I USED TO SAY DUMB THINGS I GUESS I STILL DO

It was a disappointing sunset, only 'cause my hopes were much too high.
Harpo: Movie Star

Via Greil Marcus (again) via Simon Frith's Sound Effects via Roland Barthes: I wonder if part of what attracts me to Jens Lekman's wonderful Night Falls Over Kortedala (9.0 from this schmuck) is the sense of what Barthes called signifiance (not a typo). As Marcus puts it:

"Barthes argued that the thrill of music is not a result of one's consious or subliminal response to 'significance' (the rendering of an important idea, emotion, moment in time, or whatever -- think of how you've tried to make sense of your response to 'Like a Rolling Stone' or 'Gimmie Shelter'); rather, the thrill comes from one's response to signifiance. This odd and intriguing word has baffled Barthe's translators (some, as if to say the hell with it, have rendered it as'significance'), but Frith handles the word best: signifiance refers not to a sign but to 'the work of signification'-- not to meaning, but to 'the making of meanings'. We do not respond to symbols (doom in the dark chords and apocalyptic lyrics of 'Gimmie Shelter,' escape and release in the rising choruses of 'Like a Rolling Stone'), though we seize on such symbols and connect them to historical events or personal situations in order to explain our response; we respond to symbol creation."

Marcus/Frith go on to hold up Elvis Presley as the prime example; who the hell knows what he stood for, but sure as Memphis sits on the mighty Mississippi, Elvis stood for something: standing for something.


If we all decide that there are five pints in a quart, that's objectively true. (And a bargain!)
Jens Lekman: Interview in Paris

So if Elvis stood for signifiance, then maybe Lekman's album stands for the possibility that we can be in control of the process-- that we can make our own symbols, just as he shores these pop fragments against our 21st-century cultural ruins. I don't really have this all pinned down yet. See in the above interview (posted yesterday) how Lekman sort of makes a similar point to the one in my review-- he says the wealth of unedited music on the Web allows us all to edit out our own favorite tracks, decide for ourselves which matter, create our own Jens Lekmans and have them, Whopper-like, our way.

Side note: I love how on "Shirin", he sings, "I won't tell anyone," just as he is telling, um, everyone.

Something capable of revealing that point of access which provides a shortcut to the magical realm behind this spectacle.
Mainly Spaniards: That's What Friends Are For

Here's something worth getting political about. In Vanity Fair, Evgenia Peretz goes on at length about what the indefatigable Bob Somerby calls the press corps' two-year "War Against Gore": the one where the brightest, best-paid pundits at The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, and MSNBC-- not just FOX or crazy right-wingers-- falsely convinced you that Al Gore said he'd invented the Internet, claimed he personally discovered the infamous Love Canal toxic-waste site, invented that he and Tipper were the inspiration for the novel "Love Story" (the author has said they were), changed into "earth tones" at the behest of Naomi Wolf (Wolf has denied this, the original reports were based on speculation by disgraced former Clinton aide Dick Morris, and besides, who doesn't occasionally wear "earth tones"?), etc. etc. etc.

A sample of the kind of misconduct which, in any other profession, would get someone fired or possibly sued:

"MSNBC anchor Brian Williams went after Gore's clothes at least five times in one week. 'Here is a guy taking off his suits.… This is the casual sweater look—what's going on here?' … 'He would have been in a suit a month ago.' … 'He's wearing these polo shirts that don't always look natural on him.' Williams's frequent guest Newsweek's Howard Fineman later chimed in: 'I covered his last presidential campaign, in 1988. One day he was in the conservative blue suit, the next he was playing lumberjack at the V.F.W. hall in New Hampshire.'

"And Gore just kept going on about issues. Alluding to five speeches he made in two months on education, crime, the economy, faith-based organizations, and cancer research, [the Times's Katherine] Seelye wrote, 'Mr. Gore becomes almost indignant when asked if his avalanche of positions might overwhelm voters.' The Washington Post's David Broder later found Gore too focused in his convention speech on what he'd do as president. 'But, my, how he went on about what he wants to do as president,' wrote Broder. 'I almost nodded off.' As for the environment, while Gore was persuaded by his consultants not to talk about it as much as he would have liked, whenever he did, many in the media ignored it or treated it as comedy. Dowd wrote in one column that 'Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating.' In another, referring to his consideration of putting a Webcam in the Oval Office, she wrote, 'I have zero desire to see President Gore round the clock, putting comely interns to sleep with charts and lectures on gaseous reduction.'

