Here's the review, cross-posted for the lazy. I put back in a thing or two, because hey, blog.

******************

The fact that Paul Morley's Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City (University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2005) has already been embraced by music geeks around the globe should come as no surprise. The book's aim to make its creator into the Lester Bangs of his generation, a position currently, and unfortunately, held by Simon Reynolds (perhaps the best argument yet for why Lester's death did his reputation nothing but good), is self-apparent, from a section devoted to why he is the best music writer ever to the laughably enormous scope of his musical references to the stylistic experimentation that would seem to be a requirement for any "serious" book of rock criticism.

But, to his credit, all these are explained or explainable. The "Greatest of All Time" thing is winning and ultimately self-effacing while still being cocky, a reflection of our desire for music writers to be a nerd variant on the rockstar persona. The abundance of references and lists is fully explained at the end as an endless and ultimately futile attempt to map our world, to reduce the totality to a comprehensible scale, even if the explanation doesn't really hold water. And the style is a gamble that pays off in full.

Words and Music, published in England in 2003, but only recently issued domestically by the University of Georgia Press, purports to be an investigation into the connections between two pieces of music: Alvin Lucier's experimental art-music composition "I Am Sitting in a Room" and Kylie Minogue's electro-pop masterpiece "Can't Get You Out of My Head," all within the narrative framework of a automobile trip to "a history of pop in the shape of a city," as the subtitle puts it. Morley admits up front that this framework is likely to break down, and it's no giant whoop when it does, but nevertheless, he manages to stay remarkably coherent while wedging in such great diversions as: a complete, albeit selective, timeline of the Earth's existence (arguably the book's highlight); a list of other possible song pairings the book could have been based on; and a great interview Morley did with Jarvis Cocker. (I must admit I skipped over the Fad Gadget liner notes, though.) He does this by also including great investigations into the high-art context of "Room" and Minogue's own career as a triumphalist narrative, to say nothing of his own (nearly failed) audition as Minogue's biographer.

Morley's point, if I had to pick just one, is about the way the seemingly simple and limited world of a pop song is actually immensely complex. He does prove, sort of, that Minogue's song is related to Lucier's, and that particular reduction is useful, as are the endless connections he draws. But the best feature of Words and Music is the way Morley manages to declare so much (but leave even more up in the air) by constantly doubting himself and showing where things in the book itself could have gone differently, presenting it as simply one option among many, de-canonizing the text. (He even admits he may not have actually heard "I Am Sitting In a Room"!) This playfulness is a breath of fresh air in the accuracy-obsessed, self-righteous, geeky world of rock criticism, and by itself says a lot more about pop music than many critics' entire corpora.

Morley's book is both a failure and a triumph because it reflects everything music writing currently is and represents much of what it could become. On the one hand, it is frustratingly obsessed with historicism over engagement with the work at hand, lazily using mentions of often obscure songs or groups in place of real description to make shallow critical comparisons. The book is too tied up with the past to apply its passion to what other people are passionate about, and too tied up in similarity to really examine the differences. But at the same time, it insists on taking pop music (as explicitly opposed to rock music) seriously, which requires the playfulness Morley does so well. For every eruption of cynicism, there are countless moments of optimism; for every failure to address pop as music in the same manner as the Lucier piece (in contrast to the intense technical focus on "Room," Morley's description of the genesis of "Head" is almost mystical); and for every misunderstanding of the pop pleasure principle, there's a wonderful recognition of the importance of context.

To a critic, the peculiar triumph of pop music is that it expresses amazingly complex ideas in ways with which other people actively desire to engage, and it's one of the particular joys of criticism to parse these ideas, to draw them out and make connections and express them in one's own language. The form of criticism Morley's pointing toward is modeled after pop, which is to say it's both all-inclusive and endlessly energized; a hallmark of traditional rock criticism is the latter, and pop criticism has slowly engulfed the former by broadening its scope. However, often when it swings towards the energy of Bangs, it too easily embraces his inheritors' restrictive rage. We can and will find a way to talk about pop the way it talks about itself, in a voice that never limits and only enables.

