Sunday, June 28, 2009

Really?

Today I saw this Top 25 Downloads list at Amazon.com:

1. Man In The Mirror by Michael Jackson
2. Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas
3. Thriller by Michael Jackson
4. The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson
5. Billie Jean (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
6. Beat It (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
7. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) by Michael Jackson
8. Poker Face by Lady GaGa
9. Smooth Criminal (Radio Edit) by Michael Jackson
10. Black Or White by Michael Jackson
11. Rock With You (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
12. I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas
13. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Eno… by Michael Jackson
14. New Divide by Linkin Park
15. Bad by Michael Jackson
16. We Are The World by U.S.A. For Africa
17. Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' by Michael Jackson
18. Remember The Time by Michael Jackson
19. Dirty Diana by Michael Jackson
20. Human Nature by Michael Jackson
21. Second Chance by Shinedown
22. The Climb by Miley Cyrus
23. Just Dance by Lady GaGa
24. LoveGame by Lady GaGa
25. Off The Wall by Michael Jackson


That 17 of that 25 songs are Michael Jackson songs is no surprise. That "Man in the Mirror" is the most downloaded is. Is it the Jackson song that people liked but never bought? Or is that the song with the most conventionally growthful message, so that buying it was a way of imposing a simple meaning on Jackson's life and art? Or do people simply like that song better I ever imagined?

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Right End

This is the end of my Michael Jackson writing for a while, but I enjoyed the essays on Jackson at Salon.com, particularly this one:

Alex Koppelman, Salon staff writer

"Thriller" was the first album I ever owned. It came out a week before I was born; a friend of my mother's gave it to me when I was still an infant -- she was worried all the classical music my parents were playing would turn me into a nerd. I doubt she ever had any idea what she was really doing for me: For the first 10 years of my life, that album meant the world to me. It still does.

It's awful to say so soon after, but what happened Thursday might have been the best thing for his legacy. Yes, he was about to go back on stage, and his shows had sold out. But so much of the excitement, now, was the perverse pleasure we all take in watching a tightrope walker work without a net. Had he lived, continuing down his downward spiral, the turmoil and scandal might have obscured his music for good. Now that he's gone, we can allow ourselves to think of him the way we've always wanted to. After he was pronounced dead, the obsessive fandom that had become taboo, left to the kooks who were still true-believers, was suddenly alive again. Everyone was listening to Thriller, crowds flocked back to Indiana to say goodbye and people were dancing and singing in front of the Apollo for him.


This morning an intern and I talked about the shows he was scheduled to do, and how unlikely it was that he would have been up for a run of 50 shows, and how neither of us ever imagined that Jackson would live long enough to grow old and withered.

First, We Kill Cable News

Anyone from New Orleans has the sins of CNN's coverage of Hurricane Katrina indelibly seared in their brains, but last night's coverage of Michael Jackson's death on cable news once again underscored what a mediocre idea a 24-hour news channel is (or perhaps what a mediocre thing the 24-hour news channel has become). For over an hour, I watched Keith Olbermann try to fill as a helicopter airlifted Jackson's body to a coroner's van, and as hour rolled into the next hour, he had to stretch a decent observation - the irony of someone who once needed bodyguards now accompanied by three paramedics - until it was as stale as Michael Jackson jokes. He reached for resonances and echoes, but they didn't illuminate Jackson or the process we were watching. The reporter covering the moving of Jackson's body (Really? We needed a reporter on the body transportation beat?) tried to delicately refer to the last decade of Jackson's life, but the awkward combination of his efforts at solemnity and his discomfort with the accusations made toward Jackson made all the guarded language sound even more judgmental and sordid than if he'd have come out and talked about the charges, the documentary, the dangling of the baby, and so on.

I'm surprised that they didn't go for critics to help fill time; after all, they were easily found on facebook shedding more light on Jackson's significance than shots of a helicopter (shot from a helicopter!) buzzing over Los Angeles. But really, the story quickly hit a point where no more live coverage was needed, and critics wouldn't have helped. Sometimes, it's actually valuable to let the story be and return to it when events dictate.

... but my post's title is technically wrong. First we kill E! News. I didn't have the stomach last night to watch it to hear Juliana Rancic talk about "The King of Pop" in faux-somber tones, or Debbie Matenopoulos talk only semi-breezily about "MJ". If anyone saw E!'s coverage and it was less than loathesome, let me know, but the generally chummy, faux-hip, nickname-oriented, tabloid tone of the channel's - ahem - news department has rarely let me down.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

More Word Soup, Please

When I was a teacher, I was once asked to chair a panel at a teacher's conference, and one woman's paper promised to reveal a new way to use music to teach poetry. I introduced her and remembered the lame high school teachers we had who tried to tell us that if we liked rock 'n' roll, we really liked poetry. They then dissected songs the way they took Blake and Tennyson apart, leaving us with the bones of "Richard Cory" and "She's Leaving Home" - two songs that didn't say much to my friends and I, who had tickets to see Rush in our pockets. Of course, the woman's "new" approach was exactly that, only she substituted Creed for Paul Simon and McCartney.

