Where is Greil Marcus' column moving to?

marcus isn't particularly rockist for a guy who likes rock, actually.

amt- yes, we get it, you don't like music writers.

my friend saw him a few weeks ago and said in an email that he was "arrogant"

i was just telling adam what to expect

Big news for me, maybe not for you: Scott Woods launched a new website yesterday that will collect a lot of Marcus’s writing going back to the beginning.

http://greilmarcus.net/

He’s got about 25 posts up so far. Scott has Marcus’s cooperation, so there should be no end to the amount of stuff that turns up there. There’s so much that I haven’t read in ages, or haven’t read at all: the "Real Life"s from the Voice, the Artforum columns, book reviews from Rolling Stone, stray pieces from wherever. There was a Marcus site a few years ago (forget the name—“Attic” was in there somewhere), but there wasn’t a great deal to it beyond a few links, and it eventually disappeared. I’m hoping--and knowing Scott, I think it will--this one becomes as necessary a reference tool as Christgau’s site.

I've been helping Scott set up Grooveshark playlists based on the Stranded discography; he's doing singles, working forwards through the alphabet, and I've started on album cuts in the opposite direction.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/greilmarcus/playlists

Three or four pages in, I've already confronted three or four blues albums I didn't know at all. I've written a lot over the years about my ambivalence towards electric blues, so auditioning these records and finding a representative song has been a challenge. With the likes of Wire and the Who and Frankie Lymon, I do the honorable thing and ignore Marcus's words in favor of what I love.

A nice write-up on the site:

http://www.wonderingsound.com/news/greil-marcus-rock-critic-archive-online/

I have a kinda love/hate relationship with Marcus' writing, so I am glad to see this (even if some of it will irritate me, while other things will open me up to new thoughts and ideas and approaches and music).

He's polarizing, for sure. More so than even Christgau, I think.

yeah i love/hate marcus

i don't even really rate christgau in anyway though...like even when marcus is bonkers i feel like he's trying to do something at least. christgau seems like he does nothing poorly.

marcus's daughter lived in minneapolis for awhile and was involved with the local radio station. he wrote this thing on some local rappers i played bass for for awhile....they were mid 90s indie dudes, used a lot of classical record loops which was pretty common back then, anyway marcus wrote a thing about them in interview magazine! it was hilarious, one guy has a copy in his studio, marcus was on this whole thing about how they were intentionally debasing european culture by sampling and cutting up and marring classical music records....the dudes were like "i have no fucking idea what he's talking about" haha

i like marcus, though like any cultural critic he has tics and hobby horses that can get tiresome if you read too much of him. i remember someone calling his style "six degrees of abraham lincoln," I think.

Hahaha, that's perfect. I like some of his writing -- his take on Keith Moon's playing as part of RS' Moon obit is among the clearest, most concise, and most insightful assessments of any instrumentalist's approach that I've ever read -- but too much of the time I feel like I've read this story about the one-legged mule that played banjo during the Civil War before.

Here's the stuff that's so easily parodied. I remember giggling at the time:

Then “Lose Yourself” begins to play under the closing credits, and in an instant it blows the film away. The music dissolves the movie, reveals it as a lie, a cheat, as if it were made not to reveal but to cover up the seemingly bottomless pit of resentment and desire that is the story’s true source. Again and again the piece all but blows up in the face of the man who’s chanting it, Eminem lost in his rhymes until suddenly people are shouting at him from every direction and the music jerks him into the chorus, which he escapes in turn. The piece builds into crescendos of power, climbing ladders of refusal and willfulness step by step, rushing nothing, never reaching the top because it is the music itself that has put the top so high.
It’s Eminem’s greatest single recording, but it’s more than that. As with Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” the Miracles’ “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it’s one of those moments in pop music that throws off everything around it, setting a new standard, offering a new challenge, proving that, now, you, whoever you are, can say anything, and with a beauty no one can gainsay. That’s what’s happening here. The cutting contest at the end of 8 Mile is a small thing compared to the cutting contest “Lose Yourself” throws down on pop music as such.

As with Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” the Miracles’ “The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage,” Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” or Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it’s one of those moments in pop music that throws off everything around it, setting a new standard, offering a new challenge, proving that, now, you, whoever you are, can say anything, and with a beauty no one can gainsay.

i love a lot of marcus' writing but jesus, bob lefsetz could have written that.

except for the word "gainsay." lefsetz probably doesn't know that one.

Marcus's writing shaped my thinking about music in a lot of ways and I'd say generally for the good at the time, but I think I outgrew the grand-pronouncement style a couple years back - I'm always wanting him (and all my friends) to quit milking the same cows. there are other cows!!

but abraham lincoln once milked this cow!!!

His love for "Lose Yourself" completely lost me at the time. I thought it belonged to a genre he usually makes fun of: the heavy-handed, look-at-me-I'm-a-survivor record.

UMS's story is great. I often refer to this in trying to figure out where he's coming from--had a big influence on me:

What I'm interested in is what happens when you listen. If the artist made a record intending to convince all right-thinking people to send money to the I.R.A., but the record is in Swedish and nobody can know that, it's sort of pointless to discuss the guy's intentions. What you really have to discuss is what is it like to hear a record in Swedish, and does it have a good beat?

