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poptimistsHullo poptimists! For a project I am working on which I shall reveal soon(ish), I would like your wise suggestions in four categories:
viz
A: music writers all should read (two parts)
B: music writing all should read (two parts)
C: zone of exchange that all should learn from
D: music-related film or documentary all should see
Eventually there will be polls and everything!
The four sections above will entail SIX tranches of nomination. (Tranche is a fancy word for slice: as in "combination boo and hoo, my tranche of cake is smaller than![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katstevens's -- this crime shall not stand ect ect")
1: First, imagine you were inducting a reasonably intelligent outsider, of natural curiosity and openness, into the world of strong, useful, insightful or inspirational writing about music: which FOUR writers would you point them to? (Note: it can be any kind of music AT ALL...)
To start us off, I am going to name nine writers not to bother naming: they get a bye into the poll. DON'T WORRY OR BRIDLE: If you hate them, this is your chance to vote against them! I just want to get a slightly wider pool of potential entrants, really. The nine not to name are: Richard Meltzer, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Jon savage, Paul Morley, Ian Penman, Richard Cook, Simon Reynolds. ALSO: Don't name me. I will be all over any project I am involved with. Known and active Poptimists (apart from me) you can of course name, though you're all kind of a given just by turning up.
2: Now imagine the pool of writers we generally get to see in a "best of music writing". Which FOUR writers would you like to see added to it that currently don't get in? (This can be based on a much smaller body of work I think...) Which writers do you think are overlooked or poorly understood? Which writers have an approach -- perhaps mainly directed at some "non-popular" music, or indeed some NON-music -- which you think would be valuable if others adopted it?
re 1&2: Please append to any writers nominated an exemplary work --book, interview, review, sleevenote, whatever, long or short, typical or atypical.
3: Name SIX books about music that everyone should read. It can be about ANY kind of music. But it can't be by any of the folk you nominated in 1 or 2 (so yes, you may have to do some juggling to get the results you favour...). If six such books do not yet exist, please say so.
4: Now name FOUR pieces that AREN'T books -- can be reviews, blog posts, comments -- that everyone should read (they can be collected in books; they just can't be books). Again: not by any of the folk you named in 1-3.
5: Name THREE zones of debate or discussion that were really hoppin. Thus for example: the Zigzag gossip column 1977-79; the comments threads on the War Against Silence in 2001; the reviews pages of the east Village Eye in 1967... They have to be accessible -- so eg not pub discussions on that amazing night or so-and-so's tutorials when x was in her class; they can be the whole of a magazine across a slice of time; or a website; or whatever you want that fits the bill. This is a question about chemistry of voices, voices that haven't perhaps been so strong or interesting when divorced from their co-squabblees.
6: Name SIX films or documentaries about music that everyone should see: ; non-fiction; fiction; biopic -- whatever. What matters is the question of how they deal with music itself: how they make it the subject, or backdrop, or whatever they do.
viz
A: music writers all should read (two parts)
B: music writing all should read (two parts)
C: zone of exchange that all should learn from
D: music-related film or documentary all should see
Eventually there will be polls and everything!
The four sections above will entail SIX tranches of nomination. (Tranche is a fancy word for slice: as in "combination boo and hoo, my tranche of cake is smaller than
katstevens's -- this crime shall not stand ect ect")1: First, imagine you were inducting a reasonably intelligent outsider, of natural curiosity and openness, into the world of strong, useful, insightful or inspirational writing about music: which FOUR writers would you point them to? (Note: it can be any kind of music AT ALL...)
To start us off, I am going to name nine writers not to bother naming: they get a bye into the poll. DON'T WORRY OR BRIDLE: If you hate them, this is your chance to vote against them! I just want to get a slightly wider pool of potential entrants, really. The nine not to name are: Richard Meltzer, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Jon savage, Paul Morley, Ian Penman, Richard Cook, Simon Reynolds. ALSO: Don't name me. I will be all over any project I am involved with. Known and active Poptimists (apart from me) you can of course name, though you're all kind of a given just by turning up.
