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Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Culture Any 224-page jeremiad against the dumbing-down of America serves as its own critique. Albert Ayler, "The Truth is Marching In" Free jazz with an apocalyptically all-conquering sense of irony. DJ/rupture, The Minesweeper Suite When Aaliyah sings "Who should be hurt? Who should be blamed?" she makes justice sound so mercenary -- do resolutions require hurt and blame? Sarah Bryan Miller, "In our democratic age, experts are scorned as elitists. But isn't knowledge a useful thing?" Now this is a State of the Union address -- to those of musical interests -- from the Minister of Argument and Reasoning, the right honorable Michael Daddino, B.A. Possibly the most hapless defense of high culture I've ever seen, which is saying something, since I've never seen a hapless defense of high culture before. I've read ones that were incredibly offensive and I've read ones that were on the side of the angels but I've never seen a hapless one. Whether the product is Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Magnapan speakers, high-end kitchen appliances, full-length recordings of grand opera or real (as opposed to provel-topped) pizza, a little knowledge can be a useful thing. Whether you fancy the product or not, whether or not you reckon that the additional cost is justified, in every aspect of life, from high culture to broad, there is always a choice to be made. And when there's a choice, one can choose quality - or mediocrity. If that makes her an elitist goshdarnit, she's more than happy to be one! Well, good for her. But even if you concede that choosing quality over mediocrity is generally a good idea (sounds reasonable to me), she doesn't give any reason why choosing classical music over hip-hop is any more an urgent + key decision than choosing a high-end blender over an eminently serviceable $120 blender. Smart people used to say classical music was special (was something worth being elitist about) because it spoke to the most noble moral qualities, or resonated with the eidei, or filled the listener with the sense of the sublime, or allowed insight into the joys and sufferings of others. In fact, many still do. In contrast, Miller dispenses with (or is just oblivious to) all that metaphysical folderol when grounding her elitism -- her elitism is based on classical music being pure product. She puts up a brave face and adopts a defiant tone but in fact concedes everything. New York: A Documentary Film, dir. by Ric Burns You hear the word "democratic" a lot in Ric Burns' documentary, and it's used in a very muscular sense. New York is democratic not merely in the way it chooses its rulers, but also out of a commonality of feeling and of fate. Everybody is an immigrant, of a sort, and everyone tries to negotiate through this fact because everybody is trying to better their lot in life and quite a lot of people do. The crimes the documentary details (the Draft riots, Robert "Moloch" Moses) are crimes not merely because it is rich against poor or white against everyone else but because it is New Yorkers against New Yorkers (or even "new York" itself) and hence betrayals against that commonality of feeling. New York Magazine will have none of that liberal-with-a-little-l codswallop. Classic New York is The Power Lunch, The Dandy, The Swanky Bar, The Euro, The Trader, The Trendy Cocktail, The Grande Dame, The "It" Girl. Money and power, yes, but also: The Punk and The Mean Street. The New York worlds that really matter to New York are worlds that only certain people can enter, worlds that demand the mastery of byzantine and arbitrary codes of behavior. Or lots of money. Get a load of how New York subtitles "The Mean Street": "The enduring frisson of the slums." Ooooh, you can just taste the SEX, can't you? This magazine isn't for the New Yorker, it's for the slummer. Cheap holidays in other people's misery is also Classic New York, too (think Five Points think Harlem think South Bronx think Ground Zero) but New York wouldn't dare do an economy-sized essay on The Slummer: the shock of recognition would produce an enduring frisson in the reader alright, one entirely icky. SINGLES: 2002 1. Freelance Hellraiser: "A Stroke of Genius" (n/a) They never had it so good. 2. Osymyso: "Intro-Introspection" (Radar) If, as Tom Ewing says, "'Intro-Inspection' is a dream pop is having about itself," then it's one of those dreams where it's flying, surely. 3. Conway: "Lisa's Got Hives" (n/a) "The only successful marriage of hiphop & rock? (And they weren’t even trying!)" 4. LCD Soundsystem: "Losing My Edge" (DFA) A good comedy record is a gift that keeps on giving. 5. Underworld, "Two Months Off" (Junior Boy's Own) Choked with gold. 6. Dixie Chicks: "Landslide (Sheryl Crow Remix)" (Sony) New wine in rockist skins. 7. Goo Goo Dolls: "Here Is Gone" (Warner Brothers) It rhymes "solution" with "pollution," and is great anyway. 8. Sugababes: "Freak Like Me" (Island) Hardcore remake of Metropolis by the directors of "California Love." 9. Archigram: "Carnaval" (Crydamoure) Summer's next-to-last sound. 10. Lady Dana: "Ladies First" (The Third Movement) If Lightning Bolt were a gurl. 11. Michelle Branch: "All That You Wanted" (Warner) The one where she pretends she's Jesus. 