6A — Monday, October 5, 2015 Arts The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MUSIC COLUMN A history of the pop music canon T he Beatles and The Rolling Stones took the proto-rock ‘n’ roll of Chuck Berry and Little Richard and made it a global phenom- enon. Then The Who and Pink Floyd and Springsteen all took their enormous ambition and played clas- sic records to huge sta- diums. Then punk showed up to cut every- one back down to size. Then Guns ‘n’ Roses and hair metal got huge. Then Nirvana sup- planted that overindulgence. And now we’re here. That was my story of popular music for a long time. How did I get there? *** I was reading “A Home at the End of the World” by Michael Cunningham over the summer, and came across a great scene where the characters dance to Laura Nyro, a singer-songwriter I had never heard of. When I looked her up, I half-expected her to be fictional, but no, Nyro was a quite successful songwrit- er in the ’60s and ’70s — granted, a lot of her songs were written for other artists, but she still has several well-regarded albums of her own. I listened to Nyro and instantly fell in love. Her voice was soulful, her baroque arrangements busy and upbeat. She’d written “Wedding Bell Blues,” done a brilliant cov- ers record of R&B songs with LaBelle and released classic albums like Eli and the Thir- teenth Confession and New York Tendaberry that were simulta- neously heavy with meaning and light with beauty. I was elated that I’d discovered Nyro, but honestly, I was pissed that it had taken me so long. When I was growing up, I somehow got the “classic rock” education. I don’t know where exactly it started — my parents weren’t huge into the genre or anything — but for a long time The Who was my favorite band, and I listened to Guns ‘n’ Roses unironically, and I thought Pink Floyd’s The Wall was the greatest album of all time. I got my testosterone-drenched history of popular music from Rock Docs and Greatest Hits album liner notes, and those sources really didn’t leave any room for geniuses like Joni Mitchell or Carole King or Laura Nyro. My point is, if you ask anyone to give you a history of popu- lar music from the ’50s or ’60s onward, the answers you get will vary wildly based on age, race, gender and where the respon- dent grew up, and that means the way we learn about music is subject to some crazy biases. *** Charley Patton and Robert Johnson created the Blues. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters carried on the tradition. Dylan picked it up in the ’60s. Joni made a perfect break-up album while Nick Drake crafted unap- preciated beauty. Big Star made some transcendent melancholy music in the ’70s, and Bowie made some great records, too. Underground punk and new wave rode through the ’80s, giving way to mainstream alter- native rock like U2, R.E.M. or Radiohead. Now we have the The National, Brand New and Arcade Fire. *** A lot of indie kids (or hipsters, whatever you want to call them) will cite Big Star as one of the greatest bands of all time. Funny thing is, absolutely nobody in the ’70s (when the band was actually around) would have even known who they were. Big Star toiled in obscurity for just a few years before falling apart. But somewhere along the line, Big Star got rediscovered — bands like R.E.M. named them as influences, their records got reissued and critics kept waving a flag for the band. Number 1 Record and Radio City are both in Rolling Stone’s “Top 500 Albums of All Time” list, and they’re now cult classics thanks to their brilliant songs and mythic aura. Those albums have sad, longing feelings set to absolutely gorgeous melodies. Especially if you’re in a certain late-night existential melancholy, those songs paint the perfect portrait of a band who always deserved more than it got. Frankly, I love Big Star, and I’m so obnoxious about that fact I could probably talk about them forever. But I listen to other bands with similar sounds from the same era — like The Raspberries or Badfinger — and I honestly wonder how Big Star ended up in our indie rock canon but not those other bands. The answer, I think, is simply that those other bands were famous, while Big Star had no commer- cial success whatsoever. *** After Elvis, you had Motown and the girl groups. They gave way to bands like ABBA, Fleet- wood Mac and The Bee Gees. After Disco, Michael, Prince and Madonna dominated the charts while hip hop started to gain its footing. The ’90s were a decade of Biggie, 2Pac, Dre and Jay, but as the decade closed out and we entered the new millennium you’d be hear- ing Britney, Beyoncé, Justin, The Black Eyed Peas and The Killers on the radio. Lately, it’s Gaga, Kanye or Maroon 5, and now it’s Fetty Wap. *** Most kids born in the mid-to- late ’90s remember Janet Jack- son for one incident — the event that birthed the phrase “ward- robe malfunction” in the popular lexicon. What I didn’t even real- ize until this year was that she has had ten number-one hits and released some of the best-selling albums of all time. Sometime in the last 10 years, Janet Jackson got completely written out of The Canon. None of her songs seem to qualify as “throwback jams;” her career gets overshadowed by peers like Madonna or Whitney Houston, and her entire legacy, for at least some generations, has been reduced to one moment. Jackson has a “comeback” album out now called Unbreak- able. (I put comeback in quotes just because