“A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?”

In John Harris’ “Mission Unlistenable”, published in The Guardian, the author tackles one of the most perplexing albums of the 1960s. This album, he states, features ‘a discordant racket, all biscuit-tin drums and guitars that alternately clang and squall’[1]. The album is Captain Beefheart’s 1969 album, Trout Mask Replica, and it has continually attracted criticism since its release[2]. Yet, beneath the clatter and the noise there resides something unique.

The ‘clang and squall’ was not, as suggested, due to incompetent musicians[3]. Beefheart, or rather, Don Van Vilet, wanted to break the monotony of popular music and ‘the prevailing norms… of contemporary society’[4]. As it continues to influence bands[5], and advanced Rock as a genre[6], criticising Trout Mask on its musical merit might be missing the point. The album is emblematic of the very ideas the ‘60s gave rise to. It is a protest against the humdrum records being produced and sold en masse. It illustrates what can be achieved without high production quality. Stripping music to its basics and refusing to reassemble it produces something truly resonating: chaotic, but beautiful. The rawness of the album in many ways fulfils the 60s’ notion of “being there”[7]: surrounded by sound, and lyrics from poems which seemingly run straight from Vilet’s subconscious. If drugs were seen as way to open the mind whilst challenging conformity[8], Vilet’s music is a tangible representation of these aspirations. Trout Mask is a revolutionary idea, staked against the establishment of musical norms.

But Trout Mask could be reactionary. As Jazz was an established musical genre before “pop culture”, jazzy themes appear to hark back to earlier times. Further, as Trout Mask was a revolt against the contemporary revolutionary musical developments, is it not a reaction? Finally, the album postures to strike against the commercial music industry, whilst itself requiring commercialisation in order to reach a broad market; the album, released by Warner Bros, sold in large quantities[9].

It is hard to imagine an album like this being released in any other decade. Yet, the album was probably before its time. In its continuing ability to shock listeners, the album still seems relevant today in the context of a musical industry still largely constrained by commercial drivers. 

---

[1] John Harris, “Mission Unlistenable,” The Guardian, August 4, 2006: 5.

[2] Dave Sanjek, “Life in the Fast and Bulbous Lane: Captain Beefheart (1941-2010),” Popular Music and Society 35, no. 2 (2012): 302; Lester Bangs, “Captain Beefheart: Trout Mask Replica,” Rolling Stone, July 26, 1969, accessed September 27, 2016, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/trout-mask-replica-19690726.

[3] This was a myth actually started by Don Van Vilet himself; Dave Sanjek, “Life in the Fast and Bulbous Lane,” 305.

[4] Paul R. Kohl, “Looking Through a Glass Onion: Rock and Roll as a Modern Manifestation of Carnival,” Journal of Popular Culture 27, no. 1 (1993): 157.

[5] John Harris, “Mission Unlistenable,” 5.

[6] Paul R. Kohl, “Looking Through a Glass Onion,” 156.

[7] Arthur Marwick, “Youth Culture and the Cultural Revolution of the Long Sixties,” in Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960-1980, ed. Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 47.

[8] Gerard DeGroot, The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade (London: Pan Macmillan, 2008), 211-214.

[9] D. Sanjek, “Life in the Fast and Bulbous Lane,” 303.