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

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?"

xpost I teach at a university in a very white state and the indie kids I know don't listen to any rap or r&b or dance beyond e.g. Oakenfold. In fact earlier this year one of them made the "rap isn't music" "argument" to me. If there is a trend toward segregation in indie rock, then I suspect this attitude is part of it, and it would have been nice for SFJ to say more about it (it's pretty old at this point).

Also I'm not clear on whether the "problem" SFJ is concerned with is a problem about artists primarily, or fans.

it just makes it even more of a lame article that there are 10000 examples of musical miscegenation (as mentioned, RHCP, rap-rock, RATM, Jon Spencer, Phish, jam bands, bla bla bla, even if they all suck), but Sasha picks one tiny, average-selling genre that arguably didn't really miscegenate in its history at all (with a few exceptions), if one is draw a line from VU through 80s SST indie to Pavement to Arcade Fire.

RHCP and Sublime and Rancid and No Doubt and Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dave Matthews Band and 311 were and still are really popular among young white people in America, whether any of those bands are still together or not. listen to any modern rock station that still leans heavy on 90's oldies and you'll hear at least a couple of those bands every hour. but they're not indie and more importantly, they're not credible or "cool" to critics like SFJ, so they don't get a mention.

"commercial, but generally appealing"

woops, "commercial but generally unappealing"

i accidentally took his contradictory statement and made it redundant.

The elephant in the room is that hardly anyone listens to indie rock anyway.

no i think the elephant in the room is that it's harder to define what indie rock exactly is more so than it is to define psych or country.

b-b-but the postal service went gold!

oh wait ignore them

x-post

does Sasha frequent ILM at all anymore? think he'll read this thread?

alternate titles for this piece that I'd approve of:

- Indie Rock: Where Have All The Competent Drummers Gone?

- Why Aren't Orange County Ska Bands Allowed In The Indie Rock Treehouse?

^^^nice

why all the "VU are uber-white" stuff? they are easily the most doo-wop influenced of any 60s rock band i can think of.