Vol. 16: What Would Music Sound Like Without a Face?
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You can listen to this Dad's Music Muse article instead of reading it.
One Christmas during Grade 10, my older brother bought me a new outfit.
He was six years older than me and I don’t think he fully understood why I chose to wear saggy ass jeans, an oversized white T-shirt and plaid flannel on the daily like it was some sort of uniform.
In his mind, he was probably helping me. Showing me how a teenage guy should be dressing.
The outfit included tight Levi's, a white button-down shirt, and a bolo tie.
If you're unfamiliar with a bolo tie, imagine a cowboy necktie.
I think he may have even bought me cowboy boots. Either that, or I borrowed an old pair of his to complete the outfit.
I was already deep into hip-hop culture at the time. I'd been listening to (and making) rap music since I was twelve years old. It wasn't a phase. It wasn't something I picked up because it became popular. I genuinely loved it.
Still, I figured I'd give my brother's fashion advice a chance.
So I wore the outfit to school.
By lunchtime, I felt like I'd dressed up for Halloween.
The clothes themselves weren't bad.
The image was.
The next day, I was back to my usual style, and the bolo tie never saw daylight again.
That may have been my first lesson in the power of image.
When the Image Arrives Before the Music
By Grade 10, hip-hop had exploded at my school.
Almost overnight, Starter jackets, MCM caps, oversized clothing and British Knights shoes seemed to appear everywhere.
I had the San Francisco 49ers Starter jacket despite knowing nothing of the team, or football for that matter. But I was no different from the hundreds of other kids who were suddenly representing teams they'd never watched from cities they'd never visited.
It's funny. The Starter jacket was so popular during that period that when I think of certain high school friends, I picture them in the team jacket they wore.
Blair repped the Giants.
Mike had the Raiders.
And so on.
It was fascinating to watch how quickly music and image became intertwined.
For some people, the music came first.
For others, the image did.
And that raises a question I've been thinking about lately:
How much of what we think about music is actually about the music?
And how much is about everything surrounding it?
The Lights-Off Test
Take "hair metal."
It's one of the few musical genres named after appearance.
Not songwriting.
Not musicianship.
Not production.
Hair.
Remove the makeup, leather pants, teased hairstyles and MTV videos from many of those bands and what remains often sounds surprisingly close to pop-rock.
Poison.
Bon Jovi.
Warrant.
Even Twisted Sister.
I've often wondered what would happen if you played some of those songs to people unfamiliar with the band, in a dark room where image couldn't influence their judgment. Would listeners still describe them as heavy metal?
Or would they hear catchy pop-rock songs with loud guitars and giant choruses?
The image helped define the genre.
The same thing happened years later with pop-punk.
How much of the "punk" in pop-punk was actually in the music, and how much of it was tattoos, eyeliner and skate shoes?
Blink-182.
Good Charlotte.
Sum 41.
Maybe the music was pop-rock with a faster tempo and a better outfit.
The Decade of Reinvention
The same thing happened throughout the 1980s.
The Cure.
Duran Duran.
Depeche Mode.
And perhaps nobody understood the power of image better than Madonna.
While most artists spend their careers protecting a single identity, Madonna built hers by constantly reinventing herself. Every era came with a new look, a new attitude, and a new visual story.
The image evolved alongside the music.
Sometimes the image became as important as the songs themselves.
The Sony Boardroom
I got another glimpse of that reality when my group, Phreekz Uv Naychur, was invited to meet with Sony Music.
Back then we were recording demos and mailing them to every major label we could think of. Landing a meeting with Sony felt like a dream.
I can still picture it.
A few Beastie Boys-looking teenagers sitting around a large boardroom table surrounded by label executives and marketing people.
We were excited.
We were also shy as hell.
I don't remember many details about the meeting itself. I don't remember exactly what questions they asked. I don't remember any specific feedback.
What I do remember is leaving with the feeling that it hadn't gone particularly well.
We never got a call back.
Sometimes I wonder what they were evaluating.
The songs?
The personalities?
The image?
The story?
Labels Don’t Just Sell Songs
The truth is that record labels have always understood something many fans don't like to admit.
People don't just buy music.
They buy artists.
They buy identities.
They buy stories.
There's a reason Dr. Dre and Eminem saw something special in 50 Cent. The music mattered, of course. But so did the story. A rapper who had been shot nine times, survived, and kept going was compelling before he even stepped into the booth.
