It's the WORD World Cup (disclaimer: not really a world cup)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Hullo 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 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.

Comments

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Okay, I may change my mind about some of these, but this is my initital run-through. Way too white male-dominated, but I'm just being honest. Wasn't clear whether we should avoid choices that others had already nominated; if so, I can ammend. Also should mention that maybe the question should be posted at rockcritics.com and other places as well, to get more varied responses? Or maybe that's already happening?

Anyway, here goes.

FOUR MUSIC WRITERS INTELLIGENT OUTSIDERS SHOULD READ
-- Frank Kogan (Real Punks Don't Wear Black)
-- Simon Frith (Sound Effects: Youth Leisure And The Politics Of Rock'n'Roll) -- already nominated by Frank
-- Michael Freedberg (various Boston Phoenix pieces, late '70s and through the '80s)

(Still haggling about my fourth nomination here. Considering Rob Sheffield, Michaelangelo Matos, Greg Tate, other folks; don't really want to narrow it down to one, so I won't.)

[koganbot]

Should have had Freedberg on my extended list (also liked John Leland's singles column in late '80s Spin), and some other dance writers as well, but the last thing Mark needs is an extended list. Metal Mike Saunders Britney review c. 2000 may be my favorite thing you ever ran at the Voice.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Most important Freedberg pieces (though good luck finding them!) might be "Doin' The Loco-motion: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir" (Boston Phoenix, June 3, 1980) and "Struttin' With Some Belly Laughs" (Soho News, February ?? 1981, which as far as I know was one of the first pieces ever written about hip-hop.).

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i could just email MF for copies of these pieces -- he's on LJ sometimes isn't he?

[koganbot]

I could photocopy "Struttin' With Some Belly Laughs" for you. It's really kind of a dance take on hip-hop, which is totally legitimate (hip-hop has disco as well as funk antecedents, but many try to pretend that it only had the latter)(not that "funk" isn't dance, too).

I recommend Freedberg's darkwave piece that Chuck ran in late '02:

Wearing the Melancholy: This Dungeon's for Hire, Even If We're Just Dancing in the Darkwave

Also, somewhere back in the era of techno-Meltzer emails, '99-'03, I typed up and emailed you guys (you and Luc and Chuck and SR et al.) a letter of Michael's on the subject of God and dance (that he'd written me in approximately '91).

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

I could Xerox together a Freedberg packet for you, including "Doin' The Locomotion" and some great Phoenix pieces from the '80s. Would just need to know when to mail it. (That's easier than scanning for me.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

A few more I'm considering for my fourth slot here, if anybody else feels a hankering to nominate them: Nelson George, Tom Smucker, Tom Carson, R.J. Smith. (And might well have considered Dave Q, George Smith, Don Allred, and/or Gerard Cosloy -- for his '80s Conflict reviews and Homestead/Matador press releases and various liner notes and indie-related sports blogs since -- for the "unanthologized" category if I had more slots to fill. Though I'm still not really sure how to define "the pool of writers we generally get to see in a 'best of music writing'"; depends which "best of music writing" you're talking about, I'd think.)