By Jess Smith

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We like to think that music brings us all together. Our culture is kind of obsessed with the idea, actually. Woodstock (1969) is revered as a historic moment of collective joy and antiwar utopia.

The Eurovision Song Contest, the world’s biggest global music event, boasts upbeat slogans like “Come Together”, “We Are One” and, the most recent, “United by Music¹”.

Celebrity publicity stunts like Band Aid and the Concert for Bangladesh are triumphed as acts of philanthropy for suffering nations. Hell, this time four years ago, our favourite celebrities were serenading us with John Lennon’s “Imagine” from quarantine, a message of comfort and solidarity from their million-dollar mansions. Surely, then, music has some inherent goodness, some magical universal power to unite us as a species.

Not according to Michel Faber. In his new book Listen: On Music, Sound and Us (2023), Faber seeks to complicate our relationship with music; through research, in-depth analysis and case study, he highlights major systemic issues within the music industry, and shows us just how problematic, divisive and exploitative music can be.

Listen is Faber’s most recent work, a rare venture into the world of non-fiction from the accomplished Dutch-born author, best known for works of fiction such as Under the Skin (2000), The Crimson Petal and the White (2002), and The Book of Strange New Things (2014).

Throughout the book, Faber explores the world of sound and covers a vast terrain of ideas – the subjectivity of music, the dominance of the English language, the avant-garde scene, the role of ‘music taste’ in gaining social capital, and the concept of music as a capitalist commodity, among many, many others.

Interwoven with all this are autobiographical notes about Faber’s own life; touching on his late wife Eva, his strained relationship with his family, his career as a writer, and his own impressive LP collection. Listen has a whole lot to say, about music, about our culture, about humanity as a whole, and is well worth reading for devout music lovers and casual listeners alike.

Faber establishes pretty early on in the book just how discriminatory music can be, particularly for people of colour. In fact, Listen immediately identifies the dominance of whiteness in the music industry, and sets about deconstructing the notion of a definitive Top 100 Greatest Albums.

Faber points out that almost every album that music journalism and mainstream culture considers “great”, or worthy of lasting legacy, are made by white people: “All four Beatles were white. All of the Beach Boys, and the musicians who played on Pet Sounds, were white. The radio stations on which such pop music was aired were owned by white people, as were the record companies that marketed Beatles and Beach Boys product. The California girls celebrated in Mike Love’s lyric are ‘tanned’ but we understand that this refers to the lotion-assisted bronzing of naturally white skin rather than being brown by birth.” (p. 64).

Additionally, Faber notes that the critics and journalists who compile these lists, and the editors and owners of the magazines and platforms that publish them, are also all white (p. 64). Faber even acknowledges his own whiteness as the writer of this very book, and therefore highlights even his own complicity in this white centricity. At every single point, the writers, the facilitators, the arbiters of culture, the gatekeepers themselves are “more white guys” (p. 64), leaving very little opportunity for people of colour to carve out a name, and a legacy, for themselves.

Another manifestation of racism in the music industry Faber highlights is how often music is stolen from people of colour, and particularly from black people. In the chapter “Different Strokes for Different Folks”, Faber conducts a series of engaging and insightful interviews about music with people of colour, “simply half a dozen non-white people I know” (p. 65).

One question Faber poses his interviewees is about the song “Sloop John B”, originally a folk song written by people from the Bahamas, which was then appropriated (note: stolen) by Western artists – most notably the Beach Boys – without crediting the song’s originators.

One of Faber’s interviewees, musician Ilā Kamalagharan, says: “It is impossible to not be heavily influenced by Black music in modern popular music and that should be celebrated [. . . ] What is unacceptable to me is how music is appropriated by white artists [. . . ] and then sold on as white music with very little recognition or return back to the original creators” (p. 81).

Faber and his interviewees reference an array of other esteemed artists – Elvis Presley (p. 93), Bob Dylan (p. 74), Led Zepplin (p. 92), The Rolling Stones (p. 75), etc. – all of whom co-opted musical styles and traditions pioneered by black musicians, like blues and rock n roll, and marketed them for white demographics, whilst never giving credit to their creators.

