Familiarity Breeds Delight: Max Weinberg's Jukebox, 2019 Edition

7 December 2019 Port Washington NY Why do we like to hear the same songs over and over? Why do we prefer songs that we first heard in our adolescence? The tendency is so powerful that research suggests most people underestimate its power.

A series of 2014 experiments showed that “the emphasis on novelty in the music domain, by consumers and people protesting the current state of the music business, is misplaced.” The researchers concluded that “Our results suggest the best strategy is to concentrate primarily on familiar songs, even if consumers say they want more novelty.” (Ward, M. K., Goodman, J. K., & Irwin, J. R., 2014).

Familiarity Breeds Delight

The public may not understand this research about itself, but Max Weinberg and his manager have raised the insight to art form. And it’s not only about familiar music, a road on which Max Weinberg and the Weeklings take no detours -- they\ group even contravened the venue’s recorded advice not to photograph and socialize the event.

Joining Weinberg on his third appearance at Port Washington’s Landmark were the Weeklings, a New Jersey institution fully accounted for here except for one, including Glen Burtnik (bass and vocals), Bob Burger (guitar and vocals) and John Merjave (guitar and vocals).

These questions swirled in this reviewer’s mind as a large cross-section of the Landmark audience crowded into the <Dance Here> section of the venue.

If anything, Weinberg arrived even more energetic than the last time the NJ plates gathered outside the Landmark’s east side stage door. No less for wear after more than 200 such concerts over the past few years, the E Street Band / Conan O’Brien alum proved he was more than ready to rock down memory lane following what for many musicians would be a perilous You-Choose-’Em playlist destined to be different every night.

Your Brain On Repeat

There must be more to the song familiarity phenomenon than a strong preference for a hypothesized comfort. For instance, what motivates people to scour the Spotify back catalog for unheard gems?

Or consider the music behind Broadway’s newest show, Jagged Little Pill, the Musical. The research doesn’t explain the meteoric rise of smash hits like Alanis Morissette’s 1995-1998 “Head Over Feet,” “Uninvited” and “You Learn”: these were number 1 US hits from a previously unheard-of artist. Hitherto unheard cinematic music (John Williams’ violin melody in Schindler’s List) can be highly effective on a film’s first viewing.

Phrasing, harmony, singing styles and lyrics might dance at the intersection of subliminal and overt cultural idioms.

Then consider the possible impact on songwriters. Since the advent of Acid Pro software in 1998, plenty of songwriting veered into cut-and-paste territory. What’s being cut and pasted are snips and bits of the much-repeated, "looped" favorites. Is this just a lower grade form of creativity, or a more primitive version of Same Old Same Old?

Is pop music just theme and variations dressed up to look like creativity?

There are clearly powerful psychological processes at work. A brief review of the literature leaves this reviewer both curious and uncomfortable. The band which eschews its popular songs does so at its own peril. Some great music may go undiscovered when we put our favorite catalog on repeat. As we take hit after hit of favorite hits, we grow ever more comfortable with echo chambers that may allow cognitive aspects of music listening to atrophy accordingly.

Performance Review: Cryptic, Listicle Version

On this particular evening, the audience chose these tunes from the extensive Weinberg Jukebox menu. The list identifies the Familiar song / then a cryptic review in italics.

Night Before (Beatles) / Unadorned early Beatles. Surprisingly McCartney-esque vocals by Burtnik.

American Girl (Tom Petty) / Zoom. Fast forward a couple decades.

White Room (Cream) / Cool. All the verses with a note-for-note guitar solo cover of the Cream classic.

Tenth Avenue (Springsteen & E St) / Gentle reminder that with Max Weinberg we’re talking ‘bout the E Street drummer.

Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett) / Foot-tappin’ horse lovers’ special

Glad All Over (Dave Clark Five) / Weinberg shared a story having dinner in London with Dave Clark and Steven van Zandt. Hint: It’s a pun.

