Since the advent of popular music studies, many scholars have discussed how popular music is different from classical music, while fewer scholars have attempted at in-depth studies on how these musics are also related to each other. Some have explored classical elements in specific popular genres, such as early popular music, jazz, progressive rock and heavy metal (see van der Merwe Reference Van der Merwe1989; Schuller Reference Schuller and Feather1955; Covach Reference Covach, Covach and Boone1997; Walser Reference Walser1992, respectively). But a broader survey on the popular–classical relationship had long been awaited. Michael Long's Beautiful Monsters: Imagining the Classic in Musical Media is the first such survey. It examines the work of an amazing array of popular musicians in 20th-century America, including but not limited to: Charlie Parker, Barbra Streisand, Procol Harum, Phil Spector, Freddie Mercury, Kiss, Michael Jackson, the Communards, DMX and Daisuke Ishiwatari. Considering these and other musicians under various topics, such as the concept of the ‘classic’ (chapter 1), the classic gestures (chapters 2 and 7), the role of media (chapter 3), Wagnerism (chapter 4), nostalgia (chapter 5) and ‘cinematicism’ (chapter 6), the book suggests that much popular music is related to Western art music in important ways.
Long asserts that categories of classical and popular are ‘meaningless or wrong’ (p. 4). While this may include some hyperbolism, he does maintain that classical elements are deeply embedded in popular music, even when we do not recognise them easily. In chapter 2, he discusses a disco hit, ‘Don't Leave Me This Way’, by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes (1975). Long points out the vocal ascent on ‘aaahhhw’ (right before the word ‘baby!’) as being derived from the ‘rocket’ motifs in Hollywood film scores such as Max Steiner's Now, Voyager (1942), which in turn derives the motif from Tchaikovsky's pieces such as his Pathétique symphony (1893). Not all of us would immediately recognise this Melvin–Steiner–Tchaikovsky connection, since the vocal ascent is not exactly the same as the rockets in the romantic symphony. Yet, the ascent can be seen to show ‘a vestige of high-emotion romantic practice filtered through cinematicism’ (p. 65). Examining this kind of subtle intertextuality in many pieces, the book as a whole suggests the ubiquity of popular–classical relations.
Some might immediately ask if Melvin knew the Tchaikovsky symphony or not. The answer is perhaps ‘no’, but Long says popular musicians, with or without much knowledge of classical music, often play with ‘classic register’. Classic register is, simply put, that which popular musicians ‘imagine’ as something classical (hence the subtitle of the book). Michael Jackson, for example, does not know classical music very well, because he calls Jule Styne's ‘People’ (sung by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, 1968) ‘classical music’. But still Jackson plays with classic register in his ‘Childhood’ (from Free Willy 2, 1995); here he incorporates a string orchestra, and even calls this song ‘classical music’, too (pp. 31–33). Carlos Santana does not know classical music very well, either. In his ‘Love of My Life’ (from Supernatural, 1999), he quotes a melody from Brahms's Third Symphony (1883), but says, incorrectly, it is from ‘Brahms Concerto No. 2’ (1881). Still, he certainly plays with classic register here, since he at least knows that the melody is from Brahms (pp. 213–16). Long says that ‘any critique of their misnomers on the basis of inaccuracy would be meaningless and irrelevant’ (p. 216). It is much more meaningful and relevant to consider what they actually did than what they verbally said.
The strong discussions and the wide coverage make it rather difficult to find any deficiencies in the book. Some might say Long's discussions are theoretically unclear. For example, he does not elucidate the difference between ‘register’ and related terms such as intertext (e.g. Hatten Reference Hatten1984). Other readers might feel that this book is a demanding reading, because it does not provide kind explanations for unfamiliar terms and complex arguments. But it is ‘an effort to provoke conversation rather than to promulgate unassailable arguments’ (Long Reference Long2009). The absence of theoretical clarity and easy prose is not necessarily a problem, but a suggestion for further discussions among the readers.
Finally, it should be noted that such an important study on popular music came from a scholar of 14th-century Italian music. Having written much about hybrid music between ‘high’ (sacred) and ‘low’ (secular) forms of that era (e.g. Long Reference Long1989), Long effectively incorporates his musicological methods into this book. Beautiful Monsters is thus doubly significant; it not only problematises the boundary between popular music and classical music, but also questions the disciplinary boundary between popular music studies and musicology.