So what do we want? Something that, instead of trying to distill pop's purity of essence, seeks its endless expansion; something that internalizes the lessons of the poststructuralist theorists its more highbrow adherents constantly reference, accepting their invitations to play. Something that is not merely a slowly decaying grumble about its practitioners' inability to rouse themselves in their middle age to the chemically-induced summits of yore and instead seeks to understand the pleasures of the new young on their own terms by refusing the temptations of doubt and too-quick dismissal. Something that doesn't settle for the shallow, automatically-generated critiques inherited from our rockcrit forebears, dusted off and mapped onto an unwilling new context. Something not only as pleasurable as pop, but as intelligent, a criticism worthy of its subject. Words and Music is an incomplete roadmap, but it takes us a little closer to where we want to go.
posted by Mike B. at 10:53 AM 0 comments

There's certainly no reason not to read all of the Flagpole reviews this week, since not only are there two of mine (Weezer and Fannypack), but also two from Hillary, one from Chris, and a few other good ones.

You will also find my review of Paul Morley's Words and Music. It's a decent length and well worth reading, although I get a little manifestoy. My favorite line got cut, oh well. Since I'm unclear how many people clickthrough to the f-pole, from this blog at least, I may copy and paste that as a separate post. We'll see.

posted by Mike B. at 10:41 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Eh...I hate to even get into this, because there seems to be some serious piling-on happening on both sides, but I'll ease into it, I suppose. "It" being the Ying Yang Twins' "Wait (The Whisper Song)."

This all stems from: an Anthony Miccio Village Voice review, Jullianne Shepherd's and Jessica Hopper's responses, and Anthony's rebuttal. And, since they're pivotal, the lyrics are here.

First off, I just don't like the song. Not even in the way where I hate it but deep down I know that it's just because it pushes my buttons really well and that's a form of love--in the way that I heard it and didn't really like it. The beat's boring and the lyrics aren't very good, irrespective of their offensiveness, which itself isn't that funny. The whispering is a nice idea, but they could've done something much more interesting with it. It's unfortunate, then, that we're arguing about it, because arguing about crappy art always seems kind of depressing and pointless, like making a big effort to get to a party you know is going to be kind of lame, but you're already in the process of going, and there's nothing better to do, so we might as well.

So my response to the responses are mainly questions--questions, mind you, that I mean less as challenges and more as legitimate inquiries. When people dance to "The Whisper Song," what does it mean? Does it indicate ignorance, approval, or something far more complex somewhere in the middle? (And does context matter? Like, if I told you I just saw a mixed-race, mixed-gender, mixed-sexual-orientation crowd of liberal arts alumni dancing to it, is that different from an all-white, all-straight, all-male crowd at a sports bar, or the crowd at a lesbian bar? If so, why?) Dancing is different than listening is different than expressing artistic admiration is different than expressing personal approval.

Also: if a female likes "The Whisper Song," does that mean she doesn't respect rape survivors? If a rape survivor likes "The Whisper Song," does it mean that they dislike themselves? What critics of the song seem to be positing is a necessary relationship between "The Whisper Song" and sexual violence, and I'm interested in the implications of that.

Not to mention, and perhaps more pointedly: can you have a different opinion on "The Whipser Song" than Jessica and Julianne while also having a clear understanding of the realities of sexual violence?

What's ultimately interesting about the song itself, so much as there is anything interesting about it (and clearly there is) is that people like it--which, incidentaly, is one of the reasons I really like pop culture, because this simple fact sometimes forces you to engage with things you otherwise wouldn't. The fact that our interest here stems not from the fact that the song exists (if you want to talk about porn-rap I have a song here called "What That Thing Smell Like" you might want to xxxamine) but from the scope of its acceptance, catching all genders and races in its net, forces us, I think, to approach it with this as a constant rather than something to be argued against; at this point, you're not going to be reversing Soundscan numbers, so it seems far more productive to try and explain why people like something. And that's why I think Jessica's question of "how long must we forgive in the name of hot beats?" is misguided, because you could not get this many people to listen to someone chanting "beat that pussy up" without those particular beats. We always have to keep our minds open to the question of how the music changes the lyrics' meaning, because it does, because these words are being conveyed in this particular form. And while I think the conventional explantion would be that the hot beats are masking the meaning of the lyrics, that they're sneaking in misogyny under cover of the groove, I've never been so willing to accept that. I think each effects the other, that they are changed into something new, and that those electro-toms behind those words mean something different than the words alone, and the fact that it accrues approval despite its off-putting lyrics is a constant check to our gut reactions, a reminder to not accept these things on their face value.

