Comments on: Is Indie Rock Black Enough? Presenting The Sasha Frere-Jones Score

By: roquestrew

roquestrew — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:13:24 +0000

wow I was gonna give Al an 85, but 88 is right, yes

By: Trackback

Trackback — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 02:19:53 +0000

AHHHHH MAHHHH GAWWWW BOOOOOYS! by Molly Lambert Indie Rock and Comedy go together like Pinkabet and Bagoog Monamon. First Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster teamed up with Monk creator Tom Scharpling to create longform call-in improv brilliance on The Best Show on WFMU (more on them later this week).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:01:56 +0000

As entertaining an examination that article was, I'm totally fucking indifferent about how white indie shit is. I only care about whether it's good or not.

By: musicquizking

musicquizking — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:15:54 +0000

Where the white women at?

By: thearcanemodel

thearcanemodel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 04:07:08 +0000

funny. but i think the best response i've seen to this is the dialogue on status ain't hood, one of my favorite blogs, but in this case, not because of tom breihan. [www.villagevoice.com] rob harvilla, get out of my head! he does a very good job of respectfully pointing out the many, many flaws/dangerous comparisions in the article, and the many contradictions with sf/j's own previously stated opinions about some of these bands. (i think we can all agree, though, that isaac brock = totes the eddie vedder of now in terms of spawning painfully bad vocal imitators.)

it's a shame, because lord knows there is a lot of milquetoast crap out there right now, and lord knows that 'indie rock,' to the extent there is a consensus definition of that term, still has some problematic tendencies wrt race and gender. and i generally think that sf/j is a thoughtful writer. this is just not the correct argument to be made.

as another blogger once pertinently stated, "NO HAVE TO LOVE COKE-RAP! CAN! NO HAVE TO!" [gerardvsbear.blogspot.com] (for the record, i own/like the clipse record. but i think the point is well taken.)

By: Lucas Jensen

Lucas Jensen — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:21:19 +0000

@Alfred Soto: 88.

By: Lucas Jensen

Lucas Jensen — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:11:38 +0000

@plasticaisle: When he said, during Merrittgate, that he didn't even know the Magnetic Fields music that well, I kinda lost a little respect for him because he sounded like one of those conservatives who derides a "controversial" movie without ever seeing it. Plus, not liking 69 Love Songs? That's just stupid. There are other musical idioms out there. I say let bands make the music they're going to make. I'm sure he can find stuff influenced by more African-American music out there. And, hell, all my indie rock buddies ever talk about is how they want to make their music "blacker" but they don't know how. People learn to make music in different idioms. There's a guy I know here in the ATH who writes pretty much twee-pop only but listens to nothing but raw garage-y rock stuff. He once told me it's the only thing he knows how to do. It doesn't mean he doesn't like that kind of thing.

I love Sly and the Family Stone more than anything but I'll be goddamned if I know how to write a song like them. I wouldn't even know where to start!

By: thearcanemodel

thearcanemodel — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:57:42 +0000

@musicquizking: SAY WORD SON. yet another irony/contradiction - aside from the token reference to the fiery furnaces, this whole article is an (uncomfortable) sausage party. not that there aren't way, way more male-dominated bands out there, but it doesn't help sf/j's cause. . .whatever it is. and conveniently ignores some of the artists that i suspect might meet sf/j's critera. . .whatever they are.

By: bg5000

bg5000 — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:56:08 +0000

I think SFJ has a good point: Why can't music i don't like sound like music i like? Lord knows i'd be more likely to listen to Grizzly Bear if they sounded more like Curtis Mayfield.

By: King of Pants

King of Pants — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 02:45:39 +0000

I refuse to believe that someone who licked Spoon's boots could actually criticize anyone for liking "white music."

Echoing everyone who wrote that it reads like a bad blog entry. I suppose part of being in the creative underclass means you don't get a New Yorker salary when you write a terrible entry.

(And I'm still trying to figure out what Wilco has to do with his thesis. If he's trying to say that Wilco is white music, well, sure, but the digression is just bizarrely written.)

By: Alfred Soto

Alfred Soto — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:43:57 +0000

God, I’m dying to know how I’d rate on the SFJ scale.