even with her recent lack of popularity, Jack- son is still a remarkably wealthy, successful artist.) Buoyed by the strong, understated single “No Sleeep” she released this summer (which was a fantastic minimalist jam as long as you didn’t listen to the J. Cole ver- sion), I went back through Jack- son’s back catalog and stumbled upon some huge hits that I had somehow never heard. There’s classic dance-pop like “If” and ‘Control” as well as rainy-night R&B slow jams like “Any Time, Any Place” (which I actually did know from its usage in Kend- rick Lamar’s “Poetic Justice”). After even just the most cursory look through her hit singles, my perception of Jackson had com- pletely changed. I like Unbreakable, and I would really love it if some of its singles could break through and reach mainstream radio just to give Millennials some- thing else to associate with Jackson’s name besides the Super Bowl incident. To some, it might not seem like a huge deal which artists get recog- nized by future generations. However, I keep thinking about how we write and rewrite our own histories, and the more I think about it, the more impor- tant it seems that this genera- tion doesn’t forget about our greatest artists just because of random chance or biases. What if, in 20 years, all the kids think Lil B was better than Kanye West? Or what if Azealia Banks overshadows Beyoncé? That wouldn’t just be weird; it would be patently unfair to artists and listeners. I don’t know how exactly we go about writing our own Canon for the music of our lifetime, but when we do, I just want to make sure that the Laura Nyros and Janet Jacksons of the 2000s don’t slip through the cracks and get unheard by people who might need them. Theisen is building a shrine to Joni Mitchell. To send him something blue, e-mail ajtheis@umich.edu. ADAM THEISEN ‘Sex’ disappointing TV REVIEW By BEN ROSENSTOCK Daily Arts Writer Since its second season, “Mas- ters of Sex” has produced great individual moments and episodes that don’t hold up as well when viewed as parts of a greater whole. The third sea- son finale, titled “Full Ten Count,” follows that same pattern. Several con- flicts come to a head that the whole show has been building to, yet so much of the episode is littered with the remains of story threads that have been lackluster at best. Still, Bill and Virginia’s role reversal has been one intriguing thread to follow through the sea- son, and it’s pleasant seeing Bill (Michael Sheen, “Frost/Nixon”) acting a more kind, sympathetic and honest than his cold, detached role in previous seasons. When Bill defiantly tells Virginia (Lizzy Caplan, “Mean Girls”) that he loves her, and later takes a cab to the airport to beg with her to come back with him, he’s worthy of being the romantic lead the show always asked him to be. It’s easy to become jaded about the cliff- hanger when Bill stands sadly out- side, his professional and personal future with Virginia uncertain, but the show invests the audi- ence with empathy for him. That often wasn’t possible earlier on. This season has mostly revolved around a love triangle between sex researcher Bill Masters, his partner Virginia Johnson and fra- grance industry businessman, Dan Logan (Josh Charles, “The Good Wife”). Last week’s episode served to finally make Logan a real char- acter with flaws and complexities of his own, and “Full Ten Count” shows him impressively commit- ting to Virginia, leaving his wife and proposing to Virginia. It’s nice to see Virginia actually taking a stand against Bill and choosing Logan instead of constantly waf- fling between the two men. Still, it’s hard not to sigh at the delay of the inevitable resolution when Bill and Virginia will end up together. Even if there was any dramatic tension left in the love triangle, history tells us Masters and John- son get married. By now, new love interests and contrivances feel like unnecessary wheel-spinning. Aside from the love triangle business, most of the finale deals with cleaning up the various threads left hanging. Bill finds himself in jail because a participant in his sex study, Nora (Emily Kinney, “The Walking Dead”), is a religious mole bent on framing him for prostitution and taking down the study. He’s also in trouble because his son, Johnny (Jaeden Lieberher, “St. Vincent”), made a comment about a boy at school that leads the police to accuse Bill of molestation. And in one scene designed to tie up a lingering loose end, Bill’s wife Libby (Caitlin Fitzgerald, “Mutual Friends”) finds out her lover Paul (Ben Koldyke, “Mr. Robinson”) is gone for good. All of these subplots have sucked up time that could have been better spent taking Bill and Virginia’s sex study to the next level, and none could have been predicted from the season premiere, an episode generally expected to set up the structure and overall arcs of the season. The show has introduced too many narrative cul-de-sacs to actually resolve the overarching story. The first few episodes promised a deep look into Bill and Virginia’s twisted relationships with their children, but the roles of Virginia’s kids, Tessa (Isabelle Fuhrman, “Orphan”) and Henry (Noah Robbins, “Aftermath”), proved superfluous. Tessa was a mustache-twirling antagonist who the story repeatedly failed to invest viewers in, and Henry signed up for the Army only to disappear completely from the story. As little as these characters ultimately mattered, though, it’d