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

The societal aspect of music isn't particularly interesting unless the music has a message thats linked with society, or a 'function' like dance music. If the person making it is stultified by the societal considerations, then they're ignoring the fact that making music before distributing it is essentially an insular practice, and as soon as you tailor it to an outside force you're diluting whatever 'natural' conception of it you have. I can see where it's a problem that people feel this pressure either way, to stay 'white' or to incorporate 'black' influences more overtly as an homage, but talking about race, and I guess in this other article, class, is just halting people from making purely aesthetic decisions.

that assumes a vision of the artist as existing outside the "societal considerations" that have formed and influenced that person to be who he or she is

i mean which is just another way of saying that any time you write a song you're tailoring it to a whole variety of socially-determined forces (whether or not those are "outside" forces is not something i can speak to)

unless the music has a message thats linked with society

What kind of message isn't linked to society?

purely aesthetic decisions.

There's no such thing (I hope)

xpost - obv.

That Carl Wilson article is sharp as hell.

Are we supposed to long for the days when Zeppelin and the Stones fetishized fantasies of black manhood, in part as a cover for misogyny? If forced to choose between tolerating some boringly undersexed rock music and reviving the, er, "vigorous" sexual politics of cock rock, I'll take the boring rock, thanks—for now.

... where Wilson unintentionally elucidates exactly what’s wrong with today’s rock critics. Does he think his readers feel the same way? I sure as hell don’t.

That Carl Wilson article is sharp as hell.

"The diminished street-level faith in an integrationist future means there's not as much optimism about integrationist music. What's more, racial lines in the United States no longer divide primarily into black and white. When "miscegenation" does happen in music now, it's likely to be more multicultural than in Frere-Jones' formula, as in rainbow-coalition bands such as Antibalas and Ozomatli."

this is rather on point

I'm not sure about the Springsteen-Arcade Fire passage -- that line, white working-class culture once had a kind of significant berth in rock 'n' roll, too.

I mean, they still do, no? Matchbox 20, Nickleback, Hinder, etc.

hoos i am enjoying watching you come up with new ways to say "otm"

What's changed is that "white working-class culture" is no longer so white.

The brands of "authenticity" that both punk and hip-hop came to demand. . . tended to discourage the cross-pollination and "miscegenation" of musical forms.

Interesting.

white working-class culture once had a kind of significant berth in rock 'n' roll, too.

xpost to A, LS

Still does in UK indie - Arctic Monkeys, The View many more - not so much in US, no?

hoos i am enjoying watching you come up with new ways to say "otm"

-- max, Thursday, October 18, 2007 11:01 PM

first they came for my "^" key...

jeb OTM

What kind of message isn't linked to society?

i meant a purposeful message, aimed at change or criticism, rather than personal 'relationship' music thats focused more on individuals. while i think its fine to reference musicians in these debates i don't like the whole reforming thrust of all these essays

purely aesthetic decisions.

if the music doesn't have lyrics, then why does it have to have a dialogue that involves things other than influences, skill, and composition. suddenly race and class are pulled in, and sure i find it interesting when somebody without a lot of resources makes good music. i unfairly want to impose a bubble on people and assume they don't have to take those factors into consideration. i just think musicians should incorporate what they like and divorce themselves from prescriptive dialogue about race unless they're specifically motivated by that.

If forced to choose between tolerating some boringly undersexed rock music and reviving the, er, "vigorous" sexual politics of cock rock

on today's rock radio, you can have both at the same time!

wayyyyyy better article, btw

i'll say.

i just finished the slate article, it's definitely on point. i guess after being in so many lit and poli sci classes at uni that i've become insular and wanted my musical rhetoric to be more on a micro level, theory rather than culture, but i guess they have to be incorporated, oh well

Trashthumb - to even think about creating the space you talk about, the bubble where musicians 'don't have to take those factors into consideration' is political. And just because music doesn't have lyrics doesn't cleanse it of meaning

xpost to your previous post, sorry

While it's possible to cherry-pick exceptions ever since, Frere-Jones does so selectively, overlooking the likes of Royal Trux or the Afghan Whigs in the 1990s,

why do I suspect that if this line had come from the SFJ article he'd presently be getting raked both ways over the coals for citing Royal Trux as counterexample to the "does not swing" trend

poor sasha been down so long it looks like up to him

(excepting what would be a self-cite obv)

it's kind of amazing what you've been reduced to pointing out in this save-a-ho gambit, john

i can't remember EVER looking to indie rock for any kind of "blackness" or sounds of blackness. these days i don't look to indie rock for anything at all. once or twice a year a band sticks out and that's about it. i do pine for the days when new wave and new wave/dance acts and post-punk bands stole like hell and took anything that wasn't nailed down from any and every culture on earth. those were the days. and electroclash didn't do anything for me. and by new wave i mean everything from talking heads on up to whatever. but maybe my definition of indie rock is screwy. there isn't an indie band alive today who could conceive of or execute this gem:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QOoZAyJrB-8

it's amazing to me how many pasty new wave boys had disco, like, DEEP in their bones. it was like a part of them in such an organic way.

