A Paler Shade of White---Sasha Frere-Jones Podcast and New Yorker article Criticizing Indie Rock for Failing to Incorporate African-American Influences

Lookin' for funk
in allll the wrong plaaaaces
Lookin' for fuuuunk

interesting piece about this by bob stanley: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2832828.ece

White music is not black enough, a New Yorker critic has argued. His remarks have caused a racism furore.

Carl Wilson, who wrote the Slate article, has done some follow-up pieces on class and bohemia at his Zoilus website (and he references a Frank Kogan alt-weekly column). I expressed disagreement in the Zoilus comments with Carl's inference that aesthetically better music is created by bohemians in a voluntary poor lifestyle than uh, garage rockers livings at home. I also mentioned American Fm rock radio where you hear major label rock but not indie.

Also, Frank talks about indie-rockers being afraid of singing (in the African-American, latino, and various other ethnic genre traditions including European classical). But is this anything new? There's a long tradition of unorthodox rock vocals. I remember someone making the point ages ago that many non-tradional vocalists at CBGBs would prove to be more memorable than Annie Golden (? not sure of the name) the singer of the Shirts. And I am not saying that some rock vocalists couldn't benefit from learning how to sing--there are many who could---I am just saying that it's a case by case thing.

The Shirts singer was Broadway trained I believe, and where is she now.

On Broadway.

haha--it just keeps on keepin' on:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/neko-case-deep-red-belle/17706/

She's an auburn-haired Caucasian woman of Ukrainian descent. Is Case also the blackest woman in indie rock?

she's way blacker than the black people in indie rock

this one's my favorite:

Neko Case’s voice is brassy, miscegenated and classic.

god that thing is retarded.

l.a. weekly used to be alright, too.

heh, yeah, not a very well thought out piece there. but hey, speaking of this article, i was listening to the new Iron & Wine record last night for the first time, and it's totally, uh, miscegenated! at least half of it is pretty obviously based on African-type rhythms. whether you like I&W or not (I do), it's well-nigh undeniable. Which is a little funny since iron and wine's presence on that Garden State soundtrack puts them squarely in the "why is indie rock so white" sights.

that's the sort of article that makes one wish that people besides editors don't really care about inside baseball.

does anything put off readers faster then critics writing about other critics?

The remedy Frere-Jones recommends — “indie rock must embrace soul” — is on par with Clement Greenberg’s championing of Abstract Expressionist painting in the ’50s to the exclusion of other styles, or Pauline Kael’s strident support of films with taboo-busting sex and violence in the ’70s.

no, SFJ writing ABOUT the bands that "embrace soul" would be anything near "on par" with those examples. What a fuckwit.

What glorious musical times. It’s like a perpetual pop avant-garde that pulls you in rather than pushes you away. It should make us listen widely and carefully. To music, that is, not to dumb pronouncements.

see how it just folds in on itself like that?

haha--it just keeps on keepin' on:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/neko-case-deep-red-belle/17706/

-- JN$OT, Friday, November 16, 2007 12:41 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It's the Hannukah miracle of indie rock criticism.

isn't "Deep Red Bells" three albums into Case's solo career? How can it be an 'earlier composition' when it's closer to the endpoint of her solo career than the beginning?

yeah that struck me as odd too, was wondering if she did a previous version of it or something.

i think that is one of the worst things i have ever read

none more black

none more hack

Readers tuned in to the sturm und drang of music journalism may recognize this introduction as a nod to recent controversy

Repeat when necessary

It's the Hannukah miracle of indie rock criticism.

It's so poorly written on every conceivable level that I'm kind of shocked (and/or dismayed) that it got published on something other than the author's myspace blog.

I actually meant the topic itself as the metaphor, not the article, but yeah.

I think what he was trying to say is that Neko looks good in black.

oh i just saw the "Fact:" part

Fact: Neko Case was born in what may well be America’s squarest city, Alexandria, Virginia. Six miles from downtown Washington, D.C., it’s populated largely by professionals in the military and civil service.

Ok I'm biased, but this former Alexandria professional who now lives across the line in Arlington, Virginia does not agree with the "squarest" proclamation. Plus since Case was just born there and moved at a young age away from there, it really is not relevant at all to describe the city, or to use it as an example to describe Case's style.

x-post
Fact: Neko Case was born in what may well be America’s squarest city, Alexandria, Virginia. Six miles from downtown Washington, D.C., it’s populated largely by professionals in the military and civil service.