That said, while I do generally like Anthony as a writer, I also recognize that the contrarian thing he sometimes does, and in particular does here, is the same thing I spent 6 months yelling at Pitchfork writers for doing, and just because I have fairly similar opinions to his doesn't make what he's doing legitimate, or the Voice article particularly good. I'm willing to grant that this was due to space limitations more than anything else, but, you know, that's what them blog things are for.

I'd also like to say something about how if we're going to have an unashamed conversation about sexual violence, we should also be able to have an unashamed conversation about the frequently offensive things adults say to each other in the bedroom, about the realities of roleplay in sexual contexts, and about the way this song (although far less effectively than others) plays with the dynamic between pop lyrics ostensibly being a personal expression of private thoughts and their reality as something shared and sung and dance to by all, and whether we should address them then as something private or public (because even when public they mainly exist to be disseminated and transformed into the private), but Jessica's already mocked the idea of not equating the personal and the political, so I'll be quiet.

I do agree with Julianne on the "it's OK to be wrong sometimes" front. Yay, agreement!

posted by Mike B. at 6:21 PM 0 comments

I bought Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop, started reading it, and got disgusted and put it away for a few weeks. I spent 9 hours in the car yesterday and ended up plowing through about half the book, and I'm glad I did, but it's still sort of poking me the wrong way, so to speak. So I figured I'd keep a running tally of things that annoy me.

- The implicit Marxism--"IT'S CAPITALISM'S FAULT!"--etc. etc., whereas capitalism seems to be one of the central players in hip-hop, from the very beginning.
- The whole section on Jamacia, which reads like a long-lost section of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. "The magic incantations of Marley the Grey made the Orcs sit down with the Rastas, but then the evil warlord, in a moment of treachery..."
- The organization, which is haphazard; there are a few instances where information is conveyed in a way that would seem to assume that we don't already know it, even though he spent a few pages talking about in previous chapters. Plus I have no idea whatsoever what happened when due to his skipping around from the taggers to the DJs to the dancers pretty much at random.
- The fact that not only could he find a few people to claim, but then actually printed said claims, that hip-hop was dead upon the release of the first ever official hip-hop record. I mean, c'mon guys.
- The part where he mentions Run-DMC, then all of a sudden gives us 8 pages of history on crack, then goes back to talking about Run-DMC again, even though the crack stuff is actually applicable to the people he had been talking about right before he started talking about Run-DMC.

So yeah. Sorta like the Steven Johnson thing, I'm not gonna tell you don't read it, just that there are problems with it that people I'd normally agree with don't seem to be mentioning. I mean, I understand that he's doing the history of the hip-hop generation rather than hip-hop the music, and I appreciate the context with the Bronx and the gangs and the clarifications on how exactly the breaking crews functioned, but I guess I'm mainly disappointed that this is another book about music that doesn't seem to talk about the music very much. 200 pages in and the only tracks I can remember being discussed are "The Message," "Rapper's Delight," and that single Basquiat cut whose name escapes me; I think he's mentioned more movies about hip-hop than actual hip-hop at this point. (The Pitchfork review mentioned the thinness of his focus when it comes to post-80s hip-hop, and while I haven't read those sections yet, I looked at the "recommended listening" list in the Appendix, and just off the top of my head I noticed the omission of Jay-Z, the Wu-Tang Clan, and Nas(!).) Even when he does get into it, he'll let Cool Herc talk about his setup but not really get into exactly what it was or explain the context of any of the elements, say, or mention in passing some of the songs the DJs were spinning but not really give you any feel for what you'd typically hear played. It's obviously not as shallow as Please Kill Me or any of those who-was-fucking-who books, but it seems to be equally sceney, and that's very frustrating. Oh well.

posted by Mike B. at 5:50 PM 0 comments

I had wanted to do a post on Sasha's minstrelry piece, but then I got busy, and then I saw there was a lengthy ILM thread on it (which Sasha replied to) so I wasn't going to bother. But then I read the damn thing and the points I wanted to cover weren't even brought up, except once or twice. So whoopee, here we go.