In her semi-academic take on the poetry/lyrics debate, she threw out lines that were repeated, ignored all "yeah"s and "baby"s as simple metric placeholders, and overlooked refrains, which might explain why students today are lousier readers of poetry than we were - they've been taught that some of the words and lines matter and others don't. That teaching led to students who could claim a poem was about one thing by seizing on a few lines, nevermind that other lines confront that interpretation. My students would defend their partial readings with an indignant, "Well, that's what I got out of it."

These recollections were prompted by NPR's interview with Regina Spektor during "Morning Edition" during my drive to work. During it, she said:

"If I could explain every word of this song, then I wouldn't have been very inspired when I wrote it. I would have been more crafty and intellectual," she says. "I would really hate it if I could call up Kafka or Hemingway or Salinger and any question I could throw at them they would have an answer. That's the magic when you read or hear something wonderful — there's no one that has all the answers."

However, that's not to say she doesn't want people to look for deeper meaning behind her songs.

"It's not like I have all the answers," she says.


Where to begin? The premise that if you know what you're talking about, you're being crafty and intellectual? The idea that her songs have meaning, but that some of the words are just stuff? Or, worse, that the words that don't directly address the central thought represent the "art"? Or that it would somehow ruin Kafka, Hemingway and Salinger if she found out that their work was deliberate and thought-through?

Her attitude also seems to reflect a shallow notion of artistic mystery and questions. I don't know if Roberto Bolano had Kerouac in mind when he wrote The Savage Detectives, but I couldn't get the Beats out of my head as he seemed to present a vision of the Beats as they seemed to those around them, something very different from the self-conscious, self-mythologizing perspective of Kerouac. Bolano may not have written that subtext in intentionally, but that doesn't mean those resonances aren't there.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Complete Nonsense

On the drive in, I caught part of ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike in the Morning," which I tend to dislike because Greenberg and Golic pose as wild, nutty guys while holding the most moderate, conventional opinions. This morning they said that history won't look kindly at the career of baseball players' union head Donald Fehr - which may be true - and that the next union head will have to look to be more of a partner with the league and owners. To that I say bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Can anyone recall a change in any union leadership when someone didn't say that? In Fehr's case, Bud Selig and the owners sure weren't worried about steroids when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were refilling stadiums that had been empty since the baseball strike, and they liked the way crowds showed up to boo or cheer Barry Bonds as he chased Hank Aaron's record. Selig and the owners don't seem to feel a need to be more player-friendly or better partners with the players, so whoever takes Fehr's position needs to remember to take care of the players first. That is, after all, the role of the players' union head - no matter what Greenberg, Golic and all the talking heads say.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Complications

The pairing of Steve Albini with Jarvis Cocker is a curious one, and it sort of works to the detriment of Cocker's Further Complications. The album rocks like a very good garage band, but Albini's indifferent attitude toward vocals forces Cocker away from the sly, under-his-breath asides and mannerisms that make him a three-dimensional misanthrope in the house of love. And the big rock context lacks the elegance and grace that makes his thorny wit all the more acute for how easily it nearly fits.

The Road Well Taken

Poor Stuart Murdoch. He set out to write his sort of album for female voices on God Help the Girl, only to discover that Camera Obscura's My Maudlin Career did twee, '60s-oriented Britfolkpop better a month or two sooner.

What's Berlin Up To?

I'm trying to connect to Fisherspooner's Entertainment, but at its best, it's good second generation electropop ("The Best Revenge," "In a Modern World." The robo-beats amuse me, but not enough to put up with the forced or wince-worthy words ("We Are Electric," "Infidels of the World Unite"). When it's satisfied with its pop-ness, I'm with it. When titles such as "Supply & Demand" and overly urgent vocals dominate, the possibility that this might be intended to be meaningful at some level is offputting.

Criticism in Twitterville

Michaelangelo Matos linked to this interesting conversation on music criticism in Twittering times. The piece begins:

One of the unfortunate side effects of the lack of critic culture: people are getting more stratified and separated in their listening habits. If you—if you read Spin or Rolling Stone in ‘96, you’d get an article on Nine Inch Nails, an article on Chemical Brothers, an article on Snoop Dogg—and, you know, the internet doesn’t work that way. If you’re into rap, you go to rap twitters. If you go into metal, you go to metal twitters. You know, bands build audiences for themselves! You just follow the bands you like. You don’t have to—you don’t stumble across this stuff, and that’s a problem! It’s harder to get exposed to things that aren’t in your comfort zone. I have friends that are so deep into indie rock that they don’t know what the fuck Katy Perry is, or Lady Gaga, and these are, like, the most ubiquitous songs in the country!

