The Thread Where We List The People Who Put Kanye As Their Token Rap Album on an indiecentric top 10 2004 list

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how is Gretchen Wilson not mainstream in general, much less mainstream country? I mean bloody hell I saw a "60 Minutes" profile of her the other week (which also had Big & Rich in it, obv.).

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 31 December 2004 05:02 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah, gretchen wilson is totally mainstream. she's selling an outsider image, but outsider images themselves have always been a big part of the nashville mainstream. her music is 100 percent pop ("here for the party" might as well have been a pink cover) and also 100 percent country (which has long been able to get you on vh1, from shania to faith to tim).

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 31 December 2004 05:45 (nineteen years ago) link

a) she raps
b) she sings more like a gospel singer than is usual for a new singer
c) "chariot" is not any kind of mainstream country
d) you are making a big assumption that she is only "selling" that image, because 1) who gives a fuck and 2) she is only on her first album after kicking around the city for years singing on demos without getting a record contract, that's about as outside as nashville gets
e) you realize that if being an outsider is mainstream then there IS no outside, that all music is actually country music quid pro status quo

― Haibun (Begs2Differ), Friday, 31 December 2004 05:50 (nineteen years ago) link

No, it's MY music. You are all in my country of THE MIND

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 31 December 2004 05:56 (nineteen years ago) link

masta ace might be my token rapper this year. i was really digging that record for some reason. maybe cuz i wasn't expecting anything and it just hit me the right way. i do think he fits in nicely with big & rich and the homosexuals.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 31 December 2004 06:11 (nineteen years ago) link

(x-post)
a) so did charlie daniels. and maybe even shania twain does, too, depending how you want to define rap. and patsy cline used a string section. and hank jr. used ear-splittingly loud arena-rock guitars. the nashville mainstream has always borrowed from the "pop" mainstream.
b) not entirely sure what you mean by that.
c) "chariot" is an album cut. everyone in nashville, and in new york, and in london, has one, or two, or three.
d-1) everyone gives a fuck. part of being a mainstream performer, in any genre, is selling your image.
d-2) yawn. singing on demos for years, trying to get a record deal. tell me another new one.
d-extra) and, by the way, "redneck woman" was an IMMEDIATE smash in nashville.
e) not quite following your leap of logic here. i'm not saying that all outsider music is mainstream country music. i'm saying that country has always had, and still has, a strong outsider/outlaw streak, and gretchen wilson fits comfortably in it. that's at least partly what she's crowing about in "redneck woman."

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 31 December 2004 06:17 (nineteen years ago) link

(btw, i'm saying all this as a gretchen wilson fan. i like, but don't entirely love, the album, and "redneck woman" is one of my fave singles of the year.)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 31 December 2004 06:22 (nineteen years ago) link

Anthony, are you actually using that asshole Byron Crawford to back up your point?