(As someone pointed out, maybe on here--nobody can know that, unless they happen to be Swedish, that is.)

If you're someone who makes music, I can understand how his reactions would drive you around the bend. But for me, it's always been a valid way to approach what you're trying to write about.

Lucinda Williams never even milked a cow!!

There's a weird review of Steely Dan's Aja on there where he employs the tactic of comparing the emotional core of Lynyrd Skynyrd to the anti-emotionalism of Steely Dan. Don't really know that comparing and contrasting these two groups provides any real insight into either.

that's the problem with a lot of these romantic rock writers though - SD is not un/anti-emotional. they're just precise. those terms aren't antagonistic, but romantics think they are. "deacon blues" is so dense with pain it's almost impossible to bear, but it doesn't overemote - that doesn't detract from its emotional nature. guh these dudes and their meaning-it tropes

i'm probably as big a GM fan as anyone around here, so i'm delighted to see this website and will def be checking back.

i remember GM once said he thought the best writing he ever did was a series of short movie reviews for a short-lived '70s newspaper that no one read, most of which he'd written without seeing any of the movies. i found that both absolutely maddening and kind of hilariously characteristic -- of course he'd say that!

Looking forward to this because I'm not very interested in reading his books about the Doors and the Van Morrison or his umpteenth dissertation on Dylan. More fun to go back and find his surprising enthusiasms over the years.

that's the problem with a lot of these romantic rock writers though - SD is not un/anti-emotional. they're just precise. those terms aren't antagonistic, but romantics think they are. "deacon blues" is so dense with pain it's almost impossible to bear, but it doesn't overemote - that doesn't detract from its emotional nature. guh these dudes and their meaning-it tropes

― Now I Am Become Dracula (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned),

Thank you! That review of Aja irritated me too and your response is exactly right. Interesting to hear how at the time that Aja came off as unemotional, etc...how wrong even the greats can be!

the dudes were like "i have no fucking idea what he's talking about" haha

I got a somewhat similar but more restrained response from Mike Seeger once about GM's writings on Dock Boggs. Something like, "He can go a little overboard...," with a polite grin. (Seeger was a very polite guy.)

But I enjoy his writing in small doses -- always liked the Real Life Top 10 format -- so this should be fun to read.

the doors book was actually really good, i think the best thing he's done in years. a subject he'd almost never written about before (and a subject that's rarely written well about), and it seemed to bring out something new in his writing. elvis and punk aside, i actually don't share a lot of his ongoing enthusiasms; i like seeing him react to something unexpected.

it has always bugged me when people characterize GM as a 'cold' or 'academic' writer because at his best he's the opposite of that, someone who's very in tune with his initial gut reactions to songs and who's very good at conveying that in his writing even when what he's saying is vaguely ridiculous. i think part of the reason the "lose yourself" review seems lame and self-parodic is that the response it provokes from GM is completely predictable -- that's the way GM always reacts when he hears a song he likes it -- but he seems determined to paint it as yet another life-changing capital-e Event. which it really wasn't; it's a decade later, and liking "lose yourself" didn't appear to change anything in his listening habits or make him write in a new, unexpected way. whereas when he writes about how he responded to the sex pistols, slits, and adverts tracks in "lipstick traces," it seems like those songs really did take him by surprise, and his writing communicates that shocked -- even kind of horrified -- response very vividly and convincingly.

Then Charli XCX's bit on "Fancy" starts, and in an instant it blows Iggy Azalea away. The music dissolves the movie, reveals it as a lie, a cheat, as if it were made not to reveal but to cover up the seemingly bottomless pit of resentment and desire that is the song’s true source. Again and again the piece all but blows up in the face of the woman who’s chanting it, Charli lost in her rhymes until suddenly people are shouting at her from every direction and the music jerks her into the chorus, again and again, which he escapes in turn.

also i should have added the rappers in question, of course, were also big fans of classical loops because there were fewer worries abt sample clearances, like of course marcus would never suspect an actual logistical/business reason

ums i would actually like some pointers to hip-hop acts who were ditc of classical stuff, I love that shit when I happen across it but idk who made a specialty of it.

Was going to quote his Midnight Vultures review ("This is embarrassing.") and searching for it found this page of correspondence:
http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/greilmarcus/01.html

well this thread revive is not making me want to read any greil marcus. sorry greil marcus.

that's the problem with a lot of these romantic rock writers though - SD is not un/anti-emotional.

Pretty sure Marcus's problem is with Aja, not Steely Dan in general, certainly not early Steely Dan. Three of the first four Steely Dan albums are in the Stranded discography, with comments like "in all the despair." I can even think of someone else where he basically makes the same point as you: the Pet Shop Boys. Posted today, writing about "Rent" in 1988: "And I don’t understand, just don’t get, the people who say the singing is flat, wimpy, pallid, emotionless, and so on. It’s anonymous--like all the best early punk voices."

oh man! Thanks so much for adding those PSB comments. I've paraphrased them for years.