An interesting, logical observation that a check of anyone's iPod says isn't true. Listeners may read more or follow one genre more than others, but festivals and iTunes libraries say listeners aren't that stratified, and neither are critics. The second half of that, though - critics vs. the mainstream, if I read it correctly - there's something in that, but that's a tension that has likely existed since the dawn of modern music criticism.

... and there's a lot to think about in this post, more than I've excerpted.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Good Company

The news that Rhino will release Bad Company's Swan Song albums digitally makes me happier than I expected. Paul Rodgers has done what could to debase the band's reasonably good name. I remain attached to them for Mick Ralphs' drama-free, perfectly measured power chords. They're not windmilled out, nor contorted or physically blasted out - they simply, suddenly exist full of weight and impact. It's not something that his time in Mott the Hoople revealed, so I take it to be the effect of band chemistry. Whatever - it's a beautiful thing.

Friday, June 12, 2009

One Big Festival

I'm being a little alarmist worrying that the major New Orleans festivals will eventually become one big festival, but it's worth noticing that Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings played Voodoo, Jazz Fest and are scheduled to play Essence Music Festival on the July 4 weekend. Overlap between any two of the festivals is very common, but the announcement today that Widespread Panic will be one of Voodoo's headliners adds a serious Jazz Fest-y jam band vibe to a festival that has rarely had that, even with a Jazz Fest-y stage.

The announced headliners so far - Kiss and Widespread Panic - only further underline the challenge of booking headliners for festivals. Last year's headliners - Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails and R.E.M. - dated back to the '80s and '90s, and now Kiss takes us back to the '70s and Panic, aesthetically, further than that. The consensus among promoters is evidently that there are few artists from the 2000s who can draw festival-sized crowds, which is sad and interesting. There's so much interesting music being made today, but the implication is that it's being made for increasingly subdivided genres, so much so that few recent bands have the necessary mass appeal. It's possible that future nostalgia will change that - was STP really that big that they cut across genres/audiences in their heyday? Really? - but if not, there's something sad in the notion that there are fewer and fewer experiences in our culture that are shared. I'm not quite ready to yearn for the monoculture, but I understand the impulse.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Proximity is Overrated

Stardeath and White Dwarfs - The Birth (WB): The road crews for the Beatles and Stones haven't made any memorable music that I'm aware of. Here, the Flaming Lips' crew keeps the string alive. Pleasant, inconsequential psychedelia.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Convincing Enough

As much as I like many artists who have been put under the "Americana" umbrella, I've never been entirely convinced that Americana is a distinct genre. Whenever I've asked who/what is Americana, people point to Steve Earle, as if one genre-crosser does the job. Dave Alvin - that's two, but Allison Fensterstock seemed to get it more or less right when she decided it was roots music that shared its fans' progressive politics. At the last Americana Music Conference, I saw honky-tonk holdout Dale Watson, blues man Tony Joe White, retro string band Chatham County Line and nouveau Bakersfield country band the Hacienda Brothers. For No Depression, the one-time Bible of Americana, I wrote about Cajun band the Pine Leaf Boys, Amanda Shaw, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and reviewed Irma Thomas. All merit attention and love, but a genre that incorporates all that has some pretty broad defining characteristics.

But I guess they're defining enough. I received this press release just moments ago:

NASHVILLE, June 9, 2009 – The Recording Academy will officially recognize the Americana genre next year when it awards the inaugural Grammy for Best Americana Album. NARAS recently announced the restructuring of several Grammy Award categories, establishing a Best Americana Album award and a corresponding American Roots Music field. Both the new award and category will debut at the 2010 Grammy Awards.

The move further underscores the increasing significance of the Americana music format and brand, accelerating the Americana Music Association’s already substantial momentum as it approaches its 10th Annual Americana Festival and Conference.

“Americana music resonates with a growing legion of listeners,” said Jessie Scott, President of the Americana Music Association Board of Directors. “These are the country’s preeminent artists, who not only pay homage to roots, but truly shape modern music. The Americana community couldn’t be prouder of NARAS’s decision.”


