Normally with music videos, it is the video which is parasitic on the music. It requires the music to justify its existence and to serve the purposes of entertainment. With Fionn Regan's "Be Good or Be Gone," that relationship appears slightly inverted—the music needs the video to operate. This song would not be good on the radio, on your iPod, etc. this is not simply aural listening, this is a listening which, much like a face to face interaction engages the third kind of listening Barthes speaks about in that it is not, “what is said or emitted, but who speaks, who emits” and in this case where it is spoken because, “such listening is supposed to develop in an inter-subjective space” (p. 246) where, “I am listening” would also mean “listen to me” but this time the inter-subjective space begs, ‘listen to me here’.
The music video illustrates how the appropriation of space is also a matter of sound. "Be Good or Be Gone" goes beyond the domestic space as Barthes speaks of “territory”; instead it illustrates different ways territory is marked by sounds. The compilation of these “spaces” isn’t a “household symphony” but instead a symphony of our constructed Earth as sound signifies differently in each location.
This song prompts us to ask, what is the role of space in the construction of the music we listen to today?
Barthes writes in Musica Practica that there are really two forms of music, “one you listen to” and “one you play” (p.261). They are variously labeled music proper and musica practica. Forms of music which are examples of passive listening (music proper) are the concert, the festival, the record, and the radio. Most forms of music today appear to be examples of passive listening. We still have the radio, the concert, and the festival. Now instead of the record player we have iPods, and sites like YouTube and Pandora.
Barthes asserts that, “playing no longer exists; musical activity is no longer manual, muscular, kneading” (p.262) and then asks, “What is the use of composing if it merely confines the product in the enclosure of the concert or the solitude of radio reception?” We could similarly ask, what is the use of making, playing, pounding out new music if it merely confines the ‘song’ to a cage in our hands, the box (computer, radio, television, iPod) at our fingertips? Is this why playing no longer exists? Does it no longer exist?
On a scale of 1-10, this video is a 10. It is a brilliant example of how the space or "acoustical geography" delimits the possibilities that might color the "grain of the voice." I once played in an auditorium in Lyon, France with a symphony. The stage frame held these thick velvet red curtains. They were to the side and behind the symphony. And then, the seats were a blue fabric, from the 1970s, I suspected. The back stage was an elongated, raised box, which seemed to eat the sound rather than distribute it toward the audience. Vibration was near impossible. I took out my instrument, and couldn't believe how deadening the space was. Overdetermined to work against the odds, I produced this wild vibrato, a really frenzied vibrato, flailing my left hand on the fingerboard, trying to work against the conditions. As principal cellist, I asked the section to try this option to vitalize the sound. No one ever played against the stream like that, even me, so some tried and others didn't have the muscle in the hand to extend the effort throughout the concert. Maybe some people had given up, throwing away the music because of the near impossibility of the space. The experience was exhausting, and I can still feel my arm, while writing this, gnawed to the bone, war-torn.
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