It's just fun to type "ask Byron Crawford" when discussing kanye.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 08:06 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah the "outsider" tag is always useful, in that it always gets a rection. Use it, on yourself or anybody else, and somebody will always say,"Hell yeah, you and me, Buddy!" And somebody else will say,"Eeeeuuuu, you sure are! Get away!" And others will say."Gimme a break," and dismiss, but in a prolonged way, hopefully, cos dismissa reinforces reactions of previously mentioned factions, and vice-versa. For some, the whole exisence of country is a delicious and/or distasteful outside (outhouse, backside, nowhere, etc.) Especially with downward mobility really kicking in (name your surrogate: rednecks [inept, useless white people, but not meee] or Barbra/Natalie [that there rich Commie bitch!]). There are insiders, for instance, kiddies who get afterschool co-writing deals, like brad paisley or Katrina Elam or Matraca Berg (she's co-written a lot of hits, and being the daughter and niece of well-established backup singers din't hurt, but, as with Whitney Houston, talent made the difference; maybe drug-bonding did too, but talent didn't hurt) An outside-the-loop outsider like Toby Keith took yet another shot with How Do You Like Me Now?" Rap in the Age of Rap (that black stuff!) Not pre-Rap-rap talkin' blues like (the possibly pre-KKK-fellow-traveller) Charlie Daniels' "Uneasy Rider."("Uneasy" cos he's an apostate, pre-acceptable long-haired country boy, at odds with short-haired country boys.The tawkin'accent does accent make "Southern hipness" more of a flashpoint/selling point, novelty-hitwise). Toby's Rap rap was conceptually appropriate (as was Charlie's, since it was "country" but also "hip," as in Woody Guthrie, as in "Whut the hail's the *diffence, yall"). Toby the spurnned high school nerd, who builds up his whole macho career to *show that bitch ("Livin' inside your radio," yet "you still thank Ah'm crazy!") Later, he did write "The Taliban Song," justification of the (rather non-controversial, at least non-headline) Afghan War, when enthusiasm for Iraqi rah-rah, cooled, even in his own interviews. And it was outsider enough to be "from" the POV of a furry li'l furriner, like nothing else in (even "hip")country is (not since the officially-designated Age of Minstrelsy ended). So, he kinda gets points from the right, for pro-war rah-rah and difference-reductionism, but also points from the left (or anyway me) for at least a kind of non-white inclusionism. And the current "Stays In Mexico" is a non-repentant, non-*justifying(no "mah wife don't understand me") adultery song! A post-cheatin' cheatin' song, outside a cherished tradition of hitmaking But on "The Dirty Dozen:CMT's Favorite Outlaws" his citation was not for any of this, but for *standing up to the Dixie Chicks! Wotta man!

― don, Friday, 31 December 2004 14:20 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't get that Kanye record. "All Falls Down" and "Through The Wire" are really good, but I don't think the rest of it is particularly good. Whatever.

My "token" rap albums weren't even American - I went for M.I.A. and Dizzee. Ghostface almost made my top 10 pazz and jop, but he got edged out at the very last moment. I kinda regret not including him.

― Matthew "Flux" Perpetua, Friday, 31 December 2004 14:40 (nineteen years ago) link

One of my rap discs
was by a Mexican dude
from down Houston way

The other: T.I.,
who is more a songwriter
than a "great" rapper.

Trick Daddy: so close!
Xzibit surprising, good,
but there was no room

This was the last year
that I think I will listen
to U.S. music

― Haibun (Begs2Differ), Friday, 31 December 2004 14:52 (nineteen years ago) link

"I don't get that Kanye record."
Me neither. I keep going back ever month or so, but I have trouble listening to the whole thing w/o yawning.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Friday, 31 December 2004 15:02 (nineteen years ago) link

My token was Steinksi's Sugar Hill mix. No playing safe, in terms of Goldien Oldie-dependance: it's mostly obscuros, incl, several liscensed by Sugar Hill, from pre-Rap (hit-recognition) rap labels. Playing safe maybe in terms of no hos, crack, and/or Jesus (and no impled social commentary a la his previous NO FEAR), but often exhilarating anyway. I still haven't heard all of the Kanye, but sounds like his Mama still comes over to hose out his Dropout penthouse and dress him like Usher's Mama dresses *him. Jean Grae's latest seemed weaker than her previous releases (prob of building up an early fanbase/cultdom, cos newcomers might find it excellent). Got the next Buck 65 in Sept., I think, but then the annoucement that "It's so good, that release has been pushed back to January!"(to re-think marketing, I think), so I still haven't listened to it9which is wrong, I know).

― don, Friday, 31 December 2004 17:25 (nineteen years ago) link

"Frankly, I have no idea where rock is going, and judging from what happened in 2004, no one else does either. In a perfect world, gifted prog-metal practitioners Coheed and Cambria, genteel strutters the Walkmen and sui generis indie/electronic explorers TV on the Radio would carry the day, while veteran practitioners of melodic weirdness like Modest Mouse and the reconfigured Wilco would keep attracting more and more believers to their sonic cults."