2: Now imagine the pool of writers we generally get to see in a "best of music writing". Which FOUR writers would you like to see added to it that currently don't get in? (This can be based on a much smaller body of work I think...) Which writers do you think are overlooked or poorly understood? Which writers have an approach -- perhaps mainly directed at some "non-popular" music, or indeed some NON-music -- which you think would be valuable if others adopted it?
re 1&2: Please append to any writers nominated an exemplary work --book, interview, review, sleevenote, whatever, long or short, typical or atypical.
3: Name SIX books about music that everyone should read. It can be about ANY kind of music. But it can't be by any of the folk you nominated in 1 or 2 (so yes, you may have to do some juggling to get the results you favour...). If six such books do not yet exist, please say so.
4: Now name FOUR pieces that AREN'T books -- can be reviews, blog posts, comments -- that everyone should read (they can be collected in books; they just can't be books). Again: not by any of the folk you named in 1-3.
5: Name THREE zones of debate or discussion that were really hoppin. Thus for example: the Zigzag gossip column 1977-79; the comments threads on the War Against Silence in 2001; the reviews pages of the east Village Eye in 1967... They have to be accessible -- so eg not pub discussions on that amazing night or so-and-so's tutorials when x was in her class; they can be the whole of a magazine across a slice of time; or a website; or whatever you want that fits the bill. This is a question about chemistry of voices, voices that haven't perhaps been so strong or interesting when divorced from their co-squabblees.
6: Name SIX films or documentaries about music that everyone should see: ; non-fiction; fiction; biopic -- whatever. What matters is the question of how they deal with music itself: how they make it the subject, or backdrop, or whatever they do.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 09:06 am (UTC)The Ego Trip Book of Rap Lists/The Ego Trip Book of Racism
William Shaw: Westsiders (great reportage on aspiring rappers in 1990s LA)
Nick Tosches: Hellfire
The Faber Book of Pop (really useful because it's made up of pieces written at the time)
George Jones w/Tom Carter: I Lived To Tell It All
Colin MacIness: Absolute Beginners
Screen:
Oil City Confidential
24 Hour Party People
Blues Britannia (as good as Soul Britannia was woeful)
Repo Man
Head
The Harder They Come
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 08:54 pm (UTC)1. Four Writers for Intelligent Outsiders
Kyle Gann (Music Downtown)
Gary Giddins (Visions of Jazz: the First Century)
Rob Sheffield ("Bob Dylan" from the latest Rolling Stone Record Guide)
Nick Tosches (The Nick Tosches Reader)
2. Four Not-Often Anthologized Writers
Greg Kot (Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music)
Pauline Kael ("West Side Story" and "Stop Making Sense")
Jimmy Guterman (The Worst, and, The Best Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time) (The Worst was cowritten with Owen O'Donnell)
Jody Rosen ("Vanishing Act: In Search of Eva Tanguay, the First Rock Star" (http://www.slate.com/id/2236658) from Slate)
3. Six Books
Songwriters on Songwriting (Paul Zollo)
Billboard's Hottest Hot 100 Hits (Fred Bronson)
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music (Mark Allan Powell)
The New Beats (S.H. Fernando Jr.)
SPIN Alternative Record Guide (ed. Eric Weisbard)
Tape Op: The Book About Creative Music Recording (ed. Larry Crane)
4. Four Non-Books
Jim Greer's "A Year in the Life of Rock 'n' Roll," (http://books.google.com/books?id=8X17JjiXfYYC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=jim+greer+a+year+in+the+life+of+rock+n+roll&source=bl&ots=iit8VLEimA&sig=qt6zBnRgVTdg4y00RaJvHEcP6_k&hl=en&ei=EHTQS53mJYT78Abfk9WKDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=jim%20greer%20a%20year%20in%20the%20life%20of%20rock%20n%20roll&f=false) 1994 series for SPIN
Randall Roberts's "Smells Like Teen Spirit (http://www.riverfronttimes.com/1999-07-07/news/smells-like-teen-spirit/)," Riverfront Times 1999
Dylan Hicks's "Man in Love: Barbra Streisand, Barry Gibb, and the Autobiographical Criticism of Doug Belknap" (http://archives.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/fiction-humor/fiction/man-love-barbra-streisand-barry-gibb-and-autobiographical-criticism-doug-belknap)
Joshua Clover's "Good Pop, Bad Pop: Massiveness, Materiality, and the Top 40", anthologized in This is Pop", Harvard University Press, 2004.