"The trivial continued to dominate during the postmortem following Gore and Bush's first debate, on October 3, 2000. The television media were sure Gore won—at first. But then Republican operatives promptly spliced together a reel of Gore sighing, which was then sent to right-wing radio outlets. Eighteen hours later, the pundits could talk of little else. 'They could hear you audibly sighing or sounding exasperated as Governor Bush was answering questions,' Katie Couric scolded him the next day on the Today show. 'Do you think that's presidential behavior?' For the Times's Frank Bruni, the sighs weren't as galling as Gore's familiarity with the names of foreign leaders. 'It was not enough for Vice President Al Gore to venture a crisp pronunciation of Milosevic, as in Slobodan,' he wrote. 'Mr. Gore had to go a step further, volunteering the name of Mr. Milosevic's challenger Vojislav Kostunica.'"


These people are still among the most prominent, highest-paid people in my profession. They are responsible for George W. Bush. They are responsible for the Iraq war. They do not care about you. And they will not do their jobs (John Edwards has fancy haircuts! Rudy Giuliani is Mayor of America! Fred Thompson is hung like a mule!) unless we stand up to them.


Final thought: If anyone knows where to find the "dub" version of Shai's "If I Ever Fall in Love" that Diplo uses on this insanely awesome mix, please, for the love of Christ, hook a writer up.

I TRIED TO WAKE YOU WITH A REALLY LOUD COUGH

If I had the money to go to a record store, I would.
The Tough Alliance: First Class Riot (cross-posted from Pitchfork)

"STOP TREATING MUSIC LIKE IT’S YOUR STICKER COLLECTION."
- Chris Ott, guest-posted in Nick Sylvester's RiffMarket

In the early '80s, my cousin Kent gave me a 1981 Topps Joe Montana rookie card. Kent lived in Iowa, so he was more of a Green Bay Packers fan, and he knew that his younger cousin-- not yet old enough to appreciate the gift-- was a drooling San Francisco 49ers worshipper. Also, Kent is awesome. My mom, witnessing the destruction I had wreaked upon my collection of more contemporary cards from 1983 and 1984, wisely stashed the card away in a drawer, where it was never seen again until I was old enough to take care of it. I once sent it to Joe Montana himself to autograph; he demurred, saying that signing a rookie card can actually diminish its value. The card now sits beside the 1990 Pro Set card he signed instead, in a frame at my parents' house (until I'm old enough to take care of it).

At its early-'90s peak, as I recall, that beautiful slab of cardboard was worth more than $200, at least according to Beckett. Of course, considering I would never sell it, the card is both worthless and "priceless," like that 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card Bob Costas lugs around in his wallet. The value of the card lies in what it represents to me about my most beloved football team of all time, the Montana-era Niners, and the many happy hours I spent watching and obsessing over them. Is it a little pathetic to fetishize a piece of paper depicting a dude who named his first three kids Alexandra, Elizabeth, and Nathaniel so their full names would all have 16 letters, matching the number he famously wore as quarterback? Probably.

In conversation, I've complained as much as anybody about the current blog-o-matic tendency to treat bands like collectibles. Many writers seem to pack in as many posts per day with as many up-and-coming artists as possible, but their words usually show little love, appreciation, or understanding for the performers they so tirelessly promote. What are the Cold War Kids about? My Pitchfork review revealed one interpretation, but I'd never seen any of their supposed online fans ever give the idea much thought, something that to me seems irreconcilable with normal fandom. How do they sing along? Further, the obsession with collecting seems not just shallow but also narrow, excluding, as Ott notes and Nick observed recently in a piece on Matt LeMay's Get Him Eat Him, a broad swathe of great bands (more on this in a future rant).

All those criticisms still stand. But reading Ott's post, I'm beginning to wonder if the "sticker collector" gripe might not be, probably subconsciously, a proxy for bigger worries. After all, the phrase "record collection" is common parlance, and even if it implies something different than music appreciation or fandom, broad knowledge/ownership of records hardly seems like a negative (except perhaps in the case of "record-collector rock"). Aside from the superficial, no-commitments way many people approach this stuff, I'm not sure what's wrong with a record collection per se. Don't we WANT kids to listen to more music?

Now, I'm sure Ott is being sincere, but it's particularly convenient for a guy like him-- whose "collection" might be said to include the likes of Joy Division, the Clash, Pink Floyd, Arab Strap, Stephen Malkmus, the Constantines, and uh Carlos D.-- to tell today's fervent young music acquirers to cease and desist. Imagine the parallel: A geezer with a yellowing hoard of '60,'70s, '80s and '90s baseball cards starts insisting that people shouldn't bother collecting anything he doesn't already own. If people follow this dude's advice, his collection will become more valuable, and theirs will become worthless. It's common knowledge that more music is put out today than ever; so, too, will the old guy avoid having to learn and obtain the endless varieties of premium and superpremium baseball cards and inserts released in recent years. Lucky that guy!

