{"id":1340,"date":"2008-04-02T23:03:39","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T03:03:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-04-02T23:10:23","modified_gmt":"2008-04-02T23:10:23","slug":"failure-for-the-future-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/failure-for-the-future-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Failure for the Future Good?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BJk9ZLjsl3U?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIs there such a thing as a rock &#8216;n roll failure for the future good of rock &#8216;n roll? I&#8217;m not thinking about any undeserved commercial failure that those of us most qualified to judge great music know actually was great (eg, <strong>Captain Beefheart<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Trout Mask Replica<\/em>), but a commonly acknowledged failed attempt at greatness that nevertheless put enough cracks in the wall to allow a few rays of light to shine through. I&#8217;m also not thinking of something like <strong>Wilco<\/strong>&#8216;s <em>Yankee Foxtrot Hotel<\/em>, which is a decent if not failed album that has the perception of having failed because it was rejected by the main label the band was signed to before being shuffled off to a subsidiary of that same label. I&#8217;m asking you, because although I&#8217;m fascinated by the role of failure in great works of art, I&#8217;m not sure that I can think of an album or song that meets these criteria. If I really thought that <strong>The Beach Boys<\/strong>&#8216; aborted <em>Smile<\/em> album led to anything but third-rate versions of second-rate Beach Boys I might have an example to share. Who knows, maybe that one works for you. Maybe there&#8217;s a good example from the <strong>Funkadelic<\/strong> catalog. Those guys put out their share of cosmic slop that others could use for scrap parts.<\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, I&#8217;m going to keep thinking about this. Maybe you will too. Don&#8217;t be offended by the premise that great artists sometimes &#8220;fail&#8221; yet possibly clear out enough dead wood to allow future progress, whether by themselves or others. I trust we&#8217;ll get some helpful answers. <em>I look forward to your responses.<\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n(By the way, I thought about this while watching <em>Spinal Tap<\/em> tonight. I was thinking that the spectacular, heartfelt failure of certain types of music from the past have led to great opportunities for humor. I got to thinking about what future generations will find mock-worthy in today&#8217;s spectacularly, heartfelt failures of rock &#8216;n roll.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there such a thing as a rock &#8216;n roll failure for the future good of rock &#8216;n roll? I&#8217;m not thinking about any undeserved commercial failure that those of us most qualified to judge great music know actually was great (eg, Captain Beefheart&#8216;s Trout Mask Replica), but a commonly acknowledged failed attempt at greatness <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/failure-for-the-future-good\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}