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

BASH

does a ned raggett smoke ganj

His sound system alter ego is Trent D. Gage.

What is the yardstick for measuring whether a band has been influenced by African-American music, and why does SFJ think he has one? And what privileges African-American music, other than the fact that it's the largest minority? Why aren't we complaining about indie's inability to absorb latino culture as we go into the 21st century?

mh, if anyone's questions/comments should be forwarded directly to SFJ's e-mail for him to respond to, they're yours, seriously.

I guess you haven't read any of the prior pazz and jop threads or various other ones on these subjects.

my, you are aptly named.

I have, though, and I don't think that ruminating on this stuff for years really makes you an expert at it, or that the arguments are getting any better or even more coherent.

Why aren't we complaining about indie's inability to absorb latino culture as we go into the 21st century?

I'm waiting for the follow-up where SFJ criticizes the Arcade Fire for playing out of clave.

Why aren't we complaining about indie's inability to absorb latino culture as we go into the 21st century?

I won't even hum the rock-en-español number on the new Rilo Kiley.

And what privileges African-American music, other than the fact that it's the largest minority?

Cultural impact, history

As for the Latino influence, I am sure Ned Sublette's writing was discussed somewhere, and you can post on that thread.

What is the yardstick for measuring whether a band has been influenced by African-American music, and why does SFJ think he has one? And what privileges African-American music, other than the fact that it's the largest minority? Why aren't we complaining about indie's inability to absorb latino culture as we go into the 21st century?

xpost
OTM, i dont get it at all. Why African music? Why=blues=african...even. I know. Long time ago...etc etc...but the blues surely ain't your typical African music anymore, or is it

Why aren't we complaining about indie's inability to absorb latino culture as we go into the 21st century?

http://www.dailyreckless.co.uk/fall/images/marquischacha.jpg

What does history have to do with bunch of white kids making music they want to make. It's not relevant at all

Maybe Bobby Sanabria can come and school some people.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/5101Z9FE6DL._AA280_.jpg

I wonder how these guys fit in?

i mean the clash could be kind of funky but jeez it's like people forget that 75 percent of their recorded catalog is white rock as white rock gets. some people act like they were the fucking JBs or something.

i like the clash. for real. good band.

i like lee perry too, but he's also like crazy as fuck.

i dont really give a fuck about the clash & the punk rock stuff bores me to tears but casbah & magnificent seven are srsly funky

yeah totally they are. but that's not typical of them really.

M@tt, don't go all gabbneb on us!

i feel you tho it does kinda feel like critics like to use those couple jams as an excuse for being into all the dorky punk rock stuff... its like the 'gang starr thanked co flow in the moment of truth liner notes' legitimizer for nerd-rap heads

doobie brothers were funkier than the clash but i dont see sfj calling for a return to the golden age of 1973

Didn't George Clinton have something to say about that?

like people forget that 75 percent of their recorded catalog is white rock as white rock gets.

o_O

If you can't hear the reggae and soul influence in the regular punk rock Clash stuff then stop talking about music.

If Sasha had said "People can make whatever kind of music they like. For reasons x,y, and z I like bands that meld genres, and emphasize rhythm, and have chops, and can entertain. Unfortunately, alot of schmindie bands like a,b, and c do not include those elements yet are still beloved in some circles." Then he could explain the insularity,the popularity, the reasons for it, and its causes, and how he thinks those bands should change...

That might win over a few more people, but it might also be ignored.

<i>If you can't hear the reggae and soul influence in the regular punk rock Clash stuff then stop talking about music.

-- Whiney G. Weingarten, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 5:02 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link</i>

yeah but it's not more than the soul influences in all kinds of rock! i'm just saying they are not particularly unique in that respect most of the time...hell the police had reggae influences, as did shittons of bands around that time.

but yeah is should have said white as white gets, just regular

shouldn't

white riot, a riot of their own

For reasons x,y, and z I like bands that meld genres, and emphasize rhythm, and have chops, and can entertain. Unfortunately, alot of schmindie bands like a,b, and c do not include those elements yet are still beloved in some circles.

Yeah, that's still bullshit though because he doesn't say that he exclusively likes bands that do those things, nor does he make a case for this straw man that only likes indie bands that have no African-American influence.

is SFJ a big fan of hip hop producers incorporating white influences into their music?

f you can't hear the reggae and soul influence in the regular punk rock Clash stuff then stop talking about music

OTM.