5. I Can't Think of Any Zones Right Now
6. Movies
Boogie Nights
Don't Look Back
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
Once
Singin' in the Rain
Run Lola Run
Non-LJ Commenters:
Date: 2010-05-12 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 01:42 am (UTC)Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Berlinger and Sinofsky)
Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester)
Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)
Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden)
Nashville (Robert Altman)
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (Francois Girard)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 02:41 am (UTC)1: Four Music Writers
Tom Smucker
Ellen Willis
Dave Marsh
Rob Sheffield
2. Four semi-disenfranchised music writers
Marshall McLuhan (How I'd work him into a book: I'd present his various scattered commentary about rock culture as a collage of quotes)
Rick Johnson
Phil Dellio
Dave Queen
3. Six books
- Geoffrey O'Brien, Jukebox for Sonata
- John Gennari, Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and its Critics
(Detailed history of jazz criticism -- the participants, the arguments, the rivalries, the memes, etc.)
- Chris Heath, Pet Shop Boys: Literally
- The Glenn Gould Reader ed. Tim Page (this is kind of a "maybe" but it's been on my mind lately)
- Ben Watson, Frank Zappa’s Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play
- Guy Peelaert & Nik Cohn, Rock Dreams (I prefer this to Pop From
the Beginning, which doesn't hold up that well for me; it's an
important book, but last time I read it I kept feeling mild irritation at
his various stances. Hard to express how much I loved it 25 years ago, though.)
4. Four pieces
- Greg Tate's Miles Davis opus (a 2-parter, I think?) in his Flyboy in
the Buttermilk comp (originally in Downbeat?)
- Devin McKinney, "Dullblog Book Report: The Beatles' Second Album by Dave
Marsh" (fairly scathing and otm critique of Marsh's extremely disappointing Beatles book)
http://heydullblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/dullblog-book-report.html
- Jane Dark, pretty much any of his recent year-enders (copping out on the
specifics because it'll be too much work to figure out which one in
particular I'd choose... the one with lots of commentary about Britney's
derriere comes to mind)
- various and sundry Marcello Carlin Church of Me posts -- maybe his Spector piece? I also adored something he wrote about "Kung Fu Fighting" on a 1974 blog, but I don't think it's still online
5: Three hoppin' zones
nothing to add to what's been said, I don't think
6: Six movies
- The Virgin Suicides (fave movie, any genre, possibly)
- Who's That Knockin' At My Door (not as great as Mean Streets, but musically at least, pretty close)
- Boogie Nights
- No Direction Home
- Wild Palms
- A Hard Day's Night (or a made-for-TV doc called It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, about Sgt. Pepper, notable mostly because it doesn't shirk from and totally seems to get the impact and import of drugs)
- s woods
no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 11:02 am (UTC)Fear not, it is still here:
http://hemingwoid.blogspot.com/2005/02/1974-douglas.html
no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 06:27 am (UTC)1. Four writers to introduce:
Alex Ross
Nitsuh Abebe
Tom Ewing
Gary Giddins
2. Four writers to anthologize:
Pass. I don't have a good sense of who gets into anthologies.
3. Six books about music:
Stomp and Swerve by David Wondrich
The House That George Built by Wilfrid Sheed
The Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert Seldes
Where Dead Voices Gather by Nick Tosches
Any of Ethan Mordden's Broadway-by-the-decade books
Let's Talk About Love by Carl Wilson
4. Four non-books:
Mark Prindle's run through the Beach Boys' discography (http://www.markprindle.com/beachboys.htm)
Marcello Carlin's valiant attempt to avoid talking about Another Black And White Minstrel Show (http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2009/02/george-mitchell-minstrels-another-black.html)
Several exchanges between R. Crumb and R. Fiore in the letters page of the Comics Journal on the worthwhileness of music made since 1952, at some point in the early 90s (I don't have my back issues anymore)
The Pet Shop Boys' "Where The Streets Have No Name"
5. Three zones:
Pass. I haven't been around long enough or done enough homework into scenes that passed me by.
