Peep
Loudness didn’t save Peeping Tom. Today I think it sounds best played through a PC with old earphones. The dynamic range is compressed and the bass filtered, revealing the higher—and, frankly, more interesting—frequencies. I enjoy the album when heard like this. It still doesn’t (with the exception of Sucker) live up to my expectations of Patton’s claim that “this is what I’d want [pop music] to sound like”. I’d want Mit Gas or General Patton vs the X-ecutioners.
Bowie had a theory that Peeping Tom became overproduced as Patton spent too long on it. I don’t believe this, as it followed the same artistic model as General Patton, my favourite Patton album since Disco Volante. Patton wrote some stuff, recorded some stuff, sent it out to other artists, they did their bit and sent it back, then Patton worked on it some more; insert long gaps between each step in which Patton pursued other projects.
But look at my slip: calling Disco Volante a “Patton album”. How my attitudes have changed since I discovered that Light Up And Let Go was a Patton song. I make too much of Patton as genius, like a Beatles fan distinguishing Paul and John songs. It is obvious that Faith No More is a different band from Mr Bungle is a different band from Fantomas. It should be obvious, but I obscure the fact.
Even with a genuine Patton band, Fantomas, I was wrong to say Patton is a DJ or composer-conductor and the band his instrument. Even seemingly silent partners like Dunn, Osborne, and Lombardo have a voice in their band. They have specific capabilities and their presence makes demands of the writer. To paraphrase Harrison Ford, Patton can write it, but it’s nothing until it’s played. Why be in a rock band if you don’t want to play your own music?
That last question reminds me that I also obscure the fact that Patton himself is a man of many moods. Peeping Tom then is a collaboration between Patton and Rahzel et al where all were playing their own music as they’d like it to sound… and I just don’t like that sound as much as they do.
By Bowie, 33 minutes after the fact
An interesting point on this is that the Peeping Tom demos that leaked years before the album finally came out sound very much like the final album (ignoring the bass heavy mixing).
I question how much the “collaborations” actually changed the songs.
I’ll admit to being quite surprised that all the music in Tomahawk is written by the guitar player, with Patton “just singing and adding twidly bits”.
But then, my benchmark for what a Patton song is comes from bands that aren’t usually playing his music (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle).
As you said, a “Patton song” is really something like Light Up And Let Go, Get Out, What A Day, Gentle Art, I Won’t Forget You. All quite similar.
By David Golding, 1 day, 20 hours after the fact
See my comment above on seemingly silent partners; “Patton would write songs with a wishlist of theoretical collaborators in mind”.
But how much different is “not finished” and “finished”? Perhaps not much, perhaps much, it depends on your criteria. The demos sound like sketches to me, not songs. Patton establishes the melody and rhythm, puts in some effects he likes and placeholder lyrics. With someone like Kid Koala what he does is a form of production, but it’s not just polish, he adds the texture that makes Celebrity Death Match into a song; I get a feeling from his collaboration that I get from his Lovage tracks. Your Neighborhood Spaceman, with two collaborators, is even more subtly different, but there is a definite change in tone from the demo; perhaps this is what inspired Patton’s lyrics? Meanwhile the chorus of Five Seconds has been completely reconfigured. And then there’s Norah Jones…