For more information including details on this year's Americana Music Conference and Awards, which take place in Nashville September 16-19, go to AmericanaMusic.org.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Fear and Self-Loathing in Las Vegas

I knew that at some point, my trip to Las Vegas would end up curmudgeonly, but I didn't see the doubt and unhappiness coming. My wife was attending a conference at the Palazzo in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip, and things got weird when I had to eat at the casino. When I was off the strip, I did well, had some great Thai and was entertained by Pan-Asianville. But at one point, I had to fend for myself for dinner in the casino and had the choice of two Mario Batali restaurants, two Emeril restuarants and a number of other restaurants branded by top chefs, all of which required diners to peel off $75 of so before a glass of wine. It felt depressing and somehow defeating when I realized I just couldn't comfortably spend that jack by myself and went to the Palazzo's equivalent of a Shoney's. It was good, but I flashed on tourists who used to come to the Quarter and with good food everywhere, opted for Shoney's. I realize that there is a significant financial difference, but I was aware that there was better food all around me, and I was settling for less. And the cafeteria-like room only made the dining experience worse.

That was the start of a downward spiral as I wondered if I was simply cheap, or if everybody around me really made so much more money than we do that they could live the casino life, buying $7-10 drinks (okay, that I did, but not a lot of them), gambling all night and acting as if the money stash was infinite. It got to a point where I wondered if I was just alienated by subliminal choice, and that the idea that there were ways I'd rather spend my money wasn't simply an excuse to make me feel aesthetically superior yet martyred at the same time.

Fortunately, I snapped out of it. Not to the extent that I ate at one of the branded restaurants, but I recalled the Gang of Four's underappreciated Mall album when I walked the casino floor and saw people dressed up to play penny slots. Obviously, there were also people playing $25-a-hand blackjack, but many brought the look of wealth to hide cheap games they were playing. The possibility that this was the vacation people saved for, and that penny slots were someone's idea of a get-moderately-wealthy-very-very-slowly scheme, or that killing an evening watching slots and video poker while they burned $30 was someone's idea of a good time didn't make me feel better about the world. Watching young people buy into the Vegas marketing also seemed grim and sad, but that might have just been the byproduct of watching the young and good looking living down to their stereotypes.

To be fair, though, I did get one "What happens in Vegas" moment, though, when I got on the elevator with two guys and a woman. She checked out one guy, asked him where he was from, then if he'd be coming back in January. "I'm up for an AVN for Female Performer of the Year," she announced, then got off the elevator at her floor. I shared an elevator with a porn star, and there are shots for that!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Sideshow, Pt. 2

Yesterday I said it was unlikely Mario Batali had been in the kitchen of the restaurant in his name at the Palazzo since it opened. Just to make me look bad, he showed up yesterday for a sustainable food and wine talk in the concourse between the Palazzo and the Venetian, and he hosted a dinner in Carnevino.

A little more on value - what's a better value than free? Not surprisingly, the sidewalks are jammed at sundown for the free shows on the strip - the dancing waters outside the Belaggio (which are synchronized to Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American"!), the volcano show (I overheard) at the Mirage and the "Sirens of TI" pirate ship show at the Treasure Chest. The latter attracts a sidewalk-blocking crowd, one that went away disappointed because the show was cancelled due to high winds.

... and it didn't surprise me a bit that Sam Butera's death was on no one's lips last night on the strip, and when I mentioned it to my wife, nobody who overheard my voice responded.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Sideshow Lives

I'm on vacation and drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas two days ago - cacti, mountains and meth labs for as far as the eye could see - and I find Vegas reassuring in a way. I feared that any trace of Old Vegas was dead, and there are certainly signs of its demise. When my wife and I emerged from the underground parking garage at the Palazzo, we were poured out suitcases and all on casino floor. After checking in, we had to roll our bags back across the floor to the elevators - so much for any hint of the casino as even a semi-classy place.

But the same logic that drove sideshows and exploitation movies still drives Vegas - sell the sizzle, not the steak. There's still the promise of a sexy time ("100's of beautiful, naked women," says one sign painted on a cinder-block bunker just off the Strip) even if what you get are aerobic instructors with boob jobs, and there's the promise of the celebrity meal, though Wolfgang Puck and Mario Batali have not likely been in their restaurants' kitchens in the last two years. And gambling is nothing if not the promise that the next card or spin could make you a winner.

The interesting twist is the way modern Las Vegas exploits the modern American obsession - value. Rooms are littered with two for one coupons, and everything is overpriced so that if a show or meal is comped, it seems like a bigger deal than it is. The cheapest Blue Man Group ticket is $71, so a comped pair is worth at least $140 - never mind that a guy is selling tickets for 40 percent off the day of the show, suggesting something closer to their true worth. Signs offer penny slots and $3 craps, so you could get rich without risking much at all. And if you lose, you got hours of excitement without spending much. That's good value!

So far, I'm not raging nearly as much as I expected to here. Then again, I've spent little time in the casino and hotel, so I haven't had the sort of prolonged exposure that will bring out my inner curmudgeon.