Another interviewee, singer-songwriter Randolph Matthews, adds: “You look at the great jazz musicians, and they’re all broke. They’re the ones who wrote these amazing pieces, the pieces we regard as the rulebook. White musicians are playing this beautiful work, and yet the musicians who invented it has not received a cent.” (p. 92)

The book’s explorations of racism in music were really informative, and these interviews Faber conducts were some of my favourite parts of Listen; they give the discussion a vital depth and nuance, and I think, in a book by a white author speaking on racism, the direct perspectives of people of colour are a necessary inclusion.

Also; the perspectives of his interviewees, whilst varied, all seemed to agree on some of the most important points that Listen is trying to make throughout, constantly reminding us how often music is appropriated, stolen, and generally used as a tool to further disempower the already disempowered.

Listen points out that the same can be said for women, who are also excluded from these Top 100 lists and ideas of musical “greatness”. I thought the chapter “According to Whom?” was particularly interesting. In this chapter, Faber explores the strange world of Wikipedia, and how disproportionately skewed it is towards men – specifically towards conventionally male interests, male-dominated landscapes, and art made for and/or by men.

Faber states that, because 90% of Wikipedia content is generated by men, the lives and careers of arguably less influential male musicians, such as Ratt and Limp Bizkit, are significantly documented, while female trailblazers and whole female-led musical movements are barely recorded.

He details the extensive careers of several important women artists, like Margie Adam, Mollie Gregory, Joan Lowe, and Malvina Reynolds (p. 249-250), all of whom have either brief Wikipedia pages or no Wikipedia page at all (it’s a cruel indictment of this idea that I’m familiar with both Ratt and Limp Bizkit but I’ve never heard of any of these women in my life).

Faber’s decision to contrast all these impressive yet remarkably undocumented women with the over 4000-word long entry on porn actor John Holmes – and the 559 words spent discussing his “exceptionally large penis” (p. 246) – is both hilarious and deeply troubling. If important women aren’t being written about, how do we remember them? How do we listen?

Here, Faber makes a larger point about documentation and musical legacy, and how often important and talented women are excluded from documentation and therefore slip away from our cultural consciousness.

In another interesting chapter, “On Having No Voice”, Faber further tracks the oppression of women’s voices in music. Here, Faber explores cases of spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that affects speech, and specifically draws on the experience of two female musicians, Shirley Collins and Linda Peters, who both literally lost their voices after being mistreated by their husbands.

I did wonder if this section was perhaps too anecdotal, however I was intrigued by Faber’s theory that “women have often had trouble ‘finding’ their voices in the first place, and then run the risk of being literally ‘silenced’ when they’re abandoned or abused by boyfriends” (p. 155). Because music is still so dominated by men, a woman’s place and power in the music industry is already precarious, and female artists are therefore more easily silenced.

I like how Faber compares this to his own experience as a creative, and once again acknowledges more facets of his privilege: “I was a young white heterosexual male who wanted to devote my life to art [. . . ] Nothing and nobody stomped on that fantasy. I wasn’t beaten into line and I wasn’t ordered to keep my goddamn mouth shut. I’ve never been raped or shamed, and no one has ever judged my worth according to my physical attractiveness, let alone the colour of my skin [. . .] I always had a voice, and I still do. Here I am, singing, and you’re listening.” (p. 158-159).

In his discussions of gender and race, Faber forces us to come to grips with some difficult questions. How many female artists are in your playlists? How many artists of colour? Consider even other forms of entertainment – how many of your favourite novelists, filmmakers, painters, stand-up comedians are white guys? Whose voices do we listen to, and who do we allow to be heard, praised, remembered? The book’s title takes on new meaning here – Faber shows us that listening is an inherently political act, and that we as listeners have a great deal of responsibility.

Whilst Faber focuses in on individual sociopolitical contexts, like racism and misogyny, he never fails to remind us that at the root of it all is capitalism. In his aforementioned interviews about racism in music, he argues that issues like music theft and appropriation are “[insights] not so much into racism as into corporate capitalism’s merciless disempowerment of creative humans generally” (p.74).

