― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Bidfurd (Bidfurd), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:13 (eighteen years ago) link
Don't want a cat,Scratching its claws all over myHabitatGiving no love and getting fatOh, (oh oh) you can get lonelyAnd a cat's no help with that
-----------
Morrissey, "King Leer"-----------
Your boyfriend, hedisplays to memore than justa hint of crueltyI tried to surprise youI crept up behind youwith a homeless chihuahuayou gushed for an houryou handed him back and said"You'll never guessI'm bored now"
---
thus: CHIHUAHUA = GAYISM
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:16 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.chihuahua-info.de/fotos/paris.hilton.chihuahua.jpg
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:21 (eighteen years ago) link
This debate is fucking boring. It's so lame, people aren't even talking past each other, they're just popping out these strawmen that were stale the first time someone trotted them out. Sasha and Jessica aren't arguing that people who hate rap hate black people. Whatsisname at Slate isn't arguing that musical taste exists in a vacuum.
Frankly, Magnetic Fields stuff is so escapist, so clearly untouched by urban America, that it does strike me as similar (in its cultural white flight) to all the creepy, interchangeable white suburban/rural dramas on TV that started with Dawsons Creek (the OC, Smallville, One Tree Hill, etc etc.)
On the other hand, I believe Stephin when he says he just doesn't give a shit about syncopation and rhythm and shit. Man just likes a good tune, and thank god, because now we have 69 Love Songs. And that being the case, his taste is going to skew white. It's problematic, but not inherently racist.
I dunno, I think Sasha and Jessica chose the wrong guy to pick on here, but can we recognize that linking taste in music to the rest of the culture isn't ridiculous?
― Lukas (lukas), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― -+-+-+++- (ooo), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Dudes, see the EMP thread for much more on this, including posts from Hopper and a big-ass thing I posted before I realized y'all were talking about it here.
― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Lukas (lukas), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 18:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in Baltimore (Alex in Baltimore), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― jeremiah q. fuckface, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― Pessimist, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.sashafrerejones.com/2006/05/idee_trix.html
― Treblekicker (treblekicker), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Ask Don Delillo to do the same for books, and it's not like that list should be the syllabus in universities nationwide - it would just be interesting as a reflection of literature that has resonated with him as an artist. In Merritt's case, it happened to be work that would be an appropriate tie-in with the records he released that year, and probably more fun for him to do than an interview. It's just an artist's list in a weekly magazine, is all. I love reading artists' best-of lists (music, books, whatever) for their idiosyncracies and championing of underappreciated work, not for their breadth.
― Eazy (Eazy), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― pleased to mitya (mitya), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 20:56 (eighteen years ago) link
And just so we're careful what we wish for in asking our songbook composers to acknowledge rock and r&b influences, would anyone like to listen to Rent?
(I'm not a fan of 69 Love Songs because I can't get over the production and Merritt's voice - so hearing the same songs on a Morning Becomes Eclectic archive was quite a revelation.)
― Eazy (Eazy), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eazy (Eazy), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:10 (eighteen years ago) link
I can't think of a better pop song about people who've been sexually abused than "Papa Was A Rodeo".
― Eazy (Eazy), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eazy (Eazy), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Mind you, I'm no fan of Merritt -- but it's for strictly musical reasons. (All his songs sound, to me, like demos with which he has no emotional connection. His lyrics are repetitive, and frequently embarrassing in a tee-hee-look-at-me-I-am-talking-about-sex-aren't-I-shocking? kind of way. Also, I tend to dislike synthesizers. Personal biases, blah.) But I think expecting songs that aren't about class/race/etc. to acknowledge those topics is supremely ridiculous -- that's not the point of the song, the point of the song is that someone is in some sort of unrequited love, or requited love, or whatever. And I think it is fair to say that maintaining lyrical focus within a song is particularly important to Merritt, but I think that much breadth cannot be expected of anybody.
Maybe he could write his songs as normal, only devote the bridges to Matters of Political Import? "This guy doesn't love me, he doesn't love me... / also, I would like to point out that a lot of people are homeless / something ought to be done / And if there are any racists listening to this song / Well, you guys can just fuck off, okay? / Oh, good heavens, I said "fuck"! / (synthesizer solo)"
― Pessimist (Pessimist), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 11 May 2006 02:16 (eighteen years ago) link
I blame Dave Chappelle for breaking down my inhibitions.
I should clarify that the archetype of the "cracker" is from the same historical family as the redneck/white trash/wigger/nigger/gangsta/pranksta person. The invention of the word "wigger" to describe "backwards white guys trying to act backwards black guys" or something similar is redundant as we already have enough words for those types of people (redneck, cracker, good ol' boy, etc). To criticize a white person for being anti-black and then to call him a cracker is a sort of circular insult.
I find it backwards though that so much can goes on in message boards but the only thing that brings people to react morally is the idea that a bad word might be used (even objectively speaking) by the wrong race on a keyboard. Would the use of the word "cock" only be acceptable if I came from I Love Farming? I think not.
― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 11 May 2006 02:35 (eighteen years ago) link
When Merritt said "I think it's shocking that we're not allowed to play coon songs anymore" it reminded me of Freepers who say "niggardly" all the time just because hey it's not "technically" offensive nudge wink.
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eazy (Eazy), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eazy (Eazy), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sean Braud1s (Sean Braudis), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:42 (eighteen years ago) link
I tried playing Merritt a track by the Southern rapper Cee-lo, called "One for the Road," a dazzling display of verbal ingenuity and wit I thought he might enjoy. Before Cee-lo actually starts rapping, there's a short introduction, in which, sounding very Southern and very black, he says, "Yeah, mm-mm-mm, yeah that sho' feel good. Hello, I go by the name of simply Cee-lo Green, how d'ya do? Welcome. I thought I'd seize this opportunity to tell you a little bit more about myself, if you don't mind. This is my vision, ya know what I'm sayin'? Check me out now."
Unremarkable and tame, at least it seemed to me, but it was too much for Merritt, who stopped the song after a few seconds of this. "I think it's shocking that we're not allowed to play coon songs anymore, but people, both white and black, behave in more vicious caricatures of African-Americans than they had in the 19th century. It's grotesque. Presumably it's just a character, and that person doesn't actually talk that way, but that accent, that vocal presentation, would not have been out of place in the Christy Minstrels." Dramatic pause to prepare for the inevitable hyperbolic quip, "In fact, it would probably have been considered too tasteless for the Christy Minstrels."
― Eazy (Eazy), Thursday, 11 May 2006 04:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Or you know...maybe he has a different taste and cultural background. Does anyone think he'd give more time to a country act in the Shania/Toby Keith mold? This isn't exactly the first time New York musicians could be said to be out of touch with mainstream American taste (!). This is all very similar to the accusations Charlie Gillett had made towards the Velvet Underground in Sound of the City, "(describing the VU sound) deliberately primitive musical accompanyment seemed to have filtered all the black influences out of rock n roll, leaving an amateurish, clumsy, but undeniably atmospheric background." And the Velvets at least had an explicitly anti-black racist in Nico to warrant suspicion that their music wasn't black enough for critics.
Let's stop getting shocked that affluent, educated, homosexual songwriters and artists living in Manhatten bring a more European approach and taste to music and don't instantly remind everybody of America and the South especially.
― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 11 May 2006 05:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 May 2006 06:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 May 2006 06:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 11 May 2006 06:25 (eighteen years ago) link