The story became part of the music.
Sometimes labels help artists find an image.
Other times they push too hard.
Fans fell in love with Jewel as an acoustic singer-songwriter. When she pivoted toward the heavily stylized pop image of Intuition, many listeners rejected it.
Not necessarily because of the song itself.
Because the image felt unfamiliar.
Side note: I'm still not entirely sure whether Jewel was being sarcastic in that video.
Mic Geronimo experienced something similar when he moved from underground hip-hop into the shiny-suit era that dominated parts of rap in the late 1990s.
Young Black Teenagers — a group of white teenagers whose very name was built around image, perception and controversy — became known as much for their explanation that "black was a state of mind" as they did for their music.
When image feels authentic, fans embrace it.
When it doesn't, they often notice.
Listening With Our Eyes
What's interesting is that image doesn't only influence artists.
It influences listeners too.
I have a friend who refuses to acknowledge that Drake can rap at an elite level.
Not because he's listened to the evidence and disagrees.
Because he won't listen to the evidence at all.
To him, Drake is One Dance.
Drake is pop music.
Drake is radio.
End of discussion.
I've tried pointing him toward records like 5AM in Toronto where Drake strips away the melodies and simply raps.
It doesn't matter.
The image has already won.
To be fair, I'm probably guilty of the same thing in reverse. He'd likely tell you I haven't given Griselda enough opportunities either.
We all bring assumptions into the listening experience.
I've often thought it would be interesting to play songs anonymously.
No artist name.
No photo.
No biography.
Just the music.
I suspect many of our opinions would change.
Too Old to Rock?
And that's something I've become increasingly aware of as I've gotten older.
I've been writing and recording hip-hop music since I was twelve years old.
I've put in way more than the obligatory 10,000 hours it supposedly takes to master something. And though I wouldn't say I've "mastered" rapping, I feel comfortable saying that I've gotten pretty good at it.
But I've also spent my adult life working in marketing and advertising.
I understand branding.
Positioning.
Audience perception.
I understand how products are sold.
I understand how artists are sold.
And because of that, I also understand that no sane A&R executive is looking to sign a 51-year-old rapper.
Not because a 51-year-old rapper can't be talented. Nas and Eminem exist.
Because image matters.
Hip-hop has always been tied closely to youth culture.
As I once wrote in a Phreekz song:
"Hip Hop the only genre don't support its legends
We give'em props when they're mentioned
But question whether or not they should stop because they're too old to rock?
Well why the Rolling Stones ain't on the same clock?"
It's an interesting question.
Nobody blinks when Mick Jagger performs in his eighties.
Yet hip-hop often struggles with aging.
That's not really a musical issue.
It's an image issue.
Even Hiding Your Face Becomes an Image
Maybe that's why I find artists like Sia so fascinating.
For years she was one of the most successful songwriters in pop music. Then, when she emerged as a star herself, much of the conversation centered around a wig that hid her face.
Ironically, her image became not showing her image.
Even hiding from image became an image.
The more I think about it, the harder it becomes to separate music from perception.
KISS.
Madonna.
50 Cent.
Drake.
Sia.
Jewel.
Phreekz Uv Naychur.
Even a kid wearing a bolo tie for one uncomfortable day in Grade 10.
Every one of those stories points to the same conclusion.
Image influences artists.
Image influences audiences.
And once that image exists, it's incredibly difficult to separate it from the music itself.
Just the Music
These days, I still make music.
Not because I expect to get signed.
Not because I want to become famous.
I make it because I've always made it.
It's an outlet.
It's part of who I am.
A few months ago, I wrote a lyric that said:
"I just wanna go where no one knows my name or is aware of me."
At the time, I wasn't thinking about this article.
But maybe I was thinking about this idea.
Because if someone happens to listen to my music, I'd prefer they hear the song before they picture the guy who made it.
No age.
No biography.
No assumptions.
Just the music.
I suspect that's impossible.
But it's an interesting thing to wonder about.
What would happen if none of us knew what the artist looked like?
Would we hear the music differently?
I think we would.
Listen Along
I put together a playlist inspired by this week’s article, featuring songs and artists whose image became inseparable from their music. Some built careers around reinvention. Others challenged expectations. A few became known as much for their image as their songs.