Listen essentially argues that the capitalist machine will do whatever it must, exploit whoever it can exploit, and steal whatever it can get its hands on, in order to make more money. I like this all-encompassing and intersectional approach – whilst we may see things like racism and misogyny as individual issues, distinct from each other, Faber emphasises throughout that they are all byproducts of the same system.

Listen seems to be advocating for an anti-capitalist future. In his discussion of Top 100 Greatest Albums, he proposes two solutions: “There are two – at least two – possible ways forward. One is to work to change popular culture so that there are more people of colour in that Top 100 list. The other way is to say, “What’s the point of this Top 100 stuff anyway?”” (p.70)

Here, Faber rejects the idea of hierarchy altogether, and suggests we ditch systems of ranking. These systems are inherently capitalist, all about categorising, assigning value and status to some whilst disqualifying others. It is antithetical to what music should be about – people can like what they like, without judgement or influence, and all artists can find an audience that values the music they make. As interviewee and musician Art Terry says, “art is not a competition” (p.78).

And here lies one of the most consistent throughlines in Listen – the concept of subjectivity. Throughout the book, Faber avoids making grand, definitive statements about which music is good or bad, and instead makes it clear that there is just some music he doesn’t like. In the chapter “Let’s Hear It One More Time for Ludwig!”, he admits he doesn’t love classical music and spends the entire chapter dissecting it; however, he then counteracts his own dislike of it by interviewing violinist and classical music enthusiast Jacqueline Shave, and letting her express her love for the genre (p.201).

In the chapter “The Awful Taste of Your Inferiors”, Faber tries and fails to connect with the music of Chris de Burgh and criticises his “boastfulness”, whilst also acknowledging the profound impact de Burgh’s music has had on his fans (p.229). Shortly afterwards, Faber touches on Liberace and a scathing review of his music published by columnist Cassandra in the 1950s, which mocked Liberace’s fans and declared his work “the biggest sentimental vomit of all time” (p.225); he then counters this with Liberace’s response: “Who was Cassandra to say these people had bad taste?” (p.226).

Through this constant back and forth, Listen is deconstructing the idea that some music is “better” than others, or more inherently worthy of respect. I found this aspect of the book really refreshing – as someone who grew up having their love of boybands and K-pop mercilessly made fun of, it felt really comforting to see Listen defending fans of music that is often looked down upon.

The book, whilst critical, always argues in favour of letting people like what they like and make their own judgements. When people argue over the musical merit of different artists, they are, as Faber puts it, “expressing their frustration at finding that another person’s emotions work differently – that the other person is, annoyingly, a different person.” (p.236) That’s what’s at the crux of this book. We’re all just different people, with different perspectives and preferences that have been shaped by our own unique experiences, and that should be celebrated.

It reminds me of the time I went to see the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense at the cinema. When the band played “This Must Be the Place”, lots of people in the audience started getting up and dancing down the front of the theatre, beside the screen. I chose to stay seated, but at the time, it felt like a really special moment, seeing people spontaneously dance and enjoy the music, the same way the audience in the film were probably dancing and enjoying the music back when it was filmed in 1983.

However, when we left the screening, there were two different camps of people complaining – one group huffing that the dancing distracted them from the film, and the other group huffing that other people didn’t get up and dance. Then I huffed about both groups huffing. It was all very silly. In the end, there was no right or wrong way to enjoy that night, just lots of different perspectives in one room trying to peacefully coexist and failing.

Through the lens of music, Faber is inviting us to do what we want, dress how we want, crank some Billy Joel once in a while, and in general have more acceptance and compassion for the people we share the earth with. For all its sharp edges and frank reality checks, there’s a great deal of hope in this book.

I think this hope largely comes from Faber’s narrative tone. His voice throughout the book is somewhat detached but simultaneously very warm. Very early in the book, Faber declares himself “an outsider looking at insiders, alien but not aloof, unsentimental but compassionate” (p.8). He separates himself from the average person and speaks in general terms about human beings, which could come across as extremely arrogant or self-important, but for some reason it doesn’t.

