I'm merely overt.

Its time for a shout out. One of my favorite blogs is by a fellow alumnus, Jason Hartley. Jason along with pal Britt Bergman developed the Advancedment Theory. Their theory has gained some attention from the likes of Esquire Magazine July 2004, and now is accompanied by a blog, named of course...advanced theory blog. www.advancedtheory.blogspot.com

Anyway to sum up Advanced Theory is simply putting a name to an artist's decision. Like, instance David Byrne of the Talking Heads doing a cover of Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody. That is advanced. He is so beyond his peers and so beyond his fans that he chose to do something that appealed only to himself. Not only did this only appeal to Byrne, no one could have predicted this move. It was like Dylan playing Christian music in the late 70s, unfortunately that wasn't deemed advanced. Just before you think you've got a hold on exactly what is going on here, I'll throw in a wrench. There is the idea of an artist merely being overt. For example Liz Phair is overt. She hasn't yet advanced. Releasing a four track album of confessional songs progressing to ten years later releasing a pop rock album with similar lyrics is only overt. Overt is better than not being overt, its just not advanced.

To be advanced you must release a piece of work that 99% of the world thinks is absolute crap. The reasons are not because the work is bad, its because we as non-advanced don't get it. This by no means means that crap is genius and the opposite. It is only a way of analyzing pop culture. It is a fun way to make crappy music by a non-crappy person relevant.