still make sense to conclude the season with some closure in regards to their relationship with their mother. Both characters are completely missing from the finale. Johnny’s lack of meaningful interaction with his father is even more frustrating, as Bill’s projection of his father’s coldness onto Johnny made a potentially fascinating story. Much like the love triangle, though, this story is left unresolved. Maybe it’ll be resolved next premiere, or maybe it’ll be dragged out for years. Still, just like any other episode of “Masters of Sex,” there are enough impactful moments to distract from the glaring flaws. Dr. Barton Scully (Beau Bridges, “The Millers”) finally becomes comfortable showing affection for another man in public. Most prominent, though, is a final moment of closure for Bill and his wife. Bill and Libby’s relationship has been fairly one-note for most of the show, but this season has added the interesting wrinkle that Libby is aware of Bill’s affair and has accepted it. Finally, in the finale, Bill and Libby have the confrontation the whole show has built toward. After three seasons of deception, denial and dysfunction, Bill admits to the affair. Fitzgerald’s reaction is powerful as she laughs at the idea that she still wouldn’t have known, then hysterically breaks down as Bill abruptly suggests they separate. “It would be the one honest thing we do in years,” Bill says softly. After years of lies and quiet sacrifice, finally the unspoken becomes spoken. It’s a moment of pure catharsis. “Masters of Sex” becomes more of an issue each year, as all notions of structure are thrown out in favor of uninteresting stories that distract from the sex study that made the show so compelling in its first season. It’s up in the air whether next season will be able to reclaim the scientific magic and aching human drama of the first, but if the show maintains its ability to create singular moments of beauty despite recurring story problems, it’ll always be worth watching. B Masters of Sex Season 3 Finale Sundays at 10 p.m. Showtime ALBUM REVIEW ‘Unbreakable’ a dull comeback for Janet By CHRISTIAN KENNEDY Daily Arts Writer Seven years after Feedback, Janet Jackson has returned to the pop music landscape with her 11th studio album, Unbreakable. The record’s title works on many levels: it may refer to Jackson’s unbreakable optimism, which is pervasive throughout the LP; it may refer to her ability to overcome life’s hardships (the death of her brother, Michael, a Super Bowl nip-slip and the termination of a seven-year relationship); or it may refer to the unbreakable mold of underdeveloped, overproduced pop R&B tracks that, together, form the entirety of her new album. Moments on Unbreakable fall into a few categories: the repetitive, the cliché and the wandering. That may not sound too blundering; however, the repetitive moments are not catchy, the clichés don’t recognize themselves as such and the wandering fails to discover anything terribly stimulating. “BURNITUP!” has potential with the heavy bass and a Missy Elliott feature, but the repeated phrases “turn it up” and “burn it up” don’t invite any participation beyond some slight head nodding (maybe). Even more disappointing is the degree to which Missy Elliott’s verse is boring. Elliott, as shown by her Super Bowl appearance, might be ready for a comeback, but if this is any indicator of it’s content, she might be best left in her Greatest Hits era. Opener “Unbreakable” offers an acceptable beat, but amid the many layers of vocal tracks and the unimaginative chorus, the song’s potential is lost. In the same vein, every lyric on “Shoulda Known Better” has been heard on another track. At its best moment, though, the instrumental build is just enticing enough to hear it out. “Broken Hearts Heal” can be described in the exact same fashion — minus the a capitivating production. However, the metaphor behind “Well Traveled” is original. Jackson has come a long way, and she’s still going, but this song still won’t go anywhere. She croons about traveling as she sings in circles. Individually, the lyrics are OK, but compiled together nothing greater is revealed. In “Black Eagle,” another wanderer begins with another metaphor. “Let me tell you about the black eagle,” she says. And after that initial intro, we don’t hear a damn thing about that eagle again. While the album lacks in the majority of areas, it does have a couple moments of cohesive, coherent content. “2 B Loved” has the retro/modern feel that has been bombarding pop-culture recently (i.e. “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson, “Classic” by MKTO etc. etc.). And despite the fact that Kendrick Lamar filled the “We gon’ be alright” quota, “Gon’ B Alright” by Jackson has the heart and enthusiasm behind her delivery to make it one of the album’s stand-outs. From the moment track one ends, it’s easy to realize that this is an album for Jackson’s longtime fans as she says “I’m glad you’re still here / I dedicate myself to you / I hope you enjoy.” I am not one of these fans (obviously), but their dedication to Jackson and Jackson’s dedication to them, as well as to her artistry, is respectable at the very least. “Unbreakable” might not break out of the mold, but at least it’s the mold Jackson created herself. C- Unbreakable Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation Records SHOWTIME “So you’re telling two minutes is a short time.”