[contextly_auto_sidebar id="yBD4c5vb8BM1hc18kDjMHHcBiA2hrCio"] ON the occasion of his new memoir, Going Into the City, which chronicles the roots of a rock critic and in some ways an entire generation of American pop-culture journalists, I spoke to Christgau about childhood, politics, fellow scribe Ellen Willis, pop, and the lost promise of the '60s. He's the author of immortal line, in his … [Read more...]
Archives for 2015
Does Quality Exist? Does it Matter?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wQDbiK53WLrcRyDIHLNO7bs9fTuwmnMY"] THE novelist Rick Moody tracked me down recently and asked me to go back and forth with him over the issue of aesthetic quality. He -- as an emissary of the literary blog The Rumpus -- was especially interested in the notion of art that was "born to be bad." We chewed on this issue for a while -- connecting the argument of my … [Read more...]
Six Questions: Where Do We Go Fom Here?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="1whRNQEaMtG6Y3rKjMLHRzTEwdTzdym6"] THE American Scholar magazine recently asked me to lay out some of the questions I was left with upon completing my book, Culture Crash. I was glad they asked me for questions rather than answers; the plight of the arts, humanism, the middle class, and art for art's sake seem so complex and impacted that it's a lot harder to solve … [Read more...]
Pop Songs and the Novel: Against Vanguardism
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="a7mJx7Xejr8thGfyDNDHndexoDBA5XUC"] THE writer and critic Nick Hornby, who has a new novel out, wrote this a few years back in discussing the songs of Ben Folds: There is an argument that says pop music, like the novel, has found its ideal form, and in the case of pop music it’s the three- or four-minute verse/chorus/verse song. And if this is the case, then we … [Read more...]
Culture Crash and the 21st C Musician
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="kIKdAj6Xm5kqbZ9uMHw3rRcxIyuEkbsM"] ONE of my favorite discussions of the new world of the arts and culture -- the economic, technological, sociological changes I describe in my book -- comes in this conversation I had with an editor at the new 21st C Musician site. (I've written several pieces for the site on the transformation of classical music.) Considering both … [Read more...]
Lucinda Williams at the Troubadour
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="tIVgpGkX5XqSOOsnIT3mi27r9Oe7n3CC"] I'M rushing out of town -- remember that Powell's Books reading Sunday! -- but want to rave for a moment about the show I caught Wednesday night. It's been a good few weeks for music -- Martha Argerich with LA Phil at Disney Hall, solo-acoustic Lloyd Cole at Largo, Joe Henry with Sam Phillips at Largo, and now this one. I've seen … [Read more...]
Music For the Rich — Only
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="cELFSD2urf59ms0bpah0vxzoSfd8JREJ"] THE Brits have been more comfortable discussion notions of social/ economic class than we are here in this classless paradise. (Was it Rick Santorum who called "middle class" a Marxist term?) In any case, a new report from the British press asks, "is the music industry becoming a hobby for the upper classes?" The article, in I-D, is … [Read more...]
The Future of the Arts
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="oNW8dK0FCdGFSKqGQqeHclNNxOzhoCM1"] OKAY, nobody really knows what's coming. But a pretty good stab comes in a new book by veteran arts manager Michael M. Kaiser (Alvin Ailey, Kennedy Center, etc) , who is both hopeful and brutally honest. His opening section on the building of an arts infrastructure (including an audience) in the postwar U.S. is as clear and succinct … [Read more...]
Fear of Music, Then and Now
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="gK38C6GBzzOfcwaZG1ZznJWnGv9vKRrO"] VIOLENT, authoritarian and fascist regimes often target artists, musicians, and the arts themselves -- this is something we see East and West, ancient and modern. The latest outbreak of what Talking Heads called "Fear of Music" seems to be taking place in the Middle East, where the Islamic State is destroying drums and other musical … [Read more...]
Culture Crash Hits Powell’s Books/Portland
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="W2t6OKKnq183BTYTGPKF3DYBC7zan0Rs"] ONE of my very favorite spots in the Lower 48 is Powell's City of Books on Portland's Burnside. So I'm especially pleased to be reading and ranting from my book Culture Crash on the night of Sunday, March 1. Here is the link to their calendar. Be there or be square. … [Read more...]