By: plasticaisle

plasticaisle — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:24:39 +0000

@Cam/ron:
Totally agree nearly 100% with what you write. I would also say that rock critics should also have broader taste than SFJ. If you are going to be a pop music critic, at least leave your issues and broad biases at the door. He so clearly doesn't like music based in folk and/or European styles and seems annoyed that artists would actually have the gall to be influenced or inspired by them (the whole ridiculous Merritt debacle being the best example of this). As if listening to Anne Briggs or the Clientele was somehow the same as listening to Prussian Blue.

Not sure why is it a bad thing that SOME indie rock is moving away from tradition blues structures. So he doesn't like it. Big deal. He seems to imply that there's an undercurrent of racial tension and/or awareness informing what tastes people have. I just don't buy it. If anything, most people I know have broader taste than they did 10-20 years ago. His is a simplistic argument that I don't think holds much weight. It does, however, make for good dialogue. In that regard, SFJ's done his job.

By: MrStarhead

MrStarhead — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:11:16 +0000

Who’s whiter: REM circa Monster, or Belle and Sebastian?

By: qyntellspitbull

qyntellspitbull — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:42:47 +0000

A couple years back I went to a real (i.e. not backpacker) hiphop show with Sasha Frere-Jones (along with some other friends who actually knew him), and I can say that I have never seen one man look more like an undercover drug narc trying to act hip than him. White, black, whatever, all I know was that I was embarrassed to be seen standing next to him. It was totally like “white step-dad’s first rap concert.”

By: Airsank

Airsank — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:10:32 +0000

Last time I saw Dan Deacon I counted exactly one other black person in the audience besides myself. I give it to him that it was one diverse than the last time I saw Do Make Say Think.

By: Cam/ron

Cam/ron — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:49:28 +0000

@therichgirlsareweeping:

Yeah I was going to say that."Miscegenation" has been used as a derogatory word (namely by Southern white nationalists) for decades. SFJ might as well dropped "mongrelization" in his article.

By: the rich girls are weeping

the rich girls are weeping — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:37:07 +0000

Apropos of something, SFJ's continued use of the word miscegenation makes me truly ill. Come on, is it really necessary to use a term so loaded with negative historical and cultural baggage? Believe me, it's not on par with "reclaiming" fag or something -- it's intentionally button-pushy and sophomoric.

@relaxing: If that's the case, he didn't need to spend 1/3 of the article bashing the Arcade Fire, one of whose members is of Hatiain descent. Tacky.

My biggest problem with the piece in question is that it reads like bad blogging, something that was rotting on SFJ's hard drive for months, possibly abandoned -- and OH NOES! he needed to meet a deadline and had no other content ready. Sometimes I think I'm really more dismayed that this passed muster with the editors at the New Yorker. Then again, the same people let Merritt-gate through too.

Then again, people, this is the man who's trying to convince us that Vampire Weekend's "Upper West Side soweto" (one of the most offensive New York City band since oh ... O'Death) is something to be lauded. WHATEVS.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:50:50 +0000

...and really, isn't The New Yorker just the PERFECT forum for a discourse on the disappointing lack of African American influence in today's indie music?

I mean, its demographic is like so totally diverse.

cough.

gag.

By: Cam/ron

Cam/ron — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:46:46 +0000

The SFJ piece wasn’t a sequel to last year’s legendary “Merrittgate” blowup, but he still dug another hole for himself to fall into. He was mainly decrying the bland, formulaic, and conservative nature of many indie rock bands and I agree with him on that part. I also respect his attempt at being provocative (i.e. “Has Indie Rock Lost Its Soul?” OMG, Indie is SOULESS! Now, that sells magazines).
Overall, he brought up an interesting topic that ultimately went nowhere. He kept focusing on the alleged lack of rhythm in indie rock, while failing to address how indie bands instead emphansize harmony, timbre and melody – all of which are not exclusively “white” traits (just listen to jazz, gospel and soul). Also, contrary to his argument, I believe that identity politics, not “political correctness” were what hindered rock’s miscegenation. I agree that SFJ has given a lose-lose situation for indie. It reminds me of the game that critics play when they accuse Caucasian artists of adopting black influences of committing “appropriation” or theft, and then when Caucascian artists keep their hands to themselves and develop their own sound, they are accused of committing “whiteness” or worse, “white supremacy.”

By: relaxing

relaxing — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:26:17 +0000

I mean, where's the outcry since Radiohead never followed up on the Afro-American spiritual handclaps and talking blues of Hail to the Thief?