Night Moves (Bob Seger) / Plenty of audience moves to watch

Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh) / Focus: John Merjave’s slide work

Good Lovin’ (The Rascals) / Compact, catchy song whose pop craftsmanship still sparkles

Me and Julio (Paul Simon) / Not many Julios in this audience, but the gringos liked it anyway

Can’t Buy Me Love (Beatles) / More early Beatles with a prominent drum line

Paperback Writer (Beatles) / A truly daunting studio song creditably done live. Arrangers' nightmare.

Doctor My Eyes (Jackson Browne) / The night’s easiest “easy listening” tune

Fire (Pointer Sisters, Springsteen) / Hard to cover the strong original with thee men, but still plenty warm.

Miles and Miles (The Who) / Weinberg threatened to destroy the rented drums. Didn’t, but was plenty aggressive.

Good Times Bad times (Led Zeppelin) / Weinberg offered caveats for his drum cover of Bonham’s parts, but no need. Kudos. Rarely heard live.

Walk the Line (Johnny Cash) / Bob Burger covered this in his lowest vocal register, but ends way out of Johnny’s range -- to good effect.

Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison) / Song with the best non-word vocalization/growl

Paint it Black (Stones) / A Stones song even Stones skeptics like. Visualize Full Metal Jacket

Born to be Wild (Steppenwolf) / Great watching the drum part without having the play and sing (see next comment).

Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young) / Third of three songs in the reviewer’s college band playlist

Santa Claus is Coming (Trad’l) / By request, of course, for ye of all faiths

Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry) / Roots rock, feat. John Merjave serious wrist action

Brown Sugar (Stones) / Sweet but crumbly rock

Pink Cadillac (Springsteen & the E Street) / Light, impeccably live

She’s the One (Springsteen & the E Street) / AnnReviews.com says she had this one on repeat as a teen.

Glory Days (Springsteen & the E Street) / See photo. Audience members crowded the stage for an exuberant final burst of familiarity.

The (Not) Unsavory Jukebox

While the band did submit to a certain jukebox-like obedience, there’s a curious, somehow inescapable subtext in likening this group’s performance to a jukebox.

Consider the etymology of the word itself, courtesy of the Online Etymology dictionary:

. . . "machine that automatically plays selected recorded music when a coin is inserted," 1939, earlier jook organ (1937), from jook joint "roadhouse, brothel" (1935), African-American vernacular, from juke, joog "wicked, disorderly," a word in Gullah (the creolized English of the coastlands of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida). This is probably from an African source, such as Wolof and Bambara dzug "unsavory." The adjective is said to have originated in central Florida (see "A Note on Juke," Florida Review, vol. vii, no. 3, spring 1938). The spelling with a -u- might represent a deliberate attempt to put distance between the word and its origins.

Unsavory?

Nothing about the 2019 appearance of Max Weinberg’s Jukebox with The Weeklings could be labelled as unsavory.

Perhaps we must accept research findings that “. . . the need for familiarity is driven by consumers' low need for stimulation in the music domain, and [that] when the need for stimulation decreases, the power of familiarity significantly increases.”

When the Jukebox returns to the Landmark -- and it must -- these familiar favorites will once again, note for note, tingle the taste buds.

Next Up at Landmark

Next up at Landmark features the sold-out return of Darlene Love. But tickets are still available for Cherish the Ladies, a Celtic Christmas on December 17.

“Letting down through clouds . . . “

. . . the whine of steel guitars
sliding us down in deer-hide chairs
when jukebox music was over.
Sad music's on my mind tonight
in a jet high over Dallas, earphones
on channel five. A lonely singer,

dead, comes back to beg me,
swearing in my ears she's mine,
rhymes set to music that make
her lies seem true. She's gone
and others like her, leaving their songs
to haunt us. Letting down through clouds . . .

-- from “The Waltz We Were Born For” by Walt McDonald

Reference

Ward, M. K., Goodman, J. K., & Irwin, J. R. (2014). The same old song: The power of familiarity in music choice. Marketing Letters, 25(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-013-9238-1