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

max, I think that's what Frere-Jones was talking about, how he thinks white indie kids are shying away from that hallowed hipster romance with black music, but I'm driving at a different point. Country has lost its mystery/romance for me, though I still hear and like some current stuff. And that happened to folk music a long time ago. Are those what you'd call black musics? I'm much more likely to feel that romance about older records in general lately, music overall seems less wild now, and blackness isn't somehow code for wildness.

"music overall seems less wild now" and I seem like a hundred year old coot. Kids, in my day ...

for a lot of people, the black music that we're talking about (blues and r&b i guess? i dont know exactly what we mean) still holds a certain amount of romance, and it seems to me that the loss of romance is connected more to age than to the progression of time, but im willing to say that the "romance" of early-20th-century black music is different somehow from the "romance" of contemporary black music.

what this line of questioning has to do with sfj's article, im not sure... but one of my major problems with it is what seems like a kind of mysticization or romanticization of "black music" that im not sure is fully explored. i think wilson's best point is that SFJs piece reads more like a first draft than a published essay.

I'd agree, the New Yorker piece treated certain black styles as a magic cure-all for a sickness he'd improperly diagnosed, and the rough draft looseness was oddly bloggy. I think he's a much better and more interesting and more enjoyable writer than this almost all the time, but the glaring exceptions seem to happen when he's on his White Guilt Supremacist hobbyhorse.

my blues is house music and it's for many of the same reasons mentioned in the last few posts. for the longest time i have wanted to write about it. i used to record house music with a guy from deep on the south side of chicago (he was black, i am white, both gay). needless to say i think a lot of the romance was born out of hardship (economic, racial and sexual prejudice, drugs, shitty jobs) which was subverted when we played together - it made everything that much more powerful (house is about escape and release and deep spirituality). he is gone now, but i will never forget those times. they were real in a way that is hard to put into words without succumbing to cliche or the authenticity police. i don't know if that's what SFJ is talking about because i haven't read the piece yet, but i suspect it's related.

You know, I just figured out this wasn't a revive. I just assumed it was, like, from 2005 or something. Someone better send the kicked-out-of Indieville memo to TV On The Radio...

there was some clusterfuck thread from a few years back, not the emp one, where stormy or someone pretty much called out sasha to his face (sfj was posting on the thread) regarding how Ui didn't sound very "black" or something. he dodged the question IIRC. anyone know what i'm talking about??

If forced to choose between tolerating some boringly undersexed rock music and reviving the, er, "vigorous" sexual politics of cock rock

I've often thought that a lot of emo has a kind of wounded-man misogyny that's not all that far removed from some Zeppelin stuff. Also there's a fair amount condescension to women, although nothing quite as unsubtle as what you'd hear in most 70s cock rock.

And yeah, that Wilson article. Wow.

Max, I think it depends on how you read "romance". As early teens my friends and I were your typical white gangster herbs (yeah yeah), listening to the Dogs and NWA and cracking up. That music had a kind of romance, I guess, but I don't think that's the romance that Elvis or Alex Chilton or David Byrne felt.

-- Euler, Friday, 19 October 2007 02:45 (2 hours ago) Link

lol @ reading universal profundity from anecdotal experience

rap isn't a joke to everyone

not saying its DEADLY SERIOUS BUSINESS but yr perspective is v. v. http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/suspect5es.gif

Hurting OTM re: emo but I didn't realize it was intended to be read as anything else. Blue October "Hate Me Today" worst offender evar in this regard, if not technically emo.

I believe the 'romance' exists primarily in the experience of the listener, not the music itself. Generally music + nostalgia evokes a feeling of romance. That's why every generation goes through the same tired criticism that music au courant just doesn't have it anymore. Circumstances change, good musicians don't and as long as talent is still in our gene pool it'll manifest itself in one genre or another.

Summertime is romance... Shook Ones is romance.

I've been thinking about this and, that he manages to troll all the free-weekly/blog ppl so successfully is kind Madonna-In-Her-Primesque from where I sit is really totally OTM. This is totally SFJ's "Like A Prayer" video, if not song.

(white working-class culture once had a kind of significant berth in rock 'n' roll, too.

xpost to A, LS

Still does in UK indie - Arctic Monkeys, The View many more - not so much in US, no?

In before Anglo zing squad--using the Arctic Monkeys as an example of a working class band is pretty wrong, they're as middle class as I am. UK indie is more public school than it's ever been (in the UK public school = fee paying school.))

Yeah, I agree with that about the public school- ness of UK indie - maybe you're right about the AMs being middle- class, I honestly don't know, but the perspective they write from seems to come from that grubby white collar interstice between lower- middle and working class; and they appear too young to have been to uni before forming the band?

It's a middle class thing rather than a public school thing... AMs are a bad band to use when talking about "that grubby white collar interstice between lower- middle and working class" really, Hard Fi are a much better example. Remember that HF are the band that got butthurt when Simon Amstell made a joke about IT technicians, and Hard Fi were all "WE MAKE MUSIC FOR THE HONEST HARD-WORKING MAN THAT RESETS THE E-MAIL SERVER".

rap isn't a joke to everyone

this too is a rather romantic stance, in the strict sense of the term man - jbill otm!

Yeah, I agree with that about the public school- ness of UK indie

I don't see the problem with that.

In the 70s, most of the best British music was made by people with an art school background.

An art school and a public school are not even remotely the same.

rap isn't a joke to everyone

this too is a rather romantic stance, in the strict sense of the term man - jbill otm!