But bands aren't baseball cards, obviously-- or pogs, or stickers. I've never claimed to have always known as much about music as the modicum I know even now, and Ott certainly wasn't born clutching a 1952 Mickey Mantle. Someone had to give it to him. Instead of wishing technology would slow down or telling young music fans how they suck (and sometimes they do!), it would be more productive to help explain to them why we value certain older records, to help them appreciate new and old music rather than merely compete to own it. This is the function of a good music critic. It's in all of our collective best interest to foster a new generation of people who care about music as passionately as we do, just as it's in-- pardon me for again comparing art and commerce-- the best interest of the National Football League to inspire the kind of passion I had for Joe Montana's 49ers.

Of course, it's always in the best interest of an individual critic to be a dick. Otherwise, how would you get other bloggers to whine about you?


We got our own jihad if you know what I mean.
Bill Richardson: Job Interview and Tell Me

Elsewhere:

Via Bob Somerby, Jack Welch's well-paid Nantucket boys make a joke of your Democratic and Republican presidential debates. Brian Williams, the guy who made you rich is a billionaire douchebag-- do you still let him kiss you good night?:

BRIAN WILLIAMS, OPENING QUESTION (4/26/07): Senator Clinton, your party's leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost. A letter to today's USA Today calls his comments "treasonous" and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would wipe his boots with Senator Reid. Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?

CHRIS MATTHEWS, OPENING QUESTION (5/3/07): In the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, just 22 percent believe this country is on the right track. Mayor Giuliani, how do we get back to Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America"?

Williams tells us Patton would "wipe his boots" with a top Democrat, then asks Clinton if she supports such a treasonous wimp. Matthews implies the country was last on the right track under a Republican, using the Gipper's own marketing slogan. How do we get such utterly bizarre behavior from a so-called liberal media? Make your own inferences from a recent Poynter item: "Journalists shouldn't be part of a royal class in America."

A recent article in The New Republic by Joseph D. Becker raises important points about the growing divide between the nobles and the peasants in our glorious democracy:

BECKER: Last year, the president of the United States--the CEO of the country--was paid $400,000, with a $50,000 allowance for expenses and up to $100,000 for travel. The amounts are fixed by statute and do not vary with the success or failure of his administration. With responsibilities hardly comparable to the president's, the CEO of Citigroup made nearly $26,000,000 in 2006 (counting all benefits). He may have done better in his job than the luckless president did in his, but surely not 47 times better. Further, if the average annual wage of non-executive employees of Citigroup was, say, $50,000, the CEO made 520 times their salary. There are dozens of such astonishing cases. As a member of Congress recently said, "The average CEO makes more money before lunch than the average worker earns all year."

Becker goes on to call for a study group (how bold!) to look into ways to restrain surging public-sector compensation. However, his critics will point out that this will only cause executives to jump to the private sector, where their pay ISN'T restrained, or even public. And they'd be right. This problem goes way beyond Wall Street.

In a startling development, noted policy wonk Jonathan Cohn calls for more policy wonkery. I'm a big fan of Cohn's policy prescriptions, but I'm skeptical of the politics of this post. Earnestly or not, Cohn is basically the latest guy to carry the Edwards campaign's memetic water, insisting that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton need to give "details" on how they will implement their health care policies, when any honest answer at this early stage would have to be "it depends." Presidents don't enact health care legislation; legislators do. Matthew Yglesias gives an historical view of the subject.

Meanwhile, Colbert isn't just parody, folks. Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Rademaker recently published a column attacking the "Blame America First" crowd. Subscription required, because people pay for this shit. Murdoch knows what's up.

Finally, there is no God: MC Rove might be an atheist. [UPDATE: He's also toast.]

WHERE IS THE DANGER

Well she laughs when she wants like you do when you're 5 years old.
Säkert!: Allt som är ditt

NBC's Brian Williams, when did you stop beating your wife? I will soooo blog about your Limbaugh-liking ass, Williams. Limbaugh. Licking. Ass.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Jim DeRogatis reminds us of lots of Bangs quotes in honor of the 25th anniversary of the rock critic's death. While I'm not sure they cast Bangs in his best light-- "All blues singers are great liars"? "The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience"?-- they at least include that Clash/"flashbulb moment" line. None of it touches the Astral Weeks piece, though. (BTW, "Rock Never Forgets"? Was DeRo's headline editor kidding? If rock remembers, it wasn't really there.)

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox recently interviewed author Dennis Cooper. "During the course of our discussion we decided there was a real lack of danger," Cox tells the San Diego Union-Tribune. "There is no Throbbing Gristle or G.G. Allin or Patti Smith, there is nothing that represents what I really think Punk is about. I want things to be dangerous in an authentic, introverted, non-confrontational way."

James Brown: Live in Montreux, 1981 (video)

Julianne Shepherd: @ Pitchfork talking about Lil Wayne (column).

Philip Sherburne on Battles' "Atlas" and the DJ Koze remix. T. Rex!

Here is where I stop linking to my individual Forkcast items.


Sosa's 595th homer leads Rangers by Jays.
Pink: U & UR Hand