NewYorker : SFJ - How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul

[Matthew_S]

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

Your thoughts?

[Chris L]

No time for this guy's racket, and I don't even like the Arcade Fire.  I guess SFJ calling Stephen Merritt a racist for liking "Zippadee-do-dah" didn't pan out,* so he's moving on to the next name on the pasty hit list.

*Actually, I think some other dunderhead flipped out about the zippadeedodah thing but I remember SFJ hopping on board. 

[Laurie]

That Zippedy-doo-dah brouhaha was ridiculous.

[John Junk]

This is an intriguing premise for an article (weirdly, I was having a similar realization about my beloved Pavement the other day--I've been listening to the new M.I.A. a lot and it got me thinking about how Nirvana/indie rock got big after hip hop had already begun to topple the white hair-metal paradigm.  And how with the advent of indie rock, white kids that had abandoned metal for rap, came back to rock and rarely returned to music made by non-whites.  No that this is quanifiable or even completely "true" but it feels that way).  Anyway, seems like any possible punches have been prematurely pulled.  I can't tell if he's actually saying anything is bad or good at all.  I also don't know why he has to launch into the 3 millionth explanation of how the Rolling Stones imitated black music.  Does anyone who would read an article entitled "How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul" not know this already?

[John Junk]

That Zippedy-doo-dah brouhaha was ridiculous.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Merritt's 69 Race Songs, and I don't care who know it!

[Susannah]

This isn't really anything new...in the first few pages of Simon Reynolds's "Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1981" he discusses how so many of the bands of the period (Wire, Gang of Four, etc.) play "angular" music that's more or less devoid of R&B and soul elements.

The only question is--is this a problem? You like what you like, and you dislike what you dislike.  Deal with it!  SFJ needs to get over himself a little bit.

[John Junk]

The weird thing to me is he seems to infer some kind of ethical shortcoming in indie rock that it no longer involves the rhythms and "space" of African/Latino (*hyphen* American --???) music, but he never actually outright says it.  Probably because his actual position is itself so problematic and speaks to a kind of "family of man" Enlightenment position that is totally out of fashion ---Also, he himself acknowledges that this phenomenon is a result of a splintering and kind of self-segregation that occured after black artists started getting equal and fair footing with white artists.  At any rate, I don't know why he won't just call out The Arcade Fire for just being over-wrought and didactic.  This sort of middle-of-the-road arena-indie is the current thing that everyone who writes mainstream rock journalism is supposed to adore, maybe SFJ is actually having an "Emperor's New Clothes" moment?  Cause there's a hell of a lot of other things going on besides people trying to ape the E-Street band.  I see where he's going, but I feel like he's holding too much back.  He probably got a lot of shit from the New Yorker about calling Meritt a "rockist cracker".

[Sploops]

Labeling music as white or black is the true racism.  It's just music. That said, "Jimmy Page [is] the greatest thief of American black music who ever walked the earth."

[chrisfoll577]

i think it's funny how jones fails to mention the white stripes or the black lips. they are both relatively important rock bands that are awash in so-called 'black influence'. 

i think this issue has more to do with the fact that a lot of the white artists who are major influences on indie rock today like david byrne, joe strummer, and lou reed are analogous to the black artists who influenced them.  it's just a matter of generations and time.  great artists of yesterday were following the greats who came before them who happened to be black. rock musicians today are doing the same thing with a pool of canonical artists that just happens to have more white artists.

it's true that today's 'indie rock' like soupjam and the shins is relatively soft-serve, but i'd like to live in a world where it's not blamed on influence by race but rather by its merit.  i refuse to let 'not enough black influence' to be part of the criteria that determine whether i enjoy an album or not. 

oh yes, i'm going to be that guy who wonders aloud what the writer thinks about tv on the radio.

[Omar]

Nem Hooters for hipsters.

[Emily]

"Why would anyone attend an Arcade Fire performance (or one by any other TOO-WHITE!!! indie rock band mentioned here) and decide that “exposing” their lack of “soul” would make a pointed magazine article?"

b/c they played in Washington Heights..? just think how different his article would have been if he saw them play the Judson Memorial Church..

A Weaker Oath of Faith:
How indie rock lost its soul.

[Denim Gremlin]

hey man, we have to listen him. He was in a funk band, that makes him like almost black.

[KickTheBobo]

I read the first few paragraphs of that article, then it occurred to me that I don't give two shits about the Arcade Fire or music journalism.

enough with the fucking navel gazing.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I'm about halfway with KTB (I do sort of like to read music journalism), but here's a well-written takedown from Slate.

[jane]

Carl Wilson is the biggest over-analyzing rock-writing poseur bore...and of course, here's Carl Wilson critiquing another critic - so typical.  It all gets so tangled and nonsensical, doesn't it? gets away from the music. What's his racket?  His blog is ridiculous.  It's all some bloodless mental exercise with much beard stroking but no real passion for the music http://www.zoilus.com/documents//2006/000867.php
and he gives John Zorn a pat on the back for winning that McArthur thingie.  How Dare He?!!  Naked City - blech
By the way, sorry, Jasongrote, I didn't get around to reading the whole article.