How much "regular punk rock" stuff did the Clash even do? Like, three-quarters of their debut album? (Which was the most of the best music they ever made, incidentally.)

Their reggae ("White Man in Hammersmith Palais," "Police and Thieves," "Police On My Back." "Pressure Drop," "Armagiden Time," less literal dub-influenced stuff like "Clampdown" and "London Calling," a whole side of Sandinista!) was usually better than the Police's, too. (And way better than any reggae the Bad Brains ever did.) And they also worked in rhythms from New Orleans, Motown, rockabilly (which has r&b in it), lots of places.

But yeah, lots of punk and new wave acts around that time (Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Generation X, Specials, English Beat, the Slits, Killing Joke) were incorporating dub and reggae, in a way that not many "indie" acts have since. I'm pretty sure that was part of Sasha's point. (I disagree with plenty of his essay, like I said above, but this argument strikes me as pretty airtight.)

straw man that only likes indie bands that have no African-American influence.

Mh, you don't think there are actual people who like Band of Horses but not LCD Soundsystem.

What I keep getting stuck on is the use of "miscegination," which is a totally sexualized term that is generally more applicable to, like, Faulkner novels than friggin' music. The impulse to treat music like it's a bunch of race-coded test tubes that you can mix together is keeping people from moving beyond these questions which aren't even particularly interesting in 2007. I may think the Arcade Fire is boring and that might be in part because they don't swing, but what am I supposed to do? Demand that they be a different band? This is the first piece of criticism I've ever read that makes me want to throw up my hands and ask why people can't just make the music they like.

It's also funny that the the circle is completed to the point that Led Zep and the Stones now get credit for ripping off "black music" because at least they were acknowledging it. Would this argument ever have been made 20 years ago?

xp (And again, I named recent indie acts who are trying to work in dub space above, so I know there are exceptions. I just can't think of many who are as good at incorporating the reggae stuff into actual, memorable, energetic songs the way those late '70s acts were. Though if there are some, somebody should name names.)

lol: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=179751350

that one says it's a "tribute" myspace. but the official myspace for the band linked on there lists genre as "Breakbeat / 2-step / Afro-beat"

thought that was gonna be luna's myspace

lol

x-post to curmudgeon

Sure, those people exist. But I really don't see SFJ communicating with them at all here, or even trying to understand their perspective. I think the unstated theme of the article is that he wishes these bands, which are doing pretty well doing what they're doing (and he may even like them), are going to be some sort of musical pied piper or be better in some way if they pick up this influence he has deemed necessary.

I mean, isn't it possible Arcade Fire fans are also Talking Heads fans, or at least looked into David Byrne & co. after reading comparisons? While that's not a band that's currently extant, it's one that.. oh hell, you know where this is going.

I think that we need to re-examine how cliched this terminology is, too, because the thread is jumping into dub/reggae territory and isn't that music primarily not American? So the African-American nomenclature is pretty much bs.

weird that he ends the piece on a technological/business note: that it may not be the "fault" of dorky coward shmindie types, but that all music, and therefore all black music, is always and everywhere available now. "we don't need a stones in 07 because muddy waters is inescapable." if THAT state of affairs has some culturally determining logic to it -- if that's the conclusion SFJ thinks has to be drawn from looking at the evidence, then what's the solution? it seems like he gets to a better line of questioning right at the end.

whoever said it (xhuck?), it's true: ALL music has become more rhythmically boring over the past several years, i think. why that is, i don't know either.

because no one's codified a new rhythmic template in almost 30 years.

because no one's codified a new rhythmic template in almost 30 years.

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:33 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

reggaeton

Listening to the podcast now. Pretty incredible. Basically, indie music from the last ten years "just bugs him."

"Soulja Boy needs to work with the Fiery Furnaces."

like i said upthread, if it bugs him so much he should stfu and talk about shit that matters. he's got this high profile podium and all he does is wax on and on about indie rock, even when he's hating

could be naivete, could be "progress" but i have a really hard time imagining an MTV that wouldn't play any black music. that seems really really crazy and klanny to me, and hard to justify by any kind of business logic of 80's cable-viewers' taboos or anything.

also, i have an equally hard time hearing the blues as anything other than friendly, classy music you could listen to with a picnic basket a festival in duluth. i can read about how things were way back when but it's a big imaginative leap.

xp soulja boy's album is incredibly boring.

the that crazy skittering hyper drum n bass shit i guess was kind of new, or maybe just funky drummer on meth