MORE IRONIC, MORE CYNICAL, MORE AMUSED BY MORE THINGS AND LESS TOUCHED BY ANYTHING

AKA "Popular Culture Has Consequences"

or

"PopMatters would be an awesome name for a website"


You say you want revolution / I want to know why
Blur: Ambulance (fan video)

I've been reading some old Greil Marcus pieces lately. One thing that stands out from his reasons for loathing Journey, the Doobie Brothers, or the Knack-- and from his interviews with the likes of Gang of Four or Rough Trade's Geoff Travis-- is how trivial and superficial music crit and appreciation has become now that "everything is cool". I mean, I'm part of the problem: I don't believe in guilty pleasures, and I don't care how high-minded or forward-thinking a track is if I can't find a way to enjoy it, too. But I don't think anyone in the current discourse agonizes over how pre-existing social frameworks, possibly bad ones, affect what we create, what we enjoy, the way the likes of Gang of Four used to. It's almost the type of thing you'd get laughed out of the cool lunch table for now to suggest that pop can change the world. But our culture does matter. Maybe that's why I write about this stuff.


What's wrong with cherry-picking facts? Then you can make the perfect truth pie.
Lullatone: Pajama in the USA (and Canada)

Seems like back then it wasn't necessarily enough for something to be merely enjoyable. That's what "rockism" probably meant to its practitioners, especially after punk came along: Good music, in that view, must not only be enjoyable, but also be a revolutionary force, something that changes the way we view the world, causes us to constantly question our inherited assumptions, our sexism, racism, ism ism. The kind of stuff the chattering classes have deemed tres gauche nowadays, much to the benefit of the presently established order. I'm not prepared to turn away from my current approach to evaluating music-- I'd be hard pressed to say the Lucksmiths' Naturaliste is going to make you a better person, though it might make you a happier one-- but at the same time, I'm not convinced that Marcus's punk-era outlook was wrong. The conversation around pop music, like every conversation in this age of increasingly fragmented media, is often way too insular. We treat popular culture as if it's endlessly interesting, sure, but not as if it should actually matter to anyone but nerds and college students with too much time and bandwidth.

(Then again, maybe times are just more trivial now. With the specter of World War II still in the near past, a sardonic lyricist like Elvis Costello could invoke the symbol of absolute evil, Hitler, and be sure to provoke a reaction in his listeners. And of course Vietnam, the civil rights movement, etc. The baby boomers' betrayal of the Sixties' promise has rendered revolution just another hoary old cliche. Which doesn't mean we should stop finding ways to open each other's minds.)


Correction the coat hangers should be upside down.
Jens Lekman: Julie

P.S. Like Homer Simpson, I'm nodding "yes" to every beat of Matt LeMay's Pitchfork beatdown of the "This Is NEXT" compilation. Unsurprisingly, music-biz blogger Coolfer calls the piece "weak and uninformed" without any evidence or explanation. Wait, an argument without support? On the Internet? I thought only Pitchfork writers supposedly did that! A so-called industry with year-over-year earnings increases and stock price gains like this one is clearly way smarter than Matt.

P.P.S. So apparently I'm following in the footsteps of Pitchfork's Chris Dahlen last year and receiving an "other notable" pieces mention in the forthcoming Da Capo Best Music Writing 2007 book for this silly old thing. Holy smokes! Such an honor, and thank you so much to everyone involved. Make sure to buy the actual book so you can have a nice printed copy of Nitsuh Abebe's superlative piece, "Making Plans for Daniel". Good company indeed.

P.P.P.S. Last time I asked, "Why has nobody called Michelle Rhee on her unverified credentials and apparent falsehoods?" The Washington Post's Debbie Cenziper has wisely called Rhee on one of the smaller apparent falsehoods. Better late than never. (Via Bob Somerby.)

P.P.P.P.S. Attention, Juggalos (and fans of photographers with an eye for what is interesting about ordinary people). Also see this dude's "Zero's Heroes" curatorial project at the same blog.