(A disclaimer or two up front. The piece was presented in the context of both an EMP panel/debate and a book on minstrelry, neither of which I have any familiarity with besides the summaries people have posted. Also, I have no idea if this is what Sasha's trying to say, just that it's a productive way to read it.)

The thing I particularly liked about the piece (besides the fact that he explicitly draws some conclusions, which is not necessarily something you can rely on Sasha for, bless his heart) is--and this didn't really dawn on me until the third page or so--is that while our immediate association with the term "minstrelry" is a negative one, he's being more or less neutral about it. It's just a descriptor there for purposes of comparison. And, indeed, if you like modern pop (and I mean that in the broadest, Pop-III sense) and you're being honest with yourself, you have to be fiercely ambivalent about minstrelry, because, from what I understand, modern pop wouldn't exist in its present form without the historical existence of minstrelry. That almost all the music we listen to is engaged on some level in playing with race is hardly news, and while our liberal sensibilities might recoil a bit at this notion, if you're a fair-minded lover of pop, it's hard to argue with the results, to say nothing of the fact that black-music-as-played-by-blacks is the dominant musical form in America today. While there's something distasteful about racial appropriation (on all sides), it's far more shocking to our sensibilities than actually damaging to race relations, especially when stacked up against economic and political factors, and there's been so damn much racial appropriation in pop--again, on all sides--that there's really no clear way of saying who's stealing from who at this point, at least on a groupwise basis (individual artists will always steal, sometimes unfairly, from other individual artists). And that's why minstrelry is a productive comparison if you look at it as a value-neutral form rather than a charged term.

What Sasha seems to be doing here is to suggest that white musicians, by restraining their minstrelric impulses, are actually doing a disserve to themselves and to music. This obviously runs counter to our traditional understandings, but I think he makes a fairly good case for it with the love/theft dynamic. Let me unpack it a bit and see where it goes.

The basic idea here is that theft is OK when coupled with freely expressed love, and when both are fully admitted. This is to say that there is a point where by your theft you are doing more to advance the music than to hold it back, and at this point the sense of shame you're expected to feel as an inheritor/magpie in the kitchen is no longer a positive trait. The assumption here is that the people we can legitimately call "theives" lacked the love for the genre and thus had their own interests rather than a collective interest (for the style, for the scene, for the listeners) at heart, profit over pleasure, etc. etc. Those unfortunates who possessed both love and theft got caught in the middle of an awkward dynamic. Because if you do possess a real love for a form that you're undeniably stealing, and you're actually really good at making music in that form, what are you supposed to do? Not express that skill because you'd be taking the spot of someone more real? Might be a valid argument if that was an actually possible outcome, but that's in no way guaranteed without some sort of regulation designed to enforce aesthetic morality in the arts, which I assume we all agree would be a bad thing. So ultimately we need to draw a line between the management and worker class in music when it comes to this appropriation thing. White label owners profiting off the royalty-free compositions of their black artists is a bad thing, but is it really so horrible that Elvis got big? Don't forget to look behind the curtain, please. The love and the theft are often coming from different divisions of the corporation. (Believe you me.)

This all goes in cycles, and what was theft once gets stolen again, taken back, reclaimed. But if you don't express your love because you're worried about getting called out on your theft, it's ultimately just as much, if not more so, a selfish act as it would be to hold back on the theory that it's impolite to wear a mask in the public square. Put your shit out there and see if people like it, and fuck them if they want to call you a thief. Because you are, and that's fine.

I like Sasha's piece because it seems to be putting the value of collective good equal to the value of individual, or group, fairness. I like it because it encourages us to be honest about the legacy of theft in the music we love and to realize that you can drop the shame act a bit and still be OK. If you love it, you love it; no apologies necessary.

posted by Mike B. at 12:14 PM 0 comments