I am familiar with only a small amount of Merritt's work, though in theory I am interested in his project, which is to reach back past rock 'n' roll to Cole Porter and Tin Pan Alley. And I myself have even made comments not too far away from "Rock should have consisted of only the Paul McCartney branch, not the Lennon/Jagger/Richards one," as Merritt said in an old interview quoted here, which I will come back to.
Let's agree with Cook that racial quotas should not be extended to people's iPods and that Merritt's aversion to black music doesn't make him a racist. Still, not liking "Hey Ya" is a pretty serious error of judgment; not to have ever heard any Justin Timberlake is to be pretty cloistered; and dismissing all rap after Run DMC is, well, super-ultra-mega-cloistered. Assuming that these things don't come from racist attitudes, what would lead Merritt to such sweeping judgments?
Simon Reynolds, whose interview contained the "McCartney branch" comment, summarizes Merritt's thinking this way:
Being fervently anti-rockist entails, for Merritt, resisting rock’s long-running privileging of/emulation of black music: there's a history of projection towards blackness-as-authentic that's tangled up with white heterosexist "identifications" with/distortions of black masculinity (or at least theatricalized representations thereof, from blues to rap), and this entire apparatus is something that Merritt, as a gay man, has an interest in challenging (hence the disparaging of the raw-and-rasping, swagger-and-snarl Lennon/Jagger/Richards lineage in favour of the melodious/dulcet-toned/arrangement-oriented/decorative McCartney one). Indeed authenticity itself is something he wants to discredit...[and it] just so happens that almost the entirety of black popular music is bound up with these very ideas of authenticity.That's why Merritt also says that "white blues" is "fundamentally racist," and why the entire direction of popular music since the 50s feels wrong to him. The problem with this reasoning is that by avoiding any and all white participation in black popular music it still buys into the blackness-as-authentic mythos, only in the opposite direction. By denying white people access to black music, the blues becomes just another Heart of Darkness--unknowable and untouchable by whites, cut off (segregated?) from the rest of culture.
Merritt's taste in music and his interests as a musician are his own. It's when he tries to telescope those tastes into broader conclusions about popular culture that he runs into trouble.
12 comments:
I am at present going through a Magnetic Fields phase. It's something I missed out on when they were apparently at their most conspicuous within the what's-hip music scene (this is unsurprising, as I'm usually fingering for a pulse somewhere around the left shoulder blade).
Knowing very little about Merritt aside from how clever and human are many of his songs, and how deliciously and unapologetically faggy are some of his lyrics, I found the Slate article very satisfying. I like Merritt more after reading it.
Here's why: In my own history of personal statement-making (specifically in writing), I try to choose my words very carefully. I do this in the hope that someone will actually read what I write (just as carefully), and respond after having considered such things as word choice, context, tone and delivery, in addition to those more substantive pieces of the puzzle. However, one of my overwhelming complaints with modern media is that people are so eager to formulate a response, so eager to react that they latch too quickly onto a single thread of an argument, ignoring its nuance or the conditions with which the argument is delivered. Either that, or they throw the bathwater out with the newborn, mistake a qualified statement for a general one, etc.
It seems to me that Merritt's detractors (I have not read their pieces) have not really read-- or listened-- to what Merritt has actually said. Indeed, it sounds as though they aren't really interested.
Which brings me to a corollary: It's no surprise to me that in today's media and political climate, people spend more of their efforts dismissing or extinguishing characters than they do ideas.
After all, modernday American Dem v. Rep politics, and all its myriad offshoots, is so mired in ad hominem, pseudo-moralistic posturing and character-bashing that it's occasionally difficult for me to remember whether there are any ideas being discussed.
Quite frankly, I'm not very well adjusted to our culture. I don't watch TV or listen to the radio, and what pieces of pop culture do trickle down through various of my friends (whom I use deliberately as filters for such things) I seldom follow afterward. That said, while I may be out of touch, my suspicion is that I'm not the only one who's sick of such insubstantive, soundbite arguments and half-baked dialogue.
That I've seen this sort of "cutting the issue," ad hominem strategy in more and more pseudo-erudite venues (such as Harper's and the New Yorker, recently, and in college classrooms a few years back) has made me shy away from such public discourse in general. Am I the only one who (A) has noticed this; or (B) is bothered?
...Or further, is it really not new at all? Hmm...