6. Six films:
Swing Time (1936)
Fantasia (1940)
Jazz On A Summer's Day (1960)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
O Brother Where Art Thou (3000)
Treme (2010- )
reposted at FT
Date: 2010-05-13 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 11:00 am (UTC)My additional self-prohibition rule here is that I am not including any writers I personally know since that prevents the exercise from turning into an incestuous love-in.
The second thing to note is that the wise voter doesn’t always go for writers or things which agree with him.
1:
Danny Baker
Max Harrison
Andre Hodeir
Constant Lambert
2:
Simon Barnes
Philip Larkin
David Thomson
David Foster Wallace
3:
Sidney Finkelstein, Jazz: A People’s Music
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Robin Maconie, Other Planets: The Music Of Karlheinz Stockhausen
AB Spellman, Four Lives In The Bebop Business
Nick Tosches, Dino
Valerie Wilmer, As Serious As Your Life
4:
Barney Hoskyns, “Sometimes Pleasure Heads Must Burn - A Manhattan Melodrama (Birthday Party interview),” NME, October 1981
Ian MacDonald and Charles Shaar Murray, reviews of David Bowie’s Low, NME, January 1977
William Mann, “The Beatles revive hope of progress in pop music with their gay new LP (review of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band),” The Times, May 1967
Richard Williams, review of Carla Bley and Paul Haines’ Escalator Over The Hill, Melody Maker, March 1972
5:
Melody Maker 1986-8
Street Life 1973-6
NME 1981-2
6 (given that the “see” proviso rules out Glenn Gould’s Solitude trilogy):
The Band Wagon
The Double Life Of Veronique
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg
New York, New York
Shadows
Warrendale
no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 03:17 pm (UTC)1. Stanley Booth, Dave Hickey, Ishmael Reed
2. John Darnielle (Last Plane to Jakarta)
3. Tuxedo Junction - Gerald Early
It Came From Memphis - Robert Gordon
All The Rage - Ian McLagan
Stagolee Shot Billy - Cecil Brown
Revolution in the Head - Ian MacDonald
Beneath the Underdog - Charles Mingus
(I think all my fave Tosches books have already been named)
4. I'm just going to name four from Ethan Iverson's Do The Math:
Wynton Marsalis interviews, etc: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2008/12/readers-guide.html
Stanley Crouch interview: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2007/02/interview_with_.html
10-part (!) Lester Young Centennial: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2009/08/lester-young-centennial.html
Jazz Records 1973-1990: http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2006/08/ethan_iversons_.html
5. This wasn't so much a zone of debate, but all the recent remembrances and discussions of Alex Chilton. So many great stories were told about him in the days after his death.
6. Dig!
Watch Me Jumpstart/Beautiful Plastic
Candy Mountain
Hail Hail Rock'n'Roll
Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan
Mystery Train
no subject
Date: 2010-05-18 10:51 am (UTC)1. Danny Baker
Rick Johnson
Susan Whitall
Penny Valentine
2. Simon Barnes
Henry Green
Cynthia Heimel
Marc Weisblott
3. Charles Shaar Murray, Crosstown Traffic
Patti Smith, Babel
Alan Betrock, Girl Groups: the Story of a Sound
Phil Dellio and Scott Woods, I Wanna Be Sedated
Ian van Tuyl, Popstrology
Vince Aletti, Disco Files 1973-1978
4. Adam Sobolak, "Total Destruction and then Transcendence (http://www.omnitecturalforum.com/wtc/wtc.html)", Omnitectural Forum
Marcello Carlin, "1982: A Year of Singles Charted (http://cookham.blogspot.com/2003_08_10_archive.html)", The Church of Me, August 2003
The Stud Brothers, "Knickers With Attitude (http://www.lightfromadeadstar.org/Press/Content/Articles%2089-91/1991.10.05%20-%20Melody%20Maker%20-%20Cover%20Story%20-%20Knickers%20with%20Attitude/1991.10.05%20-%20Melody%20Maker%20-%20Knickers%20with%20Attitude%20-%20p2.jpg)", Melody Maker October 1991 (Yes, I'm a Lush fan...but I always read the Stud Brothers w/interest)
J. Kordosh's piece on Krokus - not sure where to find it, but it's stuck in my mind as funny and compelling (Creem, circa 1982 I think)
5. ILX circa 2000-2009; I am particularly fond of this (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=59843) thread
Creem magazine c. 1980-84 letters section (more for its humor and editorial responses, but what a relief compared to RS)
Calvin Harris on Twitter; http://twitter.com/calvinharris - again the humor gets me, but his reactions to music are rarely wrong (of course it helps that I like his musical taste...)
