The second half of Jason Gross’ Best Music Scribing Awards has been posted, with Edwyn Collins’ look back at his debilitating stroke and Justin Ouellette’s recap of the reasons behind the shutdown of his playlist-sharing site Muxtape among the top pieces of the year. And hey, I even get called out for not liking one of Gross’ silver-medal picks, a top-to-bottom awful “women in rock” piece on MSNBC.com that was pegged to last year’s Grammys having all female-fronted nominees in its Best New Artist category. I thought I made my reasons for disliking these pieces in general pretty clear during my first attempt to slog through the thing, but I’ll happily restate those general objections, as well as a few notes on why the piece in question should be particularly offensive to anyone with two X chromosomes and a functional brain, after the jump.
Here’s Gross’ blurb on the piece:
Isn’t it great that the latest crop of new-comers is mostly women? The Beatles and Elvis once set the pace for pop stardom, but now it’s the girls who rule. Too bad that many of them now follow the same road to excess that their male counterparts once travelled as part of the template, too… But why does Idolator need to pick on this story? Granted that women in rock stories are a cliché by now, but that doesn’t mean there there’s no longer some wisdom to gather from it from time to time.
Well, first off, I like Gross but I think the sentence “Isn’t it great that the latest crop of newcomers is mostly women?” is a little rich, and an assertion that can’t really be backed up by, oh, any of the year-end critics’ polls that scorched the earth last month. (Bon Iver’s album being about a girl doesn’t count.) And then there’s the hackery in the piece itself:
• “When it comes to this year’s crop of Grammy Awards newbies, it looks like there may just be some truth to the playground taunt ‘Girls Rule, Boys Drool.’” That was the lede. Of the story. For real. Editors?
• It uses the term “girl power” unironically, and without any mention of the Spice Girls.
• “Few people blink an eye when a girl plays sports or chooses a career in law.” Yes, the WNBA is definitely held in the same esteem as its male-dominated counterpart. And how about that Lingerie Football League!
• Using the Grammys’ Best New Artist nominees as a bellwether for any overarching musical trend, which this story does, is a dicey prospect at best, lazy journalism (oh, hi there!) at worst.
• “Years ago, the tabloids would trumpet lurid stories about the excesses of the male musicians in the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith. Now its female artists like Winehouse whose unrestrained behavior gets chronicled. No one said equality would be easy.” Note how there’s no mention of the grossly pervasive misogyny in today’s much larger tabloid culture, and how the coverage of Winehouse now is 24/7 invasive, shrill, and at times seemingly rooting on her addiction-related demise. I guess that’s because equality isn’t easy!
There’s so much more, but to sum up: give me a fucking break. There is no “wisdom” to gather from this collection of cliches that tries to tie women’s purchasing power to the 360 deal that Paramore and Atlantic signed and that also tries to say with a straight face “Where videos were once mostly focused on the female form, they’ve now become a female forum—at least in the pop world.” (I guess I missed the demise of the video hottie a year ago!) Saying that there is does a disservice to people who want to actually talk honestly about gender and music in a way that’s both accessible to people beyond the walls of freshman-year women’s-studies seminars and not jaw-droppingly condescending.
Super Scribing [PopMatters]
The year in bad ledes:
“Once praised for its clear, crisp audio quality but panned for its susceptibility to scratches and smudges, the compact disc passed away in 2007 after a quick but painful illness. It was 25 years old… The final cause of death has not been determined, but friends and fans blamed digital-download sites such as iTunes and illegal file-sharing among rich kids.”
“Would it be strange to preface any review with the words “in my opinion”, or is that implicit in the concept of a review?”
“Once upon a time, before the panicked society-wide attempt to expel contingency from American life, existence was organized, or left sufficiently unorganized, for the refreshments of serendipity.”
“First Gordon Brown and Mervyn King, the Bank of England’s governor, admitted that Britain was on the verge of recession. Then food sales were reported to have seen their biggest fall for 20 years. Last night came final and irrevocable proof that the country is entering tough economic times, unseen since the 80s: AC/DC have returned to the top of the album charts for the first time in 28 years.”
And who could forget this HILARIOUS!!!!! “contrarian” entry to the list:
“Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 5, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois) also known by the stage name R. Kelly, is a pedophiliac, urophiliac, child pornographer, and a dick. Every once in a while, he also sings R&B. There exists a real possibility that R. Kelly cannot achieve an erection without first relieving himself on a junior high-schooler, and cannot seem to sustain said chubby without recording the event on digital video.”
@dabug: I bet R Kelly can get erections other ways. And sustain them, too.
Just a guess, though.
“Too bad that many of them now follow the same road to excess that their male counterparts once travelled as part of the template, too.”
What does this even mean? That women were expected to not overindulge in drugs and sex and attention when they are thrust in the fame culture? That boys are just more likely to travel on the road to excess becaue “boys will be boys?” Even admitting that men are usually dirtier, ruder, or “whatever” than women, I think its bizarre to assume that excess behavior is not the result, at least in part, of the lifestyle fame provides. Is it sexist, or reverse-sexism, or something else? I have no clue.
“Too bad that many of them now follow the same road to excess that their male counterparts once travelled as part of the template, too…”
But what does that have to do with the fact that they’re women? Would Amy Winehouse’s antics be less annoying if she were a guy?
In any case, brava, Maura.
Men rock on Mars, Women rock on Venus. Two different animals.
@drinkypuss: And, uh, wait: Etta James? Billie Holiday? Janis Joplin? Courtney Love? Yeah, sure, the “road to excess” is a completely new concept for women musicians.
@televisionarie: “Would Amy Winehouse’s antics be less annoying if she were a guy?” Luckily we have a control specimen in her case: Pete Doherty. I can say that Amy Winehouse would be more annoying if she were a guy.
@janine: very true!
Only a dude could love that article.
@Nicolars: only a dude that wants to think that he’s somehow more evolved or sensitive to ‘the woman’s plight’ (because that’s what he’d call it) could love that article.
the media seems to love stories about women in _____ lately. probably because it makes it LOOK like they’re being all-inclusive and radical while in reality they’re just finding something different (and maybe even controversial! yay page views!) for their favorite male byliner to write about.
Jeez, I usually like this feature, but it was pretty awful this year, both the justification for the picks and (more disappointingly) the picks themselves.
Excellent response Maura.
I started out as a writer at a female rock magazine so it’s pretty obvious what’s condescending (like that MSNBC story) and what isn’t.
I get why MSNBC would run such a story (the Grammy noms confirm something that they would like to be true - even if it really isn’t) but I don’t get why Gross would single this out for praise and get defensive about your thoughtful (and really irrefutable) critique.
@Nicolars: No, only a “nice guy” could love it.
I really, really don’t get Gross’ schema of quality. At all. Most of the articles included in the ‘best’ listst contain mediocre-to-sub par writing and subject matter across the board. Confused!
(Also, his introduction to the lists is like, the most TL:DR thing EVER!!! Zzzz.)
@bg5000: Yeah, I could have stated it better, because I mean a certain sort of dude that thinks he’s being progressive but is actually pretty patronizing. The “nice guy” label covers it pretty well.
Didn’t RS do this exact story six years ago? Except it had Britney Spears and Shakira on the cover?