First, in response to questions posed by little gordie, (A) we definitely live in a sound-bite culture in which many media outlets are competing for our attention--I agree that this is not very conducive to substantive debate, and (B) it bothers me as well (even if I am guilty of the occasional ad hominem attack myself).
That being said, regardless of the full text and/or backstory of what Merritt is saying, it is being presented here as "white blues" is "fundamentally racist". Further, I see a question regarding racism as a factor in musical tastes, and racial identifications of various genres of music. So, that's what I'm responding to, apologies if I've misread your post, Rob.
I'm not a big fan of labelling certain music as "black" or "white" based on the majority of performers of that type of music. Are the Beastie Boys and Eminem not rap artists because they are white, and rap is "black" music? I think they have proven themselves to be excellent rap artists.
Elvis Presley benefitted TREMENDOUSLY from racism in the U.S. However, it was not his racism, it was that of the general public, and he still did what he did better than most others. I.e., if he would've sounded like Pat Boone, then he would've just been Pat Boone. Do I think it sucks that Chuck Berry wasn't called "the King of rock and roll" because he was black and Elvis was white? Absolutely. Do I feel guilty because I like early Elvis music? Absolutely not.
"Rock and roll" was derived from blues, but also from country, folk, gospel, and even jazz. True, most blues artists were/are black. Most country artists were/are white. To what extent do I still need to care about this?
Between approximately 1954/5 and 1966/7, "rock and roll" evolved to a point where it could be argued that, to a great extent at least, it was "white" music. (Or, at the very least, it was no longer strictly "black" music.) Along came Jimi Hendrix, a black man, who played "white" music better than anyone else. (He also played amazing blues music.) Was it his "blackness" that won out? Was his race relevant? Better question: should all the white guitarists who incorporated elements of Hendrix's guitar-playing into their own now be called racists? I say no.
I tend to rely on the saying, "There's no accounting for taste." If someone says they don't like a certain type of music, I don't assume racial motivation. If someone refuses to even listen to something ever, even when an obvious opportunity presents itself, I might get suspicious. However, short of someone referring to "jungle music" (or worse), I don't jump to racism as the motivating factor. Perhaps I'm naive.
Lastly, as far as choosing McCartney over Lennon/Jagger/Richards...that would be like choosing Paul Simon and Elton John over Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Ain't happening, as far as this cowboy is concerned.
Haahnster, I want to double-underline your point about rock music's integrated roots. Elvis "sang black" because he grew up poor in Memphis, Tennessee: blues and country and gospel were his music. Same thing with Eminem & the Detroit rap scene. Rock'n'roll and rap are mass-oriented popular forms, and there never was a time when either of them was "all black."
So why do you suppose all those kids buy Pat Boone sleeves for their Little Richard records? Why did the Beastie Boys get played on alternative radio throughout the 90s, but De La Soul never did? Music's racial tags aren't inborn, they're a social function. The reason Elvis was megapopular in the 50s is the same reason Eminem was megapopular in the early 00s: he provided white listeners with a "way in" to a racially coded genre.
Merritt seems to see this process as unfair or colonial, and he argues that it never should have happened. I think he misunderstands the way art and culture work: styles are constantly jumbled up, broken apart and recombined, and influence never moves in just one direction.
There is a lot more to talk about around the McCartney/Lennon (or Simon/Dylan) split, too, but probably it can wait...
Gordie, I agree that Hopper and Frere-Jones are guilty of using Merritt as an example of broader attitudes in a way that's not completely fair to him as an individual. But conversely, John Cook doesn't disprove their larger arguments about race, music, "rockism" etc. just by sticking up Stephin Merritt. But yeah, definitely this debate is not well served by personal attacks on some eccentric songwriter.
More broadly, though, and especially in the political arena, the concept "character" is used as both a descriptor of a person's inherent qualities and a predictor of that person's future actions. It may be a fictional creation, or at least an imperfect science, but it is an important part of how we decide who to trust--and not just as voters, either; as people. Ideally, the discourse would show the ways thatt the abstract and the concrete combine to form "character," though obviously it's more common that the concepts are seen as free-floating and unrelated.
