View from the other side

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

(re-posted from byebyepride, apols if you see this twice!)

Interview with Sasha Frere-Jones on the New Yorker site. Interesting to see what an outsider makes of the British pop scene at the moment, but I'm not sure he's got it all right -- what do you reckon? The bum notes for me were struck with the supposed British love for the Mavericks (really?); the suggestion that British bands dress better than Americans (really?); and overlooking the small fact that the Rachel Stevens album flunked out (don't believe everything Mr PJ tells you!).

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think he overstates the popularity of grime, to say the least, it stalled 2/3 years ago now (tho I don't doubt there's lots of good stuff coming out each month, but there's always been lots of good stuff coming out of UK hip-hop every month).

He seems generally quite positive about the UK scene, which isn't something I see that often (outside the McNicholas party line anyway).

Best summing up of US attitude to late 70s UK punk ever:

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

"This bad thing happened and I have a theory as to why, and also we are from England because you can hear my weird accent and I just talked about takeaway curry and you’ve haven’t the foggiest."

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

hehe, the mavericks...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

What an odd article! It's interesting as an outside perspective but is not very accurate as a guide to what's big here. For example:

England’s native-born style of rapping, grime, has not enjoyed much success here - or here!
Country and reggaetón—genres rooted in North American and South American music—don’t do anything there - reggaeton does nothing as a genre but 'Gasolina' was top 5!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well, he does say that white Americans probably received "Gasolina" as a novelty hit.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Yes but most other reggaeton does nothing at all over here. Still, his point about the size and buying power of the Hispanic market over there is a good one - probably explains relatively low hip-hop sales over here as well, of albums in particular.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I still have no idea how 'Gasolina' was a hit over here. I am so cynical that I don't believe "it was completely and totally awesome!" as a valid reason any more.

[cis.livejournal.com]

Do you think the interviewing guy slipped in that Mavericks claim as a joke and SFJ just let it slide?

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Maybe the Mavericks thing is based on THEIR ONE SONG's endurance on mainstream radio, karaoke, that weird line-dancing trend here in the early 00s...hmm, not enough to explain it really.

I mean they are clearly more popular in the States than in the UK. Maybe he was thinking of someone else?

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Maybe he meant the Scissor Sisters. I always get them confused with the Mavericks.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

maybe he means the automatics -- i heard a song by them about an elephant coming over the hill (or something) -- it was ok but i don't want to hear it again

[koganbot]

Maybe you have to take Frere-Jones like Simon Reynolds: he'll make whatever ridicuulous generalization seems to feel good at the moment, then you have to keep reading to figure out what might really be on his mind - which means if this q&a had been six times as long he might have gotten somewhere.

Anyway, since I don't know the Brit scene, what ring false for me in particular aren't the claims about Britain but the claims about America. We like our Brits happy like the Beatles? Um, what about Rolling Stones, Animals, Zeppelin, Sabbath. (And the Beatles weren't 100% all happy all the time anyway.) We do like our darkness but only when it's personal like goth, not social? Well, even granting that goth is more personal than social (which I wouldn't), what about hip-hop, what about gangsta, what about crunk, what about screw? And if we generally want our Brits happy, why do we reject Eurofroth? He's right that we do, and I wish we didn't, but my guess is just that Richard X and crew aren't strong enough in the r&b, and the somewhat r&b-leaning Sugababes aren't r&b enough either. I don't know if I'd call the Spice Girls more r&b than the Sugababes, but they were somewhat r&b, more so than Annie or Kylie. Also, in the past America has produced fizz and froth of its own - disco, freestyle - which Europop drew on in the first place.

Also, seems to me that Tunstall and Dido and Tashbed do quite well here, are doing better than the Toris and Fionas and Alanises and Sheryls, at the moment (which may bode well for Marit).

[koganbot]

Also, "big pretty voices" doesn't really encompass what's going on with Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey. And I can't see how a move from Britney and Backstreet Boys to Pink and Avril is "simply a spinoff of the backlash against feminism and any culture perceived as having a kind of gay sensibility that isn’t campy and schticky, and thus safe."

But generalizations are hard, so I don't knock him for trying. And I also didn't read the article that this interview spun off from, so he might deal with some of the subtleties in ways that don't come across in the q&a.

[abby-mcdonald.livejournal.com]

"This is simply a spinoff of the backlash against feminism and any culture perceived as having a kind of gay sensibility that isn’t campy and schticky, and thus safe. "

This bit I just can't comprehend. The end of the Choiron era was surely more to do with demographics shifting to angstier nu-metal (at the time) etc than anything like this! At the very least, saying 'simply' shuts down a whole line of interesting debate and kinda undermines his viewpoint for me.