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

Phil Lynott is SFJ's worse nightmare

when i saw pavement play one of the pavement guys (spiral?) wore his own pavement band t shirt, and pavement are indie so i guess wearing your own t shirt is "indie," ergo Thin Lizzy are indie.

Lots of great stuff on this thread. I haven't weighed in at all, mostly because there are so many dead-on points that kind of state what my reactions to the article are. (strongohulkington's drunk posts early in the thread are fucking great, da croupier's pretty much OTM throughout this whole thread, mh had some great comments too). I liked these ones from mh especially:

The only real argument he throws out, among mentioning the diversity of influences that hip hop picks up on, bickering about the lack of rhythmic variation in indie rock, and going on with some sort of unrelated history lesson, is the "lassitude and monotony" that indie rock apparently gets stuck in.

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?

Other things that have been said that I wondered quite a bit about when reading the article: why aren't bands who take ideas from (mostly black) free jazz acknowledged at all? Free jazz doesn't fonk, sure, but I guess this kind of goes along with the nebulous and reductionist concept of "black music" Sasha's kind of working with, here. This was mentioned, what do more people think of it?

Sasha's had this shtick for a long while and it's kind of odd that he dropped it all in this pretty mediocre article (someone said previously, "write a book!") -- was it an editor's thing, slashing it down to fit in the magazine? The New Yorker wasn't going to run a 15-page article on indie rock? I don't know, but it might account for how sloppy, simplified, poorly supported the article is, maybe...

I mean if the guy has been ruminating on this for years, you'd think he'd really have his argument hammered out. But it just reads like he has this "big giant thesis" that's he thinks is totally gonna drop a bomb on how we think about indie rock, but he really doesn't have much to back it up. But the "big giant thesis" just sounds so good to him that he has to hang onto it, even if there's not much really there. It's a shame because this unsupported "big giant thesis" has been informing his music criticism for a while. I always enjoy reading his articles whether or not I agree with them, but a lot of his points are hard to stomach.

Sasha is slowly turning into that scene from Jerry Maguire where he goes "I am Mister Black People!"

was it an editor's thing, slashing it down to fit in the magazine?

I get the feeling that he was allowed to coast, editors deferring to his expertise. Editors who were more informed about music would have challenged the obvious generalizations that we're challenging here.

People wore their own band shirts all the time before Pavement, i.e. the Clash! Ergo, it is a requirement.

It was mentioned before upthread, but I thought linking to Bangs piece was kind of weird move. From the Breihan v Harvilla piece, linked upthread:

Go to SFJ’s personal blog now and he links to 1979’s famed Lester Bangs Voice essay "The White Noise Supremacists" and describes Bangs as “somebody who saw this coming twenty-eight years ago.” This ain’t that. First of all, what Bangs is describing is far uglier and more explicit: Racial slurs permeating the CBGBs scene, Nazi regalia flaunted for cheap shock value, Richard Hell getting shit for having a black guitar player, etc. To even obliquely hold that up as a precedent to or as racially problematic as the Arcade Fire not swinging enough or whatever is incredibly unfair. I guess that’s where I’m getting the “malicious racism” overtones in what SFJ writes now, and maybe I’m overanalyzing, but hey, he brought it up. He sees a parallel there and I don’t.

That was Harvilla, btw, not Breihan.

I think the most galling thing about this is that SFJ easily has the level of press access to talk to 90% of the contemporary acts he mentioned if he wanted to, but he'd rather just blatantly misrepresent the intentions of the music they make from afar. Granted, as a critic he seems way more into think pieces and reviews than interviews and profiles, and like John said, "authorial intention" might not be that important to this topic. But when he writes stuff like this, or, say, lobs a grenade like the Stephin Merritt thing without even trying to get the guy's side of the story before doing so, he comes off like a shock blogger, just saying outrageous shit about popular artists just to attract some web traffic. This year it's Arcade Fire, any other year it'd be another emblematic indie band of the moment.

he comes off like a shock blogger, just saying outrageous shit about popular artists just to attract some web traffic

Completely right. With his history here, one of my first thoughts on reading the article was that it was an unusually public instance of ILX trolling.

Ui: C or D?

The use of Arcade Fire as some sort of exemplar of contemporary Indie Rock is ridiculous.

What? Arcade Fire is perhaps one of the two or three most visible exponents of indie rock.

and the EL Lay studio-rock posse's

Alfred = Xgau?!?

haha oh like THAT'S news

Sasha is slowly turning into that scene from Jerry Maguire where he goes "I am Mister Black People!"

-- Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 17 October 2007 14:44

looooool

one of the biggest problems with the piece seems to be how he fails to define either "indie" or "black music". it's easy to make an argument when your examples can be said to fit the terms without any real evidence. and why pick indie rock, anyway? it pretty unimportant and unifluential on a cultural level- as has been mentioned there is plenty of mainstream "white" music that has plenty of elements considered "black"- Maroon 5, Timberlake, Amy Winehouse, etc.

and why pick indie rock, anyway?

because he's a rock critic, and ultimately for all the lip service he pays to pop music, the chart he's concerned with is Pazz & Jop, not Billboard. he's wringing his hands about the direction the critical zeitgeist is headed in, not the actual zeitgeist.

cuz pazz'n'jop has no time for timberlake, winehouse, white stripes, etc

Ian Sevonius should probably be mentioned on this thread as long as Jon Spencer and Greg Dulli were.

and the EL Lay studio-rock posse's

Alfred = Xgau?!

