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Post by steveternal on Oct 18, 2007 13:40:27 GMT -5
This is in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, and I keep thinking about it. It's a short-ish (about 4 pages) article written by pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones suggesting that current indie rock lacks any trace of African or African-American musical influence, which have been such a huge part in rock since its inception. He talks about how this happened, why it may be bad, and what the effects could be.
How did rhythm come to be discounted in an art form that was born as a celebration of rhythm’s possibilities? Where is the impulse to reach out to an audience—to entertain? I can imagine James Brown writing dull material. I can even imagine the Meters wearing out their fans by playing a little too long. But I can’t imagine any of these musicians retreating inward and settling for the lassitude and monotony that so many indie acts seem to confuse with authenticity and significance.
I figured there'd be folks around here who would have an opinion, and I'd love to hear 'em.
Post by spookymonster on Oct 18, 2007 14:23:44 GMT -5
Dunno... I see plenty of R&B-influenced music being produced on the scene. Black Angels, Black Keys, Wilco, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Datarock, and Martin, Medeski and Wood just off the top of my iPod. It's even more apparent if you just broaden indie to include anything other than mainstream/top 40 - John Butler Trio, North Mississippi All-Stars, Clutch, and so on.
I think part of the problem is in his perception: if you have the 'white sound', then you're indie, but if you have the 'black sound', you're not indie. So... how exactly does one 'blacken' indie music, if it's very inclusion results in your being marked 'non-indie'? Bit of a catch-22 there...
Post by stallion pt. 2 on Oct 18, 2007 15:07:07 GMT -5
Spook has a good point. I'd also like to add that the author also fails to take into account the influences and style of the music he's describing as "Indie." I think he's confusing his terms, using color to make up for a lack of vocabulary about the music. I don't hear Arcade Fire, Radiohead or the Flaming Lips as "white." I hear their styles as coming from a symphonic tradition, almost operatic in form and execution. It is "white" only in that it stems from the European compositional tradition (re: classical music) than the blues/RnB tradition from whence rock origionally came. I guess it would be more accurate to call it 3rd stream rock (like Dave Brubeck/Gershwin/Bernstein's fusion of classical and jazz was called 3rd stream jazz, not "white" jazz). Indie is a catch-all that should describe the nature of release and distribution of the music, not how it sounds. And of course, there is plenty of funky, low-end heavy rock music out there that is more in the "black" tradition. But when discussing how music sounds, race should be irrelivent.
John: We don't even understand our own music Spider: It doesn't, does it matter whether we understand it? At least it'll give us . . . strength John: I know but maybe we could get into it more if we understood it
Post by steveternal on Oct 18, 2007 15:50:43 GMT -5
Wow, I'm surprised by these responses-- to be honest, I'm most surprised that the issue of indie rock being void of "black" influences is even being debated. Yes, indie rock is a very loosely defined category that can easily be shaped, trimmed, contradicted or even disposed of. And yes there are plenty of hip rock bands nowadays that have clear black influences. But it seems to me that there are plenty-- and what supports Frere-Jones' article is that there are proportionately many more now than ever before in rock history-- that don't. The Arcade Fire example he uses to start off the article really struck me, because I'd felt the same thing when listening to them. It seems as though there are countless scruffy, DIY-type bands appearing that have no qualms about playing a standard four-on-the-floor beat on the drums and plucking the root of each chord on every quarter note on the bass. It drastically reduces the amount of room left in the song for imagination or variation, to say nothing of "soul". So I agree that this is happening, but I would wonder how bad or dangerous this might be. After all I still love Arcade Fire and plenty of other bands who I would say do this. To me the question is, what is the purpose of influences, and when can one deliberately reject them in order to further their music?
