Thursday, April 21, 2005
Because it looks hilarious, I am probably going to end up with a copy of "The Rock Snob's Dictionary", even though what I really want is "Sonata for Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory, and the Imagined Life"
by Geoffrey O'Brien. The latter was recommended by my pal Dave Benders. Over the years he's referred me to quite a few solid reads about music, popular culture and media, often books that feel to both of us like "Hey, they stole my idea!". (Although I'd have to say that Dave is a lot more qualified to write that book than I am.) Sarah Vowell's "Radio On" was one I found on my own, but I think the fact that I responded to it the way I did alerted Dave to my penchant for this sort of thing. I am interested in the notion of pop music as a cultural signifier, a signpost to what is new, and it does seem to me that this is something that has been lost in contemporary pop. I don't know if it no longer has this quality because we are flooded with media, or for some other reason, but it is true, I think, that the idea of "music that matters" is no longer particularly current. (This is why fans of U2 like that band I think-- I suppose U2 is okay, but what the group's fans really like is the notion that the band is important somehow.)
Not long ago I happened upon a recording of Cher singing "For What It's Worth". This impressed me as a fascinating little relic-- she does it straight, it actually sounds pretty good, and the thing is that at one time Cher singing a social protest anthem like that actually didn't seem post-modern, or ironic, or anything except perfectly reasonable. Now try to imagine a song like that being on the charts at all,
and covered by, say, Mariah Carey. I can't either.
Did pop music always have that quality, I wonder, or was it something peculiar to the post WWII era? In any event, it is gone now, unless rap and hip hop speak to their audiences that way. Perhaps they do, and the fact that I can't hear it marks me as hopelessly out of touch. Or, maybe all media is niche media now-- that could account for some of my difficulty "hearing" rap. I wish I liked rap, but it just leaves me cold. I can't help but think I'm missing something, but I'm past trying. What upsets me about my inability to connect with it is that I don't want to think that there is an American music that race carves me out of, and I am afraid that this may be what is happening. It is, of course, also possible that I have aged out of hip hop, and if that is what has happened at least I have the consolation of knowing that this is something that has happened for nearly as long as there has been American pop music. Aging out it legitimate: Pat Boone covers of Little Richard songs are not. Where does that leave Vanilla Ice? What does this make The Beastie Boys? Why must I be a teenager in love?
The hell with it-- I'm listening to jazz tonight.
by Geoffrey O'Brien. The latter was recommended by my pal Dave Benders. Over the years he's referred me to quite a few solid reads about music, popular culture and media, often books that feel to both of us like "Hey, they stole my idea!". (Although I'd have to say that Dave is a lot more qualified to write that book than I am.) Sarah Vowell's "Radio On" was one I found on my own, but I think the fact that I responded to it the way I did alerted Dave to my penchant for this sort of thing. I am interested in the notion of pop music as a cultural signifier, a signpost to what is new, and it does seem to me that this is something that has been lost in contemporary pop. I don't know if it no longer has this quality because we are flooded with media, or for some other reason, but it is true, I think, that the idea of "music that matters" is no longer particularly current. (This is why fans of U2 like that band I think-- I suppose U2 is okay, but what the group's fans really like is the notion that the band is important somehow.)
Not long ago I happened upon a recording of Cher singing "For What It's Worth". This impressed me as a fascinating little relic-- she does it straight, it actually sounds pretty good, and the thing is that at one time Cher singing a social protest anthem like that actually didn't seem post-modern, or ironic, or anything except perfectly reasonable. Now try to imagine a song like that being on the charts at all,
and covered by, say, Mariah Carey. I can't either.
Did pop music always have that quality, I wonder, or was it something peculiar to the post WWII era? In any event, it is gone now, unless rap and hip hop speak to their audiences that way. Perhaps they do, and the fact that I can't hear it marks me as hopelessly out of touch. Or, maybe all media is niche media now-- that could account for some of my difficulty "hearing" rap. I wish I liked rap, but it just leaves me cold. I can't help but think I'm missing something, but I'm past trying. What upsets me about my inability to connect with it is that I don't want to think that there is an American music that race carves me out of, and I am afraid that this may be what is happening. It is, of course, also possible that I have aged out of hip hop, and if that is what has happened at least I have the consolation of knowing that this is something that has happened for nearly as long as there has been American pop music. Aging out it legitimate: Pat Boone covers of Little Richard songs are not. Where does that leave Vanilla Ice? What does this make The Beastie Boys? Why must I be a teenager in love?
The hell with it-- I'm listening to jazz tonight.
// posted by Bill @ 8:47 AM 
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