I Am Putting On My Angry Letter-Writing Hat.

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It may be a bit early to start ragging on Pitchfork, but I was, for the VERY FIRST TIME since I started reading Pitchfork, surprised and genuinely weirded out by an article. I don't have any axe to grind with them, for sure: I read it every morning excepting weekends and maybe it isn't the greatest music writing on Earth but I quite like it. All that aside, the "One Fad Can Lead to Another" was a little confusing. I thought it was basically alright but I was taken aback by the suggestion that "Ideally... the Pipettes should be sifting through submissions of professional songwriters." It goes on to cite examples: Stuart Murdoch, Ted Leo, Alex Kapranos, et al. It's not the idea of a group like that singing other people's songs that bothers me (especially the Pipettes doing a Stuart Murdoch song, the mere thought of which makes me get all giggly and drool a little), but the implication that they're not good enough to write their own songs. Okay, actually it isn't implied at all: "...it's doubtful the Pipettes will maintain that over a full LP, let alone a career." The article doesn't really offer any evidence to support this, and what I hear when I read it to myself is, "They are three girls, and thus incapable of writing an album's worth of timeless pop songs, QED." I'm bothered by the implicit suggestion that, you know, what these girls really need are some nice boys to do all that tough songwriting, so they don't have to fret their pretty heads over what, let's face it, is a man's game. (The Justine Frischmann suggestion, by the way, smacks to me of tokenism.) Later in the article, one finds the sentence, "However, here's a hard fact: most people, and this includes musicians, cannot write a good song." Musicians, you say? You mean, people like Stuart Murdoch and Ted Leo, and to a lesser extent, Alex Kapranos? All I can get out of this article is one of two conclusions: utopian pop-ism (the best kind!) taken too far, with good intentions, or else a particularly subtle and insidious form of sexism. I want to say: Heavenly! and leave it at that; I mean, the article complains that the current crop of girl group-revivalists (as if there is such thing, however much I may wish for it) are just taking the look and sound and tossing out the ethic, which is apparently "ugly boys writing songs for pretty girls to sing." Sure, but this was a novel observation in, like, 1982. Remember Heavenly? Or the Shop Assistants, or the Dolly Mixture or Bad Dream Fancy Dress or Strawberry Switchblade?. I always thought of the idea of girls being somehow inherently less talented songwriters as some kind of quaint, archaic notion put to rest in the distant past (the 1980s!), and certainly not an idea worthy of consideration in "serious" music discussion. Interestingly, I find no mention of all-boy bands in need of a songwriter; the Beatles' and Stones' discography, after all, is noticeably cover-heavy at the beginning. Should Franz Ferdinand have started out with an album of Orange Juice and Josef K and Gang of Four covers? They certainly have a ways to go before I see them as being "established." Then again, they're boys.

Okay, enough editorializing. I should probably wrap it up. Conclusion: this article seems to be well-intentioned but betrays a kind of subtle sexism that is, especially at Pitchfork, curious and noticeably out-of-place.

And if ANYONE should be writing these girls' songs, it ought to be Amelia Fletcher, obviously.

― owen moorhead (i heart daniel miller), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:06 (twenty years ago)

i felt a deep sympathy with this article.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:11 (twenty years ago)

Should Franz Ferdinand have started out with an album of Orange Juice and Josef K and Gang of Four covers?

YES.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:13 (twenty years ago)

also, did you miss the parts where he said that beck should be writing crossover hits for swedish teenage boys and that wayne coyne should put his own maroon 5 together?

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:14 (twenty years ago)

don't forget my million dollar idea. having goodlooking young things doing superslick arenarock covers of guided by voices songs. goodlooking young things that can play!

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

and sing!

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

But the Click 5 already exist.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

what, like train doing "motor away"?

haha xpost

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:17 (twenty years ago)

what, like train doing "motor away"?