His review of Lodger strikes me as a classic example of being right about the artist and wrong about the album; it's one of my favorites.

ILM's heavy Lodger jones has always confused me so much

I'll never understand GM's heavy Pin Ups jones. Thanks for pointing out that review, Alfred.

For a second thought aero was assigning or using a nickname there: David "Lodger Jones" Bowie

It's not better than Low but it's a near-great record.

btw "it's one of my favorites" refers to his review, not Lodger.

Truth be told though, never have warmed to Lodger myself either. Prefer the Hitchcock film of the same name. The career overview in that review is indeed great.

The old school rock critics were pretty important to the formation of the tastes of James Redd at Fifteen but now that the building has been built the scaffolding can be removed. Furthermore, end up finding many of their stylistic tics wearying, don't feel up to the challenge of wading through without some kind of cherry-picking or curating by someone else or the buddy system of one of these threads- "Did you read what I read?" Of course if I saw him in person I'd be all like "Greil Marcus, you da man!"

In other words, at this point complaining about one of them is more like griping about an old friends with other old friends rather than a serious dismissal.

David "Lodger Bowie" Jones

Final iteration:
David "Bowie: Lodger" Jones

In person G. Marcus is a total bro. He wears his Harry Potter specs well.

Oh yeah, think I saw those photos of youse at the EMP.

I think the access we have to artists and their lives through instagram, tik tok, twitter, gossip sites, etc etc etc makes people even more wedded to the autobiographical concept then they were before (but yes it always existed)

Otm

I thought Michelle Goldberg's recent NYTimes column was astute on the "cancel culture" backlash from certain quarters:

"Many people I know over 40 - maybe 35 - resent new social mores that demand outsized sensitivity to causing harm. It has been jarring to go from an intellectual culture that prizes transgression to one that polices it. The shame of turning into the sort of old person repelled by the sensibilities of the young is a cause of real psychic pain."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/opinion/generation-cancel-culture.html

I think there's a bit of that at play here. Pre-internet, the national media was like a massive stone fortress with imposing metal gates controlled by stuffy bien pensant moderates. In those days it was fun for peasants on the outside to laugh at the overcautious reactions of the gatekeepers to anything controversial or edgy. Then the fortress was razed to the ground by bloodthirsty barbarians and the peasants had to run for their lives. Laughing at the gatekeepers isn't so funny any more. The traumatized peasants have become more vigilant at policing the boundaries of polite discourse than the old corporate busybodies ever were.

Anyone down on Marcus will like the second question here:

https://greilmarcus.net/current_2021/

Agree with this, though: "And appeals to experience ('witnessing atrocities firsthand') are worthless. It’s not where an artist has been, it’s what he or she can bring back."

Lord, he was born a ramblin' man.

Marcus's new Substack has been up and running for a couple of weeks now. (Ex-ILX'or Scott Woods edits the site--he wouldn't let me put up a Facebook post, but he'll never see this.) I took out a yearly subscription, even though you probably have a few months to read it for free.

The best thing is--a requirement of being on Substack, I think--there's new content. greilmarcus.net was great, but, except for "Ask Greil," it was close to 100% archival. Just in the first two weeks, he's had a piece on Peter Jackson's Beatles film, and today a review of Dylan's new book. ("The Beatles and Dylan" some of you are exclaiming in unison. "The excitement is palpable.") And in one of the intros he wrote for the new site, he identifies the two greatest sentences he thinks he ever wrote. I think they're from Mystery Train.

https://greilmarcus.substack.com/

Thanks for the news, esp. about Scott. Will read the review after finishing the book, which I mentioned on Is Bob Dylan overrated? I'm still enjoying most of it, although the "Witcheh Woman" comments are as dumb as the song and don't mention its use in the Seinfeld ep.

Long interview up on Letter in the Ether:

https://greilmarcus.substack.com/p/the-whole-world-in-a-song

From his substack: Ask Greil

I wasn’t exactly sure in what way Swift’s Midnights was the musical equivalent of Dylan’s “autopen” scam. Could you please expand on that? —ANDREW MACDONALD

It sounds to me as if it were made by a machine, and I don’t mean Taylor Swift herself is a machine.

I think he meant the recent Billboard chart where Swift had the entire Top 10 on Billboard. Stuff like that always makes me wonder if it actually means anything.

Hey, I said (in the Midnights thread): this kind of sounds like if you asked an AI to make a Taylor Swift pop album. Move over, Marcus!!

Greil Marcus's daughter, Emily, passed away yesterday (1/31) more than two years after her diagnosis of appendiceal cancer. Per request, Greil has posted her obituary, and Robert Christgau posted a tribute to her. Her playlist for her funeral has also been posted.

If you want a free month of Marcus's Substack, let me know via ILX mail--I've got two to give away. It gives you access to a few things that are behind the paywall.

Also, his Real Life column this month leads off with a 100% vintage-Marcus entry on Biden's SOTU. If you're a fan, you'll probably love it, if you're not, you'll almost definitely cringe.