Now a couple of specific points: Spook, I think instead of asking why indie rock happens to be white, consider that being white has always just been part of its unspoken profile. Indie rock has always been white. So the question more is, how did this almost purely white style of music originate out of a racially mixed style? Stallion, the reason Gershwin's style was not called "white jazz" was because, as you yourself said, it was a mix of white (classical) and black (jazz) styles, so it wasn't purely white influences. Yet what you're saying about the rock examples you gave supports the idea that they are purely white, because they've taken the white influence from rock and combined it with the white influence of western classical (which I agree and think is a good point). Aquarium, are you basing your opinion on other stuff of his you've read? Because you should know that he has praised Arcade Fire, Wilco, Spoon and other bands which he is now discussing. If there are other factors, I'm curious about that.
Post by spookymonster on Oct 19, 2007 1:23:19 GMT -5
steveternal said:
Spook, I think instead of asking why indie rock happens to be white, consider that being white has always just been part of its unspoken profile. Indie rock has always been white. So the question more is, how did this almost purely white style of music originate out of a racially mixed style?
Answering that would require me to agree with his assertion that indie rock has 'evolved' into an 'almost purely white style of music', which I don't. What I see is someone grouping a set of artists that support his argument and saying, 'because these are, the rest must be so too'. I just find that logic shaky; just because I can name a similar group of R&B-influenced indie artists wouldn't mean indie rock was dominated by black music, would it?
Honestly, the music is what it is, and like most pop music genres, it grows and changes over time, even forking off when necessary. Saying a genre needs to change to survive is paradox: if it were to change, it wouldn't be indie rock anymore (it'd be art rock, or noise rock, or whatever-the-next-great-label-buzzword-is rock ).
Post by steveternal on Oct 19, 2007 7:27:19 GMT -5
^^^I agree with you, I really do, but I think there is a small but important point to be made, which is that, while he is indeed talking about "indie rock" on the whole, what he really seems to be talking about is the new and current trend in indie rock. So it's a notion popular with bands that are popular with the indie rock audience, but like all trends it's not true for all indie rock bands. It just happens to be surprisingly pervasive (for the sake of argument, let's put a strict percentage, like 40% of indie rock bands have done away with "black" influences, even though we all know a statement like that is impossible to prove), moreso than ever before. I think you're right, that he should concede and distinguish that there are popular indie rock bands that still have these influences that are traditional to rock n roll, that not ALL indie rock has had this white makeover, but that doesn't change the fact that it has become such a surprising and popular trend that it begs the questions why and how. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as though you agree there are indie rock bands that are doing this, right?
Spooky, as usual, has his thumb right on it. If you look to split things into such groupings, for whatever reasons, you will succeed in pouring bands into such groupings. It just seems to be a moot task. Make up a category, and pour in examples. It's kind of akin to looking at Nostadamus as he predicted the past. To what avail ?
It is easy to break a band like Arcade Fire down into quarter notes. To say it is virtually "without soul" is to write about the music rather than to feel it. To say it owes nothing to blues roots is ridiculous and self serving(as a music critic-not you steve).
To look to apply such labels is to keep us in the past. "There's a new band in town, but you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine."
Yeah, to be honest, Steveternal, I'm really not a fan of SFJ in general. There was some debate on this article over on another board I post on and I have more or less made up my mind that he's just looking to shake things up with his "radical opinions!!!" again. I so rarely agree with anything he has to say that it's hard for me to find his arguments to be genuine. That said, I'm not going to get into it with a Musicologist over the details here.
Post by spookymonster on Oct 19, 2007 9:58:19 GMT -5
steveternal said:
...but that doesn't change the fact that it has become such a surprising and popular trend that it begs the questions why and how.
Fair enough. I'd say the trend towards 'whiteness' (for lack of a better term) could be traced back to '80s new wave and (by further extension) late 70s punk rock. Punk was the "white man's blues" - white kids talking about how society was bringing them down, basically. Musical talent, technique and tradition took a backseat to message and presentation. New wave was (IMHO) the natural 'response' to punk: thematically similar, yet building up the musical element from the minimalist 'floor' punk had created. The crucial difference? Synthesizers. New wave artists looking for something different were quickly drawn to it. It's unique sound made it stand out from the typical guitar-oriented styles. As the technology advanced, the geekier artists (Thomas Dolby, Art of Noise, Laurie Anderson, etc.) pushed the sound further and further away from the traditional 'blues chord progression' sound, bits and pieces of it eventually finding their way down to the more mainstream acts.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as though you agree there are indie rock bands that are doing this, right?