Just saw their new video. I don't think that leathery troglodyte qualifies.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:19 (twenty years ago)

i started a thread somewhere about that. doesn't have to be guided by voices. could be any indie muddlehead. someone should be taking the catchiest indie rock songs that nobody has ever heard and record them properly.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Dashboard Confessional with A Tribute to Jandek

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

It's eventually going to start happening with emo bands. They will all have one Sebadoh cover per album to show how real they are.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:21 (twenty years ago)

haha no current emo band's knowledge extends as far back as sebadoh

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

we're talking braid/get up kids here. pretty soon it's gonna start being taking back sunday.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:22 (twenty years ago)

Sunny Day Real Estate, yo.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:24 (twenty years ago)

that's pushing it a tad.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:24 (twenty years ago)

tho i would have said that we won't be opening fall out boy's closet and finding beefeater records spilling out but dude was in a bunch of ebullition bands or something wasn't he?!

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:26 (twenty years ago)

x-post - Not by much (I'm thinking about the rapturous reception given to them at This Ain't No Picnic, though admittedly that was back in 1999 -- and Get Up Kids were on the bill too!)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:30 (twenty years ago)

I think At The Drive-In now counts as "old school"

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:30 (twenty years ago)

from the article:
"But this can happen only if musicians and labels look beyond surface approximations, and mimic the true heart of the 1960s girl group boom."

do revival trends ever look beyond surface approximations (are they even supposed to)? or, when trends are (reportedly) influenced by some earlier trend, isn't it the "style" which is co-opted, never the "heart"? That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:30 (twenty years ago)

I wasn't aware The Pipettes were trying to do much more than "mimic[ing] the true heart of the 1960s girl group boom". Moreover, their songs aren't as good.

tho i would have said that we won't be opening fall out boy's closet and finding beefeater records spilling out but dude was in a bunch of ebullition bands or something wasn't he?!

Is that true?

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

"Don't try to be something you're not, man. That's what I say."

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

xpost

i'm pretty sure i read in that spin interview with them that the guitarist (not the singer, the one with black hair) was in a bunch of MRR-approved bands before deciding fuck it and going for the brass ring.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Article still manages to mention Dipset.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

when the revolution comes, we will not be spared chris

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:52 (twenty years ago)

What are you gonna do for your new line of work? I'm thinking of doing human interest stories. "Man eats entire train," that type of stuff.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:16 (twenty years ago)

conservative commentator or the kids news page for the pennysaver. not much bothered either way.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:20 (twenty years ago)

i recently read a blog review of art brut that compared them to at the drive in which was baffling until i realized the kid had probably never heard at the drive in. lucky kid.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:21 (twenty years ago)

someone should be taking the catchiest indie rock songs that nobody has ever heard and record them properly

http://img.epinions.com/images/newworld/856/281373-music-resized200.JPG

― maura (maura), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:23 (twenty years ago)

anyway, isn't this pretty much exactly what "since u been gone" is? max martin has said he wanted to do his version of a strokes song and that's how it ended up

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:26 (twenty years ago)

The Ashlee Simpson album sounds a little Franz Ferdinandy.

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:42 (twenty years ago)

There really are plenty of bands with great performers/musicians who can't quite write songs good enough to make them worth it. There really are plenty of great songwriters who can't quite perform well enough to make them worth it. It'd be a great thing if the indie ethic lightened up a little on making both sets useful -- it does nothing but increase the amount of good music for us to listen to.

Plus I would so love it if indie mainstay songwriters got all professional and did songs for other acts! Everything in history seems to point to this being the greatest thing ever -- hearing songwriters you know try and stretch into other formats, or hearing artists you're just getting to know sing material from more-familiar songwriters ... these things are endlessly fascinating. Murdoch would be a good guy for this, in a kind of Gainsbourg style (tho the Pipettes would be France Gall, meaning he'd have to produce something that sneers at itself like "Teenie Weenie Boppie") -- Kapranos-as-songwriter I don't get at all. And yes, if anyone could write terrific stuff for retro girl-groups it's Amelia Fletcher -- though that kinda destroys the point, cause it reminds me I'd rather just listen to Heavenly than the Pipettes.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:43 (twenty years ago)

DEV2.0 alone is proof that this isn't a foolproof idea.

― mike a, Monday, 30 January 2006 17:43 (twenty years ago)

as are the click 5 which are a boy band playing songs by the fountains of wayne guy

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:53 (twenty years ago)

Counterpoint: "That Thing You Do" was ... actually yeah, that was only half-okay.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:56 (twenty years ago)

Meanwhile Linda Perry's solo album sucks. Where is teh justice?!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:59 (twenty years ago)

I STILL WANT TO KNOW WHAT THIS ANGRY LETTER-WRITING HAT LOOKS LIKE!