I think you mean "that" you've been reduced to anthony but don't let writing sentences get in your way man

again

seriously dude I know it makes you feel clever to bust out the "save-a-ho" trope but I'm just pointing out that Royal Trux are hardly bringing the funk now or ever and it's weird/annoying how partisan everybody (even/especially you) is that such an egregiously bizarre cite won't get a callout because it appears in a piece tilting against the windmill we've all agreed to charge

keep zingin' though man I'm sure it feels rad

sasha is silly to bring up devendra. his entire vocal persona is based on nina simone, ella jenkins, and billie holiday.

Trashthumb - to even think about creating the space you talk about, the bubble where musicians 'don't have to take those factors into consideration' is political. And just because music doesn't have lyrics doesn't cleanse it of meaning

I'm aware that 'everything is political' or rhetorical, or academic, or any way you want to say it, and yes it's an active choice to be apolitical. And instrumental music certainly has meaning, but I think it's a lot more difficult to include explicit societal dialogue without them. Abstract art needs a placard, and instrumental music needs at least some declaration of intent unless it's overt, liner notes, for any politicizing to be something other than guesswork. It's still going to have a feeling, which gives it a personal or human meaning, and if you use a structure from 'black' music you're going to evoke that tradition and that culture, but I feel like this kind of talk marginalizes the sound, but what criticism doesn't, more noise surrounding the purpose of music, listening to it.

John, I just think its funny that ever since Jess cockblocked you and Mr. Que (for not offering IDEAS, ironically), you show up every 200 posts to point out the one half-way off-key complaint about SFJ's piece (i.e. that he isn't ASKING the arcade fire to get fonky, just that he wanted to hear some groove after six of their songs) or declare some one-liner "the best thing on this thread. Now you're going "royal trux? O RLY?" in the face of an article so obviously greater than the one you're not even really defending. I know you're grateful for the exposure he gave you, but its time you ask yourself what he's done for you lately.

that shoud be (complaining that I wasn't offering IDEAS, ironically)

sasha is silly to bring up devendra. his entire vocal persona is based on nina simone, ella jenkins, and billie holiday.

yeah that one struck me as really weird, there's all kinds of coded/racinated stuff going on in db's vocal delivery - some of it so over-the-top that I've always been a little surprised that more people don't dwell on it (lots of T. Rex comparisons around the time of the first studio album but any Al Jolson refs? 'cause that's kinda who he sounds like) but there's all kinds of weird genre stuff going on just in the way devendra sings

xpost anthony I basically read the last ten posts and see what I have to say. Your accusation that I'm somehow repaying a favor is off-target, but I'm sure it makes you feel good about yourself, so fuck you.

...and for you to be accusing anybody of nitpicking is, y'know, some pot/kettle shit

Not to butt into the clash of the titans, but when I read that line in the Slate piece I was like, "Yeah, Trux, obviously!" Not that they're primarily a funk band but (a) they were on at least one two-drummer show I saw and (b) they were certainly coming out of all manner of 70's bluesy rock that SFJ rightly points out is way funkier than most 00's rock.

I'm just trying to assign your inexplicable cherry-picking of what to acknowledge on this thread a motivation I can understand/sympathize with, John. Has nothing to do with my ego.

whatever dude

Is John D.. you know...

Trashthumb....

I really don't know where you think you can draw a line between the 'personal and human meaning' and the political, and i can think of plenty of abstract art that's part of an explicit social dialogue..... but its late on my side of the Atlantic, so if the conversation is still anywhere in this neighbourhood in the AM, I may have more...

yes (xpost)

http://www.nndb.com/people/372/000024300/john-davidson-3-sized.jpg

Yes.

people talk shit about my daytime show but I was years ahead of my time

we all loved you growing up : )

were you on "The Price is Right"?

John, I don't necessarily think you have any reason to defend SFJ's piece that goes against what you really do believe or operates on grounds of personal loyalty or selfishness or whatever. But you have to be aware of the fact that considering that this is a critic who has called you "America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist," it's gonna come out looking a certain way.

"lots of T. Rex comparisons around the time of the first studio album but any Al Jolson refs? 'cause that's kinda who he sounds like)"

definitely. he is not alone there. antony and cocorosie and devendra are all in love with karen dalton. someone who wanted to sound like the oldest and blackest woman who ever lived. (tim buckley too had the jolson thing going on. another fave.)

I'm just trying to assign your inexplicable cherry-picking of what to acknowledge on this thread a motivation I can understand/sympathize with, John.

I mean really, Anthony: is this even true, or just a rhetorical stance? Half the things SFJ says are things his detractors on this thread have said & will again say, in various permutations, on threads here; cherry-picking is the name of the game here. There are some basic formal considerations (backbeat, swing) that he's talking about that you, zingmaster in extremis, aren't particularly interested in, even though they're primary in this discussion: why does so much mainstream indie eschew these properties, and mightn't it mean anything? I don't agree with SFJ about loads of stuff (for example: I don't give a shit about indie rock with some occasional exceptions), but this whole thread seems like mainly jealous haters doing the "my kid could paint better than that!" schtick, with some occasional and on-point exceptions. That he manages to troll all the free-weekly/blog ppl so successfully is kind Madonna-In-Her-Primesque from where I sit. But who knows, maybe I'm just trying to help him out on a pointless ILX thread owing to extreme gratitude about an article he wrote four years ago.

Alex, for sure, but c'mon: as true as that may be, and as nutty as I can get, does anybody who knows me really think I'd go "gotta defend dudebrah, he likes my shit?" C'mon. I may be cantankerous/nuts/corny, but I don't roll like that.