6.
Standing In The Shadows of Motown (a picture of a bassist makes me cry)
Do The Right Thing
Last Night
Trois Couleurs: Bleu
32 Short Films About Glenn Gould
Saturday Night Fever
mine
Date: 2010-05-18 10:54 am (UTC)First, imagine you were inducting a reasonably intelligent outsider, of natural curiosity and openness, into the world of strong, useful, insightful or inspirational writing about music: which FOUR writers would you point them to? (Note: it can be any kind of music AT ALL...)
To start us off, I am going to name nine writers not to bother naming: they get a bye into the poll. DON'T WORRY OR BRIDLE: If you hate them, this is your chance to vote against them! I just want to get a slightly wider pool of potential entrants, really. The nine not to name are: Richard Meltzer, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Jon savage, Paul Morley, Ian Penman, Richard Cook, Simon Reynolds. ALSO: Don't name me. I will be all over any project I am involved with. Known and active Poptimists (apart from me) you can of course name, though you're all kind of a given just by turning up.
a) alex ross the rest is noise
b) kandida crazy horse her village voice work
c) anne powers the peice she did about mars hill for blender
d) sasha fere jones. his writing on stephin merritt
2: Now imagine the pool of writers we generally get to see in a "best of music writing". Which FOUR writers would you like to see added to it that currently don't get in? (This can be based on a much smaller body of work I think...) Which writers do you think are overlooked or poorly understood? Which writers have an approach -- perhaps mainly directed at some "non-popular" music, or indeed some NON-music -- which you think would be valuable if others adopted it?
re 1&2: Please append to any writers nominated an exemplary work --book, interview, review, sleevenote, whatever, long or short, typical or atypical.
a) chuck eddy the accidental history of rock and roll
b) thomas inskeep reviews for stylus
c) charles k wolfe country music goes to war
d) barbara ching hard is what i do best
: Name SIX books about music that everyone should read. It can be about ANY kind of music. But it can't be by any of the folk you nominated in 1 or 2 (so yes, you may have to do some juggling to get the results you favour...). If six such books do not yet exist, please say so.
a) carl wilson's journey to the end of taste
b) chris' willaims rednecks and blue necks
c) gulhanik's two books on elvis
d) cages books on silence
e) escaping the devil by elijah wold
f) the hymnals of eliza snow
: Now name FOUR pieces that AREN'T books -- can be reviews, blog posts, comments -- that everyone should read (they can be collected in books; they just can't be books). Again: not by any of the folk you named in 1-3. \
a) alice randall's intro lectures on country broadcast on line
b) the linear notes of the anthology of american folk music
c) big fish, steve kandell's feature on chesney in blender
d) merce cunningham's dance notation
Name THREE zones of debate or discussion that were really hoppin. Thus for example: the Zigzag gossip column 1977-79; the comments threads on the War Against Silence in 2001; the reviews pages of the east Village Eye in 1967... They have to be accessible -- so eg not pub discussions on that amazing night or so-and-so's tutorials when x was in her class; they can be the whole of a magazine across a slice of time; or a website; or whatever you want that fits the bill. This is a question about chemistry of voices, voices that haven't perhaps been so strong or interesting when divorced from their co-squabblees.
a) what it meant to sell out in the folk scene, in the early 60s
b) the emergence of new patterns of dancing in shaker communities in the 1860s
c) when the brazillan gvnt tried to shut down tropicala
6: Name SIX films or documentaries about music that everyone should see: ; non-fiction; fiction; biopic -- whatever. What matters is the question of how they deal with music itself: how they make it the subject, or backdrop, or whatever they do.
a) cocksuckers blues/gimme shelter
b) paris is burning
c) truth or dare
d) the film from 55 or so of the holiness movement, availble on the web archives
e) David Bowie on Dick Cavett ca 1977
f) the ballroom scene in Visconti's the Leopard.