FEAR FOR AMERICA

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:14 (nineteen years ago) link

what's wrong exactly with what he's saying? which i take as that there are people who are predisposed to like a select few rock bands he thinks are particularly good who are not being exposed to them in any mass way, while the rock bands that do receive mass exposure seem somewhat arbitrarily-selected. it's a bit of rockism, probably - the radio rock bands are poppier than the ones he likes - but only a bit. is there something wrong with wanting more rock on the radio (something i could care less about) if you think the rockier stuff is better than the poppier stuff simply on its own merits and not because it's rockier? I don't know much about these bands, but I thought most of the more critical people here would agree that the Walkmen, to take the most promising example, are a pretty good band deserving of wider recognition. he's not defending insular indie values as the bands chosen are fairly well-known. he just wants them to be elevated to the level of pop. i could make an analogous argument about why I wish that Madeleine Peyroux and maybe Jane Monheit had the renown of Norah Jones and Diana Krall. there's nothing especially wrong with the people who get chosen to be pop stars, but there's some frustration when you'd make a different choice. he's a pawn on the board of commerce seeing more and more organization into fewer and fewer entities - Avril for the kiddies, Linkin Park for their older brothers - and powerless to realize his wishes for at least marginally greater choice in the marketplace.

and i'm not sure what at all his point has to do with hiphop, which is neither his subject nor apparently his enemy. it's facile to celebrate the non-'gangsta', especially when what falls outside the set is not in fact 'gangsta' (is that true here?), but can someone tell me why 'gangsta' is something to be valued or why non-'gangstas' should not be 'laud'ed for, where otherwise applicable, their relative bravery, humanism and rejection of a profit-motive (at least where not seeking some other status sign).

i think it's not-half-bad writing.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:36 (nineteen years ago) link

seem somewhat arbitrarily-selected

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:38 (nineteen years ago) link

in a perfect world a whinier Rush, the slack-ass remnants of Jonathan Fire*Eater, Living Colour with no skills or rhythm section and old alt-rock bands I've been listening to for years would be at the top of the pop charts.
-- miccio (anthonyisrigh...), December 30th, 2004.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:42 (nineteen years ago) link

well, the implication - or my inference, at least - is that the big bands the record companies get behind are not marginally better or necessarily more mass-friendly than the ones he likes, but that they have picked one band and run with it because one is going to sell more than many if they do so. Linkin Park = Wal-Mart. He wants to elevate the local chain to Target level to cut into their share.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:42 (nineteen years ago) link

and they ARE attracting more and more to their sonic cults, wtf. these guys aren't playing sports bars to dwindling numbers.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Wilco went top ten! Modest Mouse had a number one modern rock hit!

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link

exactly. I take away from the semi-gibes that he doesn't think the world of these bands, but that the pop charts are without such marginally different - from the charts and each other - bands, and poorer for it.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link

I hate that fucking blinkered "oh the world would be great if the hyped bands that appeal to my subculture were accepted by the monoculture" mentality. These AREN'T should-be-number-ones, they're fuckin' alt-drivel of varying degrees and most are available at Wal-mart.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:47 (nineteen years ago) link

and they ARE attracting more and more to their sonic cults, wtf. these guys aren't playing sports bars to dwindling numbers

good point. I didn't know Modest Mouse were so big. But is he saying that he wishes Coheed (who?) and the Walkmen were even bigger than Wilco, who he then comparatively reduces in market share (even while they are growing in their fan base) to a 'cult'?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:47 (nineteen years ago) link

I mean name bands that deliver similar gifts as popular groups but don't get promotion if you want to make that argument. The bands he lists all have money behind them (except arguably TV On The Radio, who all the same won the Shortlist Prize).

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:49 (nineteen years ago) link

my last point might be an unlikely event, but he may (may) be suggesting that more boats would lift the tide. the record companies think he's wrong.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:50 (nineteen years ago) link

these ARE record company boats. all are on majors (except TV). i know what he's suggesting. It's a common bullshit argument and I used to make it all the time in high school.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:51 (nineteen years ago) link

and for clarification I'm listening to TV On The Radio this second and I'd probably like the Walkmen if they brought back Stuart Lupton. I just know why these bands aren't as big as linkin park or green day or whoever and I don't think it speaks ill of the US that they aren't (for the reasons I listed above).