Ok I'm biased, but this former Alexandria professional who now lives across the line in Arlington, Virginia does not agree with the "squarest" proclamation. Plus since Case was just born there and moved at a young age away from there, it really is not relevant at all to describe the city, or to use it as an example to describe Case's style.

Fact: this is my opinion

POPESCU: Are you a slow writer, Mr. Martins?
MARTINS: Not when I get interested.
POPESCU: I'd say you are doing something pretty dangerous this time.
MARTINS: Yes?
POPESCU: Mixing fact and fiction.
MARTINS: Should I make it all fact?
POPESCU: Why no, Mr. Martins. I'd say stick to fiction. Straight fiction.

awesome movie

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/11/mark_hooper_thurs_pm_pic.html

oh man that Neko lede might be the worst lede of the year

Why doesn't the UK have hip-hop dance crazes?
Dave Stelfox

Go anywhere in the US, from Houston to Hackensack, and folks dance - really dance. And the internet is breaking new styles all the time

http://idolator.com/tunes/affirmative-action/la-times-pens-reponse-to-sasha-frere+jones-thats-possibly-more-infuriating-than-sasha-frere+jones-326238.php

Jess Harvell takes on an LA Times response to Sasha's article

ann powers is such an embarassment

In this week's New Yorker, while discussing Erykah Badu's New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (which I have not heard), Sasha Frere-Jones, whose work is highly regarded in some quarters, writes the following sentence with what I will go ahead and assume is a straight face:

"Like 'Voodoo' - and like Miles Davis's 'On The Corner,' as several critics have noted - 'New Amerykah' is a relatively short record that feels infinitely relaxed, and favors sound and mood over choruses and verses." [Emphases mine.]

Last time I checked (which was this morning, as I listened to my iPod on the train into NYC), On The Corner had a running time of 54:46 - "relatively short" compared to Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2, or Agharta, but not to, say, Rocket To Russia. And certainly not short given the storage capacity of a single vinyl disc - its original format. So let's call that use of "relatively" questionable at best.

The part where SF-J really loses me, though, is his next adverb-adjective combo. Many, many words have been expended describing and analyzing On The Corner. I've written a few myself, here and there. But "infinitely relaxed" is a description I gotta say pretty much anyone with functioning ears can agree does not apply. (The weaselly deployment of "several [unnamed, mind] critics have noted" seems like rockcrit kin to the political campaign tactic of appending "some say" to a hallucinatory critique of one's opponent. If there are really multiple sentient humans who find On The Corner relaxing, I'd like to gather them all in a room sometime - preferably one with an MRI machine.) But hey, when you're making New Yorker money and gadding about the city hosting events and what-all, I guess it's easy to stay relaxed, even with Miles et al. jabbering and squealing in your ear.

It's a poor choice of words, but it seems like he's talking about song form, maybe? Meaning it's not in a hurry to get anywhere in particular.

You also substituted "relaxed" for "relaxing" midway through your post, though they mean rather different things.

"infinitely relaxed" when it's got a marching tempo running through nearly all of it.

Voodoo wasn't exactly a short, sharp sprint of a record either.

"relatively short" when it clocks in at over 62 minutes. I suppose in relation to the average LaMonte Young trance session it would be a little short.

"Determined but patient" is how a proper critic would sum it up.

Maybe SFJ isn't that far off posting pictures of penguins either.

Voodoo is 79 minutes long, so I have no idea what he means by a "relatively short record" other than that it fits on one CD, or that albums are shorter than movies, or something.

Maybe he's never listened to any of these records.

maybe he's so infinitely relaxed when listening to them that he never looks at the time display on the stereo/ipod.

But it's true that Miles usually sounds relaxed - maybe cool would be a better word - no matter what frantic noise is going on around him.

anyway on a quick google it would appear that a lot of people have made the New Amerykah/On The Corner comparison before him (although he doesn't necessarily need that to back up his claim, since he knows a lot of other critics and he may just want to give them credit for something they said in conversations about the record).

IF ONLY SASHA FRERE JONES WAS A PROPER CRITIC

The New Yorker can't afford proper critics. Kael burned them and Tina Brown's overhottied.