Via maura

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2007/10/22/071022crmu_music_frerejones

- I would imagine there'll be lots of blogtalk about this one. It feels to me like he's fighting old battles, or maybe telling old war stories that aren't quite as tightly relevant to now as they should be. But the point about the shift from imitator to fan seems an interesting one.

Meanwhile there's still a couple of hours to vote in the Pop Open.

Comments

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the obvs answer is that culture in the United States has willfully segregated itself, in part thanks to technology. Think about it the other way -- aside from cameos from Chris fucking Martin or stuff Kanye West does, how many black artists are taking cues from white artists? Virtually none, I think it's actually far more common to find white artists now taking from contemporary black music than vice versa. But no one wants to address that for obvious reasons! It's easier to say "shame on whitey" than engage with the way black culture becomes increasingly hermetic. It's a two way street.

Also, I think a LOT of white people are willing to love black music, but are self-conscious about stealing from contemporary black music because they feel that they will be mocked for doing so. And you know what? They are right! Our culture makes a habit of mocking white people who try to "be black."

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

good point about the two-way street, pot80, i hadn't thought of that.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes, you see, now we're getting somewhere, cos that also didn't used to happen.

I think - and I'm only an observer, not remotely involved in US culture in any depth now - that there's been a hardening of identity politics generally and a willingness to mock people stepping, not so much outside their identity but into other identity-driven areas of culture. (Even when - or perhaps especially when - those areas of culture are being established and policed by businesses as much as by individuals)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Bingo @ the "policed by businesses" thing.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Sorry what do you mean by "identity-driven areas of culture"?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

"black culture", "gay culture", "teenage culture", "hispanic culture" - & I can see why these cultures are policed, there's no reason why the Enlightened White Dude should get to magpie everything, but also there's obvious money to be made out of firming up these boundaries.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

Well, he actually says what you say in the second paragraph, and he has an answer to what you say in the first paragraph. Despite the Pavement-bashing (and, uh, backhanded Furnaces-complimenting?) I think he's taking a fairly familiar side here.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

No, it's not as simple as just a two-way street - this may or may not be fair but nothing where one of the sides has been and still is privileged above the other as a matter of course ever is. The onus is not on black artists to acknowledge white music, which is still assumed to be the epicentre of popular culture. The onus isn't really on white artists to do much of anything either except shut up forever. The onus is on the people acting as the gatekeepers and tastemakers of popular culture to stop privileging white musicians and using them as a standard which subcultures have to aspire to.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

No, let's forget the onus stuff. Let's think about how there's little to no cultural exchange either way, and how that doesn't make anything better -- the music, the people, the culture at large. The hermetic culture is suffocating black music too.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Not as far as I can hear! (though from what I can hear, the cultural exchanges being made by "black music" are still going strong - hip-hop and r&b are still interacting with just about every genre out there including, unfortunately, indie rock. a bit more hermeticism is needed on that front)

[pot80.livejournal.com]

I think your attitude here is kinda the problem -- that to make things better, whiteness has to be warped or eliminated, that blackness must be placed on a pedestal. It'd be far better for there to be more of a dialogue, more cross-polination, more tolerance and understanding of different experiences, not just black or white.