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

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

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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

SFJ is irritated by music where people play badly. If I wasn't at work I'd be breaking out a huge picture of like King Crimson or something.

i wish i was picnicking in duluth ;_;

Other problem is that all of that artists he picks as meeting his standard of miscegenation are like some of the most basic "intelligent" yet canonical choices ever--Dylan, Prince, OutKast, where the songwriting was so good that it didn't matter what race they were.

^^ anyway, the point of my last post is that (if i've thought this through right) the relative lack of 'white funk' is a side effect of an unquestionably good thing: a much more egalitarian and open media culture than it was in the 60s and 70s. there's not that much emotional charge in straight up mimicry anymore, bcz nothing is hidden and everyone can hear everything.

i think we missed the colors Matt :(

OK, I'll give up and bite here since it's what I see friends and coworkers my age having some interest in:

As much as I think it's partially cultural tourism, how does the route of late 90s DJ culture, that coexisted with and led into kid 606, dj/rupture, and diplo which has a partial overlap with mash-up culture fix into this? I mean, I'm not going to throw Girl Talk out as an example of a 'band,' but isn't this the miscegenation (or as I'd put it, selective adoption of some sounds or a "just the hooks, please" attitude) that he's not finding because he's wandering the wrong territory? When there's someone who's appropriating not just the cadence or the rhythms, but in fact entire parts of songs, who's doing reasonably well in the indie sphere? I'm pretty sure that his beloved Grizzly Bear may have even appeared on stage with him.

There are different ways to say "this is our music too," and it doesn't just mean you jack the low-key smoothness of R. Kelly and stick it in your indie songs.

reggaeton's an interesting hybrid case, but I don't know enough of it to comment, really. Whether or not it has a rhythmic structure that's as unique and flexible (yet as instantly identifiable) as the standard swing or reggae or funk beats I don't really know.

There have been a lot of dance music subgenres that differentiate themselves by beats but yeah Matt I think they basically add up to other beats (funky drummer, samba, etc.) sped up really fast (or slowed down).

Unique and specific rhythms seem to be at the root of all the different genres that sprung up in the 20th century - but now that we can make/reproduce any beat combination imaginable, the pattern of musical development has kind of shifted.

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I'm also dropping my constant rhetorical question style after this because it's driving me crazy

rather than some idealized polygot mutant sfj has in mind

This really annoyed me about the article, it's so Louis Jagger!

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

-- call all destroyer, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:37 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Judgment Night 2, where are you?

ted leo just read this thread and ate his own tongue

In a way, I think the only point SFJ makes that has any weight with me is the one in the last paragraph ("Thirty years ago, Banhart might have attempted to imitate R. Kelly’s perverse and feather-light soul. Now he’s just a fan."). I do think there is something to the idea that now that people can trumpet their tastes in a lot of different ways (blogging, DJing, lastfm type shit), they don't feel as much of a need to make music that reflects all the things they like. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with that: as a musician, I'd rather figure out what I'm good at doing or really enjoy doing and focus on that, instead of trying to use every single artist in my CD collection as an audible influence. And although it's hard to second guess the intentions of the musicians I'm listening to, I'm guessing I prefer to listen to the stuff by people who focus on what they're good at instead of trying to accomodate a billion conflicting influences.

("Thirty years ago, Banhart might have attempted to imitate R. Kelly’s perverse and feather-light soul. Now banhart could drop an ironic cover mp3 at any moment.")

^^^ehhh i dunno about this, lots of times the best tracks are the kind of happy accidents that only happen when folks take risks or whatever

uh xp

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MH, the dj culture thing is a touchy subject as well, and fits into the dialogue (although as noted above, SFJ's main thrust here is why indie rock's been bugging him). "Wandering the wrong territory"? Nah, Sasha's got Rupture on his top albums of 2007 list, and he's an MIA fan. For whatever reasons, not enough space or conscious decision, he chose not to get into this. Dj Rupture and Diplo are trying to do two different things.

Many musicians seem to focus on what they think they're good at, and don't take chances for better or worse.

^^^ehhh i dunno about this, lots of times the best tracks are the kind of happy accidents that only happen when folks take risks or whatever

-- deej, Tuesday, October 16, 2007 3:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

I'm not talking about musicians staying in their lane/focusing on the strengths at the expense of taking risks or experimentings. I'm saying that if someone's in a perfectly good rock band and hears an afrobeat or hip hop or bossa nova record they like, they shouldn't feel obligated to reflect that influence on their next album, unless they feel a natural artistic impulse to do so.

i.e. none of the bands mentioned in the article would benefit from being called out in SFJ's article and deciding to make their next album "funky"

guys:

is UI banned from discussion here? huge elephant in the room imo...

Here's my take on the SFJ article titled "Sasha Frere-Jones Asks: "Why Can't We All Just Get Along in 4/4 Time?"

http://planetofsoundandsight.blogspot.com/2007/10/music-sasha-frere-jones-asks-why-cant.html

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Of course they are, dj/rupture, as much as I love the guy (and have shelled out money for his stuff) really lives in the same art rock Wire magazine/Ui/DJ Spooky/east coast intellectual fortress that SFJ is sitting in. dj/rupture and Diplo are coming from two different standpoints and the mixing style is obviously a lot different, with Diplo's being a lot more pop-oriented and rupture's being a lot more noise/art oriented, but they both put out solo albums in 2004 that showed the earmarks of the dj mixes, but tended toward song-oriented work, and featured dancehall vocalists. They are two different things if you look at the dialog, but if you listen to the music there are fewer differences.

I own a Ui album, I don't think it's an elephant per se, but it's pretty indicative of the politics of crowds.

Ui's been brought up at least 3 or 4 times already, albeit mostly in passing. Don't think it's off-limits. (xp)

talking about dj rupture or diplo or whatever is such a sideline. DJs have been mixing genres for years

Diplo's effect has been, for the most part, exposing bmore club and caroica funk to the press. i dont think you can really give him any credit, unless you wanted to make an article about some sort of weird conglomerate 'indie culture' that sounds like most terrible subject for an article

seriously before i even heard of diplo we were throwing college parties where i would play rap music that i liked in between smiths songs that college dorks liked so that i could keep enough hipster girls on the dancefloor to hopefully get lucky, this wasn't like some brand new formula or something even tho it might have seemed like it to some of us at the time.

ps i am a college dork who likes the smiths but not really at parties