-- J0hn D., Friday, 19 October 2007 11:46 (1 hour ago) Link

uh i think i was implying the same thing as jbill actually

a thread about him on one popular music message board had racked up almost 1,000 posts by yesterday lunchtime by, well, claiming that Arcade Fire aren't funky enough.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/10/is_indie_too_white.html

Wonky first sentence there, Lynskey.

Wonky first sentenceskull bone structure there, Lynskey.

Fixed.

The Guardian's music ed posts (semi)covertly to it's blogs (as MHann)? Weird.

^^^found this weird. Not as weird as the Graun's current pop hardon for all things poptimist and right-wing, but still.

Not "semi-covertly", but under my own name. I often post on Guardian blogs. What's so weird about joining in a discussion we are encouraging? Intrigued to know we have a "hardon" for things rightwing as well. Hadn't noticed myself, but there you go. What would I know? Good to see you're as rational as ever, Dom, and not at all embittered about anything.

^^^ban

Sorry for posting under a covert name here, but I wanted to post on another thread recently without being called a cunt, so I changed and didn't get round to changing back. I'll leave you to your bile now.

Big Al's lead review is gonna open with another "Nerds on the internet, doing the shopping for their mum" paragraph next week, then.

It was me not Dom that said semi-covertly. I have never been employed by The Guradian but have bought it a lot so maybe you should show more respect.

You psted with a contraction of yr own name, and no title, which might be useful seeing as yr name and position is not that known to the majority of Guardian readers.

(xpost)

Misspelling of Guardian not intentional.

Come on now, let the man enjoy his persecution complex in peace. It's Friday, live and let live.

deej---rap isn't a joke to me, hasn't been for going on 17 years, and arguably longer, but when I was 13 years old it was "romantic" in a way tinged with jokiness and irony. I still see the same thing with a lot of---by no means all---white appreciation of r&b/rap today. So my point was that Max's view that romance remained among white appreciation of black music today was that this needed to be unpacked, and to see what the non-joky romance looks like, does it resemble whatever Elvis and Byrne etc., felt.

You can still think this perspective is suspect, of course.

I'm not going to lock Stephin Merritt in a cupboard and bombard him with Mobb Deep albums until he repents.

I read this as "until he represents."

Which would be a funny line.

stephin merritt reps the bridge

cambridge?

oh god why is this thread still happening

for the record I think SFJ is suspect in his logic but not in the basic supposition; the difference is that I don't have to listen to and opine about Arcade Fire for a living, and that no one gives an eff what I have to say about it

the dialogue has started -- MAY A THOUSAND BACKBEATS BOOM FROM THE SWEATER_WEARING SHAGGY_HAIRED BANDS OF W"BURG

Yet another point: Doesn't all of this really say more about the indie rock audience than it does about the musicians? At any given time there are bands playing in almost any imaginable style. If white-bread sweater rock is the dominant paradigm (if it really is) it's because that's what's getting pushed by labels and the press and what's selling.

If a white guy lives in New Orleans and plays in a jazz funeral, then that's not going to raise any eyebrows, because that's their regional identity, which gives them some leeway in terms of authenticity

In a sense, except there's a weird thing where most of the white brass band dudes in New Orleans play the music in a really white way, and seem to ignore the black version of the same culture that's all around them. It's like because they have that regional authenticity, they don't bother to delve into the music because they think they get it.

Not really relevant to the discussion at hand, but this is sort of the lense I look at most black/white music discussions through. It doesn't get much more clear than someone from outside the culture playing the music, and if it's happening, great, and if it's not then someone else taking the instrument out of their hand or blowing them down or whatever.

stephin merritt reps the bridge

-- deej, Friday, October 19, 2007 10:43 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

cambridge?

-- Hurting 2, Friday, October 19, 2007 10:44 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

for graet justice

the difference is that I don't have to listen to and opine about Arcade Fire for a living

I doubt SFJ does, either. There's plenty of zeitgeisty music that he doesn't write about, and I'm sure the New Yorker isn't twisting his arm to write about the Arcade Fire. Pretty much all critics have the freedom to cover whatever the hell they want, unless they want to be a Christgau type who weighs in on everything. Hey, Arcade Fire might not be funky, but I wouldn't know because I don't listen to the shit sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker.

but WHEN did sewer rat STOP tasting like pumpkin pie?

I'm pretty sure SFJ's editor ain't Norman Mailer so I doubt "whither juju?" was a top-down order

Yeah, but SFJ actually does like Arcade Fire and has said so; he just wants them to be better/different than they are. Is that really an unreasonable request to make of your favorite bands/artists/etc.?

xxp

Yes. Yes it is.

why?

Here's what bothers me about the article--like, in writing workshop one thing you're not supposed to do when critiquing someone else's writing is be all: "Well, if I was writing the story, I would do this and then I would change this around and make these characters do this."

SFJ seems to be saying something like: man, if I was in the Arcade Fire, I'd do it like this, I'd play the songs like this, with funkiness and syncopation. And that's not really the point of criticism, is it?

Yeah, but SFJ actually does like Arcade Fire and has said so; he just wants them to be better/different than they are. Is that really an unreasonable request to make of your favorite bands/artists/etc.?

Nope. I can't separate fanboy OMIGOD THEY'RE SO AWESOME instincts from what they do that's not-so-awesome. I remember Rob Sheffield's adulatory David Bowie entry in the big SPIN book on alternative rock which made such a big deal about Bowie's terrible voice.

SFJ seems to be saying something like: man, if I was in the Arcade Fire, I'd do it like this, I'd play the songs like this, with funkiness and syncopation. And that's not really the point of criticism, is it?

This is undefinable territory – how is this quantifiable? We'd have to overhear what he tells his analyst.