Unlike Xgau, I got time for the Doobies.

well, he is talking about bands for the most part, not solo singers (and we've already established how silly the piece's White Stripes blind spot is). (xpost)

but if that's the case, then indie is some sort of abberation, not indicative of broader cultural or social trends, which makes it seem like examining it so closely is useless. why is something that is merely a curiosity being put forth as a boader cultural indicator?
4xp

and by talking about bands we can ignore all the indie being made on drum machines, the stuff that can be pretty easily linked to rap/r&b/etc. and if the 90s is when indie bands lost that clash-like vibe, where does this leave RANCID?

rancid are drunk punk with oi-ish tendencies

rancid were a band on an indie label that sold more than the arcade fire.

and lets again note that if you're looking for bands that harken back to 1981 british post-punk, you might wanna check out what's going on in...BRITAIN.

critics laregely haven't cared about reggae-loving punk bands since The Clash, so they're not on his radar. in fact, I'm not sure there's anything on his radar that 50 other critics didn't already co-sign first.

yeah but didn't that rancid dude have that other side project w/rappers and shit? i mean they def. weren't averse to black music culture, they were cali bros in the larger sense just like sublime or whatever

i mean what anthony keeps pointing out is that SFJ keeps arranging the facts to fit his thesis, not the other way around...

THIS IS JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BUILD UP TO THE IRAQ WAR PEOPLE HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?

if arcade fire tried to buy yellowcake uranium it wouldn't be from africa though

yeah they'd get it from some dude with a creepy moustache and aviator shades probably

http://www.kuyichi.com/kuyichi/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/americanapparel.jpg

hahahaha

sorry, that's who came to mind

I love how on that blog post it's all "oh sure you can find exceptions but you'd miss the larger change" as if a) he's been arguing about how INDIE bands have changed since the 90s and b) by ignoring the larger picture you can better see the larger picture.

so who's the Hitchens of rockcrit?

fuck, who isn't

Other things that have been said that I wondered quite a bit about when reading the article: why aren't bands who take ideas from (mostly black) free jazz acknowledged at all? Free jazz doesn't fonk, sure, but I guess this kind of goes along with the nebulous and reductionist concept of "black music" Sasha's kind of working with, here. This was mentioned, what do more people think of it?

Well, aside from it being a glaring omission on SFJ's part, it's illustrative with regard to the minefield of identifying certain musical characteristics as Black or white or whatevers. As I alluded to waaaaaay upthread, folks like Cecil Taylor and Bill Dixon got shit (sometimes from white critics, sometimes from Black musicians) for not being "Black" enough, and the Europeans musicians who were deeply influenced by Coleman, Taylor, Dixon et al desperately wanted to distance themselves from "Free Jazz" so they insisted that their music had less Black influence than it actually did.

If I had Charles Shaar Murray's Crosstown Traffic handy, I'd be quoting the shit out of it right now.

I think this was quoted upthread, but on his New Yorker blog he gives a partial explanation for what he left out:

you can see significant miscegenation in major-label artists like Amy Winehouse, or indie acts like Spoon and LCD Soundsystem, but I don’t think that they affect the larger change I perceive: that miscegenation no longer happens in the same way, and indie rock is Exhibit A

I sure wish he'd explain why he thinks they do not affect the large change he perceives. If he thinks they are exceptions to the general trend he should have said so. He also throws his yardstick out the window when he proclaims his affection for Grizzly Bear, whom he says have no connection to black music. I agree with Al that he seems to be aiming at the Pazz & Jop electorate

if you consider albert ayler, wolf eyes is operating within the traditions of black music

king tubby too

sorry, "king tubby" also functions where "albert ayler" does in that sentence

obviously, haha

If he thinks they are exceptions to the general trend he should have said so.

He also should have pointed out the moment in US indie rock where bands like LCD Soundsystem and Spoon WEREN'T the exception.

who likes the decemberists anyway? even corny indie fux i know think they are gay drama club dorks. spoon seems way more core indie than decemberists to me.

I think people who go ga-ga for the Shins and Death Cab for Cutie like the Decemberists. My guess is that Spoon is one of their "edgier" tastes.

a zillion xps

Yeah, I was thinking about Rancid ( though -- do they even exist at this point?) not longer after I talked about how indie bands aren't as good as incorporating reggae as punk and new wave bands were in the late '70s; almost added a post about them and Sublime (who obviously don't exist anymore, but still), but didn't get around to it. At any rate, both of those bands had plenty of reggae, and at least started out on indie labels.

Also, wow, I despise them and always will, but has anybody mentioned the Chili Peppers? At least a little funk influence there, I'd say, and swagger, too, even if it's hard to stomach. And a few million fans, at least.

To be fair, most indie kids I knew back in college also listened to a decent amount of rap, even if it was mostly undie rap.

xpost

The major label/mainstream bands that shatter the "rock n roll doesn't miscegenate anymore" thesis e.g. RHCP/Sublime/the rap-rock behemoth have been mentioned a lot, but (and this was mentioned upthread) isn't Sasha's thesis that indie rock doesn't miscegenate anymore?

xpost

I think people who go ga-ga for the Shins and Death Cab for Cutie like the Decemberists. My guess is that Spoon is one of their "edgier" tastes.

-- Euler, Wednesday, October 17, 2007 4:44 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i guess that this article also has something to do with the fact that, like I don't know -- post Stokes? Post Garden State soundtrack? Post TV commericals using indie music all the time? There's a real split between people that like "indie" the commercial genre and actual underground rock

Also, wow, I despise them and always will, but has anybody mentioned the Chili Peppers?

...

isn't Sasha's thesis that indie rock doesn't miscegenate anymore?

I suppose he could have pretended RHCP and Fishbone were the pre-Nirvana college rock norm, but he didn't. Would have been an even funnier piece, though!

"when did indie rock stop sounding like Faith No More?"