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:05 (twenty years ago)

I'm surprised Stephin Merritt hasn't gone this route; he used to talk in the '90s about writing hits for Whitney Houston and so forth.

― mike a, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:07 (twenty years ago)

I STILL WANT TO KNOW WHAT THIS ANGRY LETTER-WRITING HAT LOOKS LIKE!

http://www.vintagephotos.com/Image_415_Angry_Cat_with_Hat.jpg

― Dan (There You Go, Scott) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:08 (twenty years ago)

http://www.donthaveacowman.com/Simpsons/Cards/Skybox-1/S-27.jpg

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:19 (twenty years ago)

I STILL WANT TO KNOW WHAT THIS ANGRY LETTER-WRITING HAT LOOKS LIKE!

You want Dan to show you?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:21 (twenty years ago)

"...to the sickos at Modern Bride magazine."

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:22 (twenty years ago)

Merritt's drifted at a least a step or two in that direction with the 6ths, though. (And I suppose he was at least picking singers from his pool of four on 69 Love Songs.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

i bet a look in pitchfork's mailbag would be good for a larf.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

I wanted that cat pic to be of MELONKIRBYCAT, damn it.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:34 (twenty years ago)

What Mike A said. Here he is talking about writing for Whitney (via Ernest P.):

"I don't know why Whitney Houston doesn't do one of my songs. A lot of them are blank enough for her to play around with and have bland enough lyrics for the meaning to be in the singing rather than the lyrics, which is what she seems to demand from a song. I do that sort of thing pretty well, and I'm actually surprised that I haven't been taken up by that group of people."

Apparently Peter Gabriel covered 'The Book of Love'.

― Mike W (caek), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:38 (twenty years ago)

http://members.lycos.co.uk/webweaving/exile_face.jpg

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:43 (twenty years ago)

Hold on, does Merritt actually go out and try and sell his songs (or get someone to actively do that for him) or does he just sit around all day and bitch that nobody notices?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:45 (twenty years ago)

the phrase "angry letter writing hat" makes me think of mike love

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:30 (twenty years ago)

'member this one....Brand New Love covered by Deadsy

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:44 (twenty years ago)

http://www.vintagephotos.com/Image_415_Angry_Cat_with_Hat.jpg

― Dominique (dleone), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:46 (twenty years ago)

Isn't it one of the boys in The Pippettes that writes all the songs anyway?

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:47 (twenty years ago)

Anybody remember that Chuck Klosterman column in Spin a while ago where he suggested that musicians who obviously rip off former influences just give up their music to their mentors so that they can release a good album? Like, he suggested Primal Scream crediting Give Out But Don't Give Up and that had they done this, it would have been the best Rolling Stones album since Some Girls...

Yeah, it's pretty silly, and it's like an exact opposite of this too..

― Harrison Barr (Petar), Monday, 30 January 2006 23:39 (twenty years ago)

"does Merritt actually go out and try and sell his songs (or get someone to actively do that for him) or does he just sit around all day and bitch that nobody notices?"

at the time that I worked with him, the latter is precisely what he did. altho' Claudia, his manager/hand-holder/drummer, was supposed to his emissary to the rest of the human race, and thus was supposed to shop his toonz around.

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Monday, 30 January 2006 23:54 (twenty years ago)

someone should be taking the catchiest indie rock songs that nobody has ever heard and record them properly

this has gotta be a joke... right?

― one time gaffled 'em up (one time gaffled 'em up), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:55 (twenty years ago)

thus was supposed to shop his toonz around

So much is explained.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 03:04 (twenty years ago)

You have an angry hat that writes letters?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 03:30 (twenty years ago)

I was hoping this would be a matos thread.

― controversial buffalo stance (haitch), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 03:43 (twenty years ago)

So much is explained.

musician in expecting manager to handle bizness side of things shocka

(musician in employing old friend rather than suited shark as manager a side-issue)

― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 05:06 (twenty years ago)

Bad Dream Fancy Dress? Surely their songs were written by the King of Luxembourg?

― The Vintner's Lipogram (OleM), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

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