Rob, I agree on the "black"/"white" music point. There is no way that any music form is 100% either way. I am reminded of that "Big Ocean Mob IV-1-5" disc I sent you, with the song "Poetry is black". The song is great, but its point is ridiculous (ironically, or not). Just as it would be completely ridiculous to claim "physics is white" or "calculus is Asian", so it is ridiculous to claim "poetry is black". Why then would one claim "blues is black" or "polka is white" (OK, maybe that's a bad example, but you get the point, obviously).
As for doe-eyed love songs vs. socio-political commentary through music, to each his own, I suppose. (Yes, that was a baiting comment...ad hominem Haahnster strikes again!!!)
Incidentally, Haahnster, I'm on your side in the Lennon/McCartney debate.
...And after reading a bit more of Merritt's ideas, I'm sad to say I think this notion of "white blues" as "racist" is dumb in precisely the same way that calling Merritt a racist because he isn't into a specific (black-culture-inspired) musical lineage is dumb.
So, IMHO, both sides are equally guilty of what I earlier decried: unnecessary essentialization for the purpose of character assasination and supposed potency of statement.
Why can't people be satisfied saying, "Well, that's just not my thing; I'm doing something different"?
[Because there's no money in it.]
Everyone just needs to watch the Chappelle Show and they will understand all of this. The skit where Chappelle has John Mayer play the guitar and watch the white business people dance in circles..and then play in a barbershop and no one moves...until the Roots drummer steps in and the whole place is jumpin. Ok understand?
Eminem will always be called, by the media, white rapper. ALWAYS. As much as he raps how he is not that. He is whatever you say he is.
I think Merritt meant to provoke with his statements, because why else point out that your records "could be listened to by the Ku Klux Klan!" ...But even if he was playing provocateur, he was still talking about ideas. So were his accusers (well, Jessica Hopper less so...)...see, it's a debate about principles!
"Black music" is a coherent term that describes a set of attributes and a musical ancestry that is black, exactly as polka's heritage is white (super-white, in fact!). But we know from a million examples that some of the best art comes from cross-pollination and mongrelization of musical traditions... We have not just Elvis & Eminem as examples but also Hendrix, Prince, Outkast, the Beastie Boys, Outkast, Gnarls Barkley, the Bee Gees, the Rolling Stones, Beck, Jamie Lidell, the Roots, and on and on and on...artists who complicate the music's racial tags by refusing to be bound by them.
I mean Christ, these days even indie rock is integrated! Bloc Party, TV on the Radio, 90 Day Men...
Did I say Outkast twice? Well they are an important example...
I agree, Rob. And frankly, I'd like to see the idea of pure bred music go the way of the "racial purity" notion.
That's not to say I think music should not reflect on its origins, or be used as a medium for such comment, but rather that this silly claim-staking is (a) not very realistic, (b) not very productive, and (c) not even very interesting.
Earlier I was referring to the absurdity of Merritt's statement that white integration of black music was "inherently racist." And I think that that idea (if you like) is aimed at assassinating (general and specific) characters within a perceived genre. After all, racism is an accusation of a character (or group), is it not? Is it possible to define an idea/movement/scene/ideology as "racist" in the abstract, without attributing it?
It's possible we're heading into a semantic no-man's-land.
I can't imagine how such alienating statement helps Merritt's cause or music, though I still think he's sweet.
Many white people study and go on field research when they want to appropriate another culture. The Beasty Boys and Eminem aren't rappers but immitations of rappers. They've clothed themselves tightly in the in whiteness, male privilege and capitalism as well as exploiting other cultures. We all know where rap came from. A white person has no feeling behind the words it's just pure immitation. They get to go to the ghettos and leave because we've all been conditioned that if the white supremacist has a smile on his/her face they must be nice right? They must be trying to help better our community and preserve our future the same as us but no. Eminems lyrics you can hear his disgust for black folks, it's not just the lyrics he wrote when he was a teenager. Listen to Encore. Really listen. But see of course I'm talking to whites who think that fucking your cat and dog or horse and sheep is normal. We live in a country where white supremacists daily are exonerated for violating the human rights of people of color. So, no these are not rappers there wrappers. Exploiting the culture and the media is helping them. When you attach black rappers whatever they may be doing and then you give this white supremacist image of the new wrapper, and don't tell the general public the ashkenazim are threatening these black rappers with taking away their income and bad publicity if they don't step n fetch for them or fulfill their jungle fever homosexual fantasy. It amazes me how americans don't think, don't do research and don't ask questions but are more than willing to just take what they recieve and then regurgitate it to their audience.
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