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 18:58 (nineteen years ago) link

In a perfect* world, certain bands would be bigger than they are? This is his vision of perfection? Dare to dream!

― don, Friday, 31 December 2004 18:59 (nineteen years ago) link

no, that's not what he's saying. he's saying that even a few years ago - maybe as many as ten, though - there were a lot more medium-sized bands, which was better than a few big ones. i don't think how well his examples of potential additional medium-sized bands fit is so germane to the argument.

yes, these are record company boats. he wants the smaller boats to be bigger and maybe the bigger boats to lose a few of their amenities.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:09 (nineteen years ago) link

way to project

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:13 (nineteen years ago) link

quite possibly. but I think I'm reading closer.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:14 (nineteen years ago) link

(than anyone who wants to laugh at him)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:14 (nineteen years ago) link

Miccio! Miccio! Miccio!

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:21 (nineteen years ago) link

I agree. But I don't see that being his argument, necessarily. I think you're too tied to his examples.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 19:58 (nineteen years ago) link

Assuming that is what he's saying, do we know there aren't more medium-popular bands than ten years ago? More bands using groovey new stuff like the Internet to go around dinarch conglometates? of course, might not be so* many more actually making medium-money by being medium-popular (mmmSoulseekcoughcough)(how do you chart that sort of download, so how do we know etc.)

― don, Friday, 31 December 2004 20:01 (nineteen years ago) link

that's an itneresting idea - maybe there are fewer medium bands because there are more small ones

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:04 (nineteen years ago) link

or, right, it is easier to find out about all the different small ones so more time is spent in the finding out

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:05 (nineteen years ago) link

the phrase "medium bands" is making me chuckle for some reason.

― Al (sitcom), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:09 (nineteen years ago) link

and/or the internet provides so much content regarding known likes that the record companies and promoters no longer have as much access to the known-like media market to plug unknowns so they have to concentrate their resources to get through to the listeners

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:09 (nineteen years ago) link

I'm not sure I get why anybody wants the bands they like to be more popular, unless said bands aren't doing well financially and popularity would mean they wouldn't starve. But that's usually not what's meant by that kind of statement -- it's usually more like, Wouldn't it be awesome if the entire world had my powers of discernment? Which I'm not sure why you would want that or what it would accomplish.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:10 (nineteen years ago) link

I comprehend - but don't understand - why anyone wants their favorite bands not to be popular. It's because the band is part of their identity, their identity is premised upon distinction, and a mass band loses its significance as a marker. But bands are more important to me as conveyors of ideas that I want to have purchase in the marketplace. I want the band to be as big as they can be without the reduction of the idea to meaninglessness.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:14 (nineteen years ago) link

of course, on this model, if the band reaches a certain level of popularity, it may well lose its reason for being. i'm not sure there's anything wrong with that. but does any band today reach that level? probably.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:16 (nineteen years ago) link

but those bands deal with small ideas?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:18 (nineteen years ago) link

by which i mean ones that are too broad?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:18 (nineteen years ago) link

Mark Lanegan's "Bubblegum" won't make anyone's list even though it was better than most--not even as the token junkie album of the year.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:20 (nineteen years ago) link

It made DeRo's list.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:21 (nineteen years ago) link

well that's too bad, now all the ILMers, with their DeRo-ism, will hate it.

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link

T.I. is a great rapper. Haikunym U R Crazy (though T.I. is also a great songwriter).

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:26 (nineteen years ago) link

miccio, do you reall think Klosterman is a more successful writer than you because of obviousness and privledge?

― shookout (shookout), Friday, 31 December 2004 20:35 (nineteen years ago) link

he's saying that even a few years ago - maybe as many as ten, though - there were a lot more medium-sized bands, which was better than a few big ones.

this same argument was also made in the following years: 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, 1983, 1982, 1981, 1980, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1975, etc. my guess is that it was first made a few years -- maybe as many as ten, though -- after edison invented the phonograph. no, strike that. my guess is it was first made a few years after man walked upright for the first time.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 31 December 2004 21:33 (nineteen years ago) link

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