Absolutely. I just take issue with the author's opinion that it is necessarily a dominating trend, and that somehow indie rock needs to be 'saved' from it. I mean, what exactly is the purpose of 'saving' a genre of music? To keep a fresh supply of sound-alike tunes to people with limited musical tastes, like some coma patient's IV drip? What's so wrong with music fans and music artists evolving in parallel?
Post by steveternal on Oct 19, 2007 11:21:31 GMT -5
Re: punk music, it's interesting you mention that because on the New Yorker website there is a podcast interview with Frere-Jones talking in more depth about this theory of his, and he touches on that same idea, that punk music was the first instance of white artists throwing out black influences. I'd highly recommend y'all listening to it, regardless of where you come down on his thesis: www.newyorker.com/online/2007/10/22/071022on_audio_frerejones
I'm glad that we've come to agree on pretty much everything, but I still think you're reading too much into the article if you think he believes that indie rock is self-destructing and needs to be saved. He never makes any claim that it needs to be saved, and rarely does he explicitly say that this trend is a bad thing-- the quote I used in my first post is easily the most pointed part of the whole article. Again, the dude likes indie rock, and likes most of the specific bands that he discusses in the article (although be forewarned, in the podcast he dumps on The Decemberists). It's more a lament of the loss of a perceived spark in this music.
Yes, music fans and artists should always evolve in parallel. That's a beautiful way to put it, and anyone who disagrees surely is a "doosh". But I definitely do not think that is what he is suggesting.
Post by spookymonster on Oct 19, 2007 11:28:34 GMT -5
steveternal said:
Re: punk music, it's interesting you mention that because on the New Yorker website there is a podcast interview with Frere-Jones talking in more depth about this theory of his, and he touches on that same idea...
I take it all back. The man is obviously a genius. Great minds think alike.
Post by stallion pt. 2 on Oct 19, 2007 13:06:41 GMT -5
^^^^^ A pretty good rebuttal. Pondering why artists more influenced by folk, country and classical arent "black" enough is like wondering why afro-beat bands arent "white" enough. But I think the rebuttal's claims that it is more a matter of class than race, while more valid than SFJ's argument, speaks more about how music is marketed than how it is made or sounds. Tastemakers and executives will always be looking for the next big profitable thing, and if last years' hit was on the funky side, maybe this year we need something more country, or more folk, or less "black." It will always be changing because no one wants to miss the next big trend.
And I can't belive I missed the biggest hole in his thesis, namly the White Stripes as one of the hottest "indie" rock bands who owes everything to the blues and isn't afraid to show it, until reading that rebuttal.
John: We don't even understand our own music Spider: It doesn't, does it matter whether we understand it? At least it'll give us . . . strength John: I know but maybe we could get into it more if we understood it
Post by spookymonster on Oct 19, 2007 14:04:03 GMT -5
Just because both articles throw it around like a 5th grade vocabulary study word:
Miscegenation (Latin miscere “to mix” + genus “kind”): the mixing of different ethnicities or races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations.
John: We don't even understand our own music Spider: It doesn't, does it matter whether we understand it? At least it'll give us . . . strength John: I know but maybe we could get into it more if we understood it
This guy is consistantly wrong about all sorts of things in his political columns. I don't know why he thinks he knows something about indie rock. edit. I actually like Van Zandt's idea of teaching American history through music. But this spate of talk about Indie rock and a priviliged class just sounds like old guys who liked classic rock bitching because they don't like the new stuff. Whatever.
John: We don't even understand our own music Spider: It doesn't, does it matter whether we understand it? At least it'll give us . . . strength John: I know but maybe we could get into it more if we understood it