I think it’s because he’s never positioning himself above or below the reader, or establishing himself as special or superior. Instead, he has a great deal of compassion for his fellow person, even if he doesn’t feel he can relate to them, and sees the reader as his equal. In this way, I never really feel condescended by Michel Faber. Dissected, maybe, which makes it slightly uncomfortable to read sometimes. But never lesser.

He also manages to make fun of me at times but without truly offending me, because he usually manages to flip it back onto himself. For example, I have some arguably “basic” tastes – I like One Direction and Billy Joel and generic brain-mulch pop, and more subversive avant-garde stuff doesn’t really appeal to me.

However, Faber also recognises that his obscure tastes are highly subjective, and that he rejects more companionable music in favour of stranger stuff that most people don’t tend to connect with. It’s as much of a comment on me as it is a comment on himself. He also makes fun of everyone – young people, hipsters, old people, classical music fans, people who like “Golden Brown”, etc [. . .] It’s hard to feel personally attacked when Listen criticises pretty much everything. It makes the book feel a lot less judgemental than it could have been, and keeps things light-hearted and kind.

This self-professed “unsentimental but compassionate” approach also comes across in his depictions and simplifications of the human being. Faber has this way of reducing us down to our essential matter, our most basic functional mechanisms for socialisation and survival. He refers to foetuses as “the unborn” (p.30) and the human body as “the mammalian interior” (p.29).

In the chapter “A Needle Through Your Brow” he describes our reactions to the music we love in relentlessly neurological and physiological terms. He even describes crying, something we see as so deeply emotional, as “our windscreen squirters [. . .] trying to wash our ocular apparatus clean” (p.319). He never gives in to mawkish sentimentality, or any impulse to make us feel special. Listen reduces us down to our most basic stuff, not to belittle us, but to remind us how much we have in common.

Reading Listen, I felt simplified, sure, but never unimportant; if anything, it made me feel more connected to other people and to the world around me. He compares us to other creatures and reminds us that for all our feelings of superiority, human beings really are just another animal. He compares the headbanging of hardcore rockers and the self-absorbed behaviour of drunken partiers – shouting, emoting, getting the munchies, looking for the toilet – to the behaviour of toddlers (p.35-36), reminding us that deep down we’re all still kind of like children.

Most moving of all, I thought, is when he unites us with people from the distant past, referring to ancient mothers singing lullabies to their children and saying that “humans have been keen to get their bawling newborns off to sleep since day one” (p.31). Listen shows us that for all our uniqueness and individualism there are no real differences between us. If that isn’t hope, I don’t know what is.

I’ll admit, when I heard that Michel Faber’s next work would be a non-fiction book about music, I was a little sceptical. Firstly, I was such a huge fan of his fiction that I worried his non-fiction writing wouldn’t live up to my unfairly high expectations; secondly, whilst I love music, I wasn’t sure if a book all about music would interest me all that much. However, I found Listen to be an engaging and informative read, and was glad to see that Faber’s non-fiction writing still possessed so many of the qualities I’ve always admired in his work – his comedic irony, his blunt realism, his smooth, eloquent prose, and above all his compassion and hope in the face of it all.

Listen introduced me to so much weird and wonderful sound. Because of this book, I’ve listened to a band called Throbbing Gristle, a series of explicitly religious songs by various Christian praise and worship groups, and music made up entirely of augmented cricket sounds.

Listen also introduced me to music I now really like and have incorporated into my regular listening, such as Margie Adam, Art Terry & the Black Bohemians, “Revolution 9” by The Beatles, and “Proper Sort of Gardener” by June Tabor. And I don’t think I would have ever encountered this music otherwise.

For any potential readers of Listen, I really recommend going through the book in this way – every time a song or an artist is mentioned, maybe go have a brief listen to some of it. Listen to krautrock and Richard Dawson’s Jogging and David Rothenberg playing saxophone to a swarm of cicadas. It’ll expose you to stuff you hate, stuff you don’t understand, and stuff you might really love and just haven’t found yet. There is such a rich tapestry of music and humanity out there, and life isn’t long enough to get through all of it, but maybe we can try.

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About our contributor

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1. Eurovisionworld.Com, 2023 ↩︎