The Gladys Knight & The Pips Rule

A Study In Contrasts

Noted Rock Historian Chuck Eddy is the Friedrich Nietzsche of Pop* and The Accidental Evolution Of Rock ‘N’ Roll is his On The Genealogy Of Morality - only with more disco. Lets face it, young Friedrich could learn a thing or two here as he sorely needs more disco. Anyway, in this work Mr Eddy elaborates The Gladys Knight & The Pips Rule. As repeated here by the estimable Tom Breihan (whose scholarship on the Gesammelte Werke of Scott Adkins opened my eyes to the punch-strewn glory of the Sutton Coldfield Dynamo):

In “Midnight Train To Georgia, which everybody I’ve ever met acknowledges is a great record, the frivolousness of the Pips doing their train-whistle ooo-wooos (especially if you’re watching it on TV and they’re gesturing and spinning around in unison at the same time) is what keeps Gladys’ soul singing down-to-earth. Without the Pips, Gladys would be merely “intense” — not catchy enough, therefore boring, therefore not intense at all, really. Calling music “intense” or “emotional” or “soulful” is usually a euphemism for “it seems like something I’m supposed to like.” It’s fairly obvious that the Pips alone would be an ignorable proposition; my point is that Gladys alone would be just as ignorable.

Sure The Pips need Gladys but Gladys also needs The Pips. In much the same way that followers need leaders but leaders also need followers. Gestalt psychology talks about the figure and the background. But while you notice the figure, you can’t see the figure without the background. And this is a perpetual process, the interplay between figure, background, and observer never stops. Nor is it completely stable. Background becomes figure. Figure becomes background. Leaders become followers. Followers become leaders. And if we see the world as static then we are making a mistake.

These thoughts came courtesy of another Midlander (from Rugby this time**): Jason “Spaceman” Pierce. Jason is a singer and he has a problem. He’s not very good. He has the voice of a tone deaf, sickly child. And yet in Spaceman 3 and Spiritualized he has made epic, moving, astonishing music. How?

The Gladys Knight & The Pips Rule.

When his frail voice is paired with guitar fuzzbox walls of sound or free-jazz ear-mauling orchestras, it sounds like vulnerable humanity facing our torrential emotions or an implacable universe. The fact he is a bit rubbish becomes a strength rather than a weakness. Because we are all a bit rubbish.

The thing to steal here is that context matters. And if you are not good at everything, then the trick is to find the context where what you are good at works. And don’t bother with the places where it doesn’t unless you absolutely have to.

Find your Pips.

*Except he seems way happier and young men don’t use his work to justify being a—holes.

**Altho he’s a lover not a fighter. Well, not really a lover. More a moper.