed? Not really. I was just talking to my friend and what could have remained a small afterthought steamrolled through my brain and onto this page, and if shit like that is going to get me to submit to Fancy Boys Club more frequently, maybe it’s not the end of the world if I roll with it more often. Perhaps, the questions I’ve posed don’t have a definitive answer. It’s just something I’ve always found fascinating about music and thought others might find it interesting to reflect on too. As for Frank, the only thing I wish for him in 2025 is the same thing I wish for myself and many other creatives in the world: going back to fucking therapy.
Fancy Boys Club 