12. Basement Jaxx: "Where's Your Head At?" (XL Recordings) Gary Numan fetishism so precise even the slightly louche drumming from "Cars" is matched. 13. Tweet: "Oops Oh My" (Elektra/Asylum) A tale of mystery and imagination, but naughty. 14. Wiley: "They Should Know" (n/a) Push it real good. 15. Usher: "U Don't Have to Call " (Arista) It's that falling synth line and those strings and who could care what he's singing about? 16. Jennifer Lopez: "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix feat. Ja Rule & Caddillac Tah)" (Sony) Wherein Ja Rule finally lets the goddamned cat out of the bag: "IT! MUST! BETHEAZZZZZZZ..." 17. Space Cowboy: "I Would Die 4 U" (Southern Fried) If Prince was awfully fond of rhinestones. 18. Santana feat. Michelle Branch: "The Game Of Love" (Arista) Has everything to do with Branch's "whhhyyyy..." and nothing to do with the balding pop auteur or the former Sri Chinmoy disciple. 19. Nelly: "Hot in Herre" (Universal) "Yes, maaaaster. It's...it's getting hhhhooot in herrrrre. Sooo...hooot...I waaaant tooo....I waaaant tooo...take off aaaaall myyyy cloooothes...yeeessss..." 20. Tok Tok vs. Soffy O: "Day Of Mine" (Leaded 033/EastWest) People fighting over little things and wasting precious time. 21. Shakedown: "At Night" (Defected) What it's like to live in New York City, circa 1982. 22. Missy Elliot: "Work It" (Elektra/Asylum) The values of Old Skool reinterpreted for a wearier age. 23. Dizzie Rascal: "I Luv U" (n/a) I refuse to believe Dizzie really cares about gettin' some wife material. Unless it's someone else's wife. 24. The Doves: "There Goes The Fear" (Capitol) What it's like to live in New York City, circa 2002. Even if it's really not "about" that. 25. Interpol: Interpol EP (Matador) Every street's a road to hell in old New York. Anglophilia of the year. 26. The Amaranths: "Clean (Demo)" (n/a) Anglophilia of the year, runner up. 27. Nas: "Made You Look" (Sony) "Lawd, he's quick on the trigger/He's a natural born crack-shot/He finds a new target every night/And he sure does practice lots." 28. Clipse: "Grindin' (Selectors Remix)" (Arista) The beginning is like being in a gay bar when everyone's checking out your shoes. 29. Ms. Dynamite: "Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" (Universal International) I've just seen the video and it's kinda disappointing that she doesn't twirl her hair when she hits the chorus, like I imagined. Jumping Jill Flash. 30. The White Stripes: "Fell In Love With A Girl" (V2) ...and the consummation lasted only twenty seconds. 31. Kylie Minogue: "Can't Get you Out of My Head" (Capitol) Don't you just hate these oh-so-literal titles? 32. Audio Bullys: "We Don't Care" (Source) I want this song to sit on my face. 33. Christina Milian: "When You Look at Me" (Universal/Def Soul) As lean as her belly no doubt is. (I actually have no idea what she looks like.) 34. Ms. Jade feat. Timbaland: "Feel The Girl" (Interscope) In a better world, there would be as many "Superstition" rips as there were "Louie Louie" ones. 35. Kaito: "Beautiful Day" (Kompakt) But not too beautiful -- that would ruin the effect. 36. Las Ketchup: "The Ketchup Song" (Sony) In the future, all folk music will sound like this. 37. DJ Lance Lockarm: "Come to Missy" (n/a) I DEMAND A VIDEO RIGHT NOW. 38. Jill Scott: "Slowly Surely (Theo Parrish Remix)" (n/a) Nu-soul lapsing into narcolepsy. 39. No Doubt: "Hella Good" (Interscope) Electroclash without trying. 40. Eminem: "Without Me" (Interscope) Damnit, he's a chore to enjoy. 41. Spoon: "Jonathon Fisk" (12XU) Eat shit and die, Larry Z*r*mb*r. 42. Lo Fidelity Allstars: "Feel What I Feel" (Columbia) British people pretending they're American only end up sounding more British. 43. Trina (feat. Fabolous): How We Do? (Atlantic) The lite-est sound in exoticist hip-hop, hence the best. 44. Jimmy Eat World: The Middle (Dreamworks) "Furthermore, adolescence is one of the worst parts of life..." 45. Calling: "Wherever You Will Go" (RCA) Token constipated-Hetfield-singer entry. 46. Utada Hikaru: "Letters" (EMI Japan) Because "Tokyo Nights" wasn't released as a single. 47. Sticky: "More Weed" (Social Circles) "More Coke" would have been more accurate, but not as catchy. 48. Layo & Bushwacka: "Love Story (Tim Deluxe Remix)" (XL Recordings) An actual Nina Simone comeback would just be too awkward at this point. 49. Röyksopp: "Elpe" (EMI International) The Hampsterdance for smart people. 50. Thomas Bangalter & DJ Falcon: "So Much Love To Give" (Roule) The sequel to the Pornography of Semiotics will be me playing this song in a loop for 24 hours. Bill Morrison, Decasia Do this: start "I Just Wanted To Know" just before you start the sample clip of Decasia. The appropriated hospice-givers monologue from Jeck's piece and Morrison's montage of decayed film together become a kind of a de-continentalized take on Godard's death-of-cinema. (Yeah, I read the NYTM's piece on Morrison, bite me.) Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project "'Wherever the nineteenth century feels itself to be unobserved it grows bold.' Giedon, Bauen in Frankreich, p. 33. In fact this sentence holds good in the general form it has here: the anonymous art of the illustrations in family magazines and children's books, for example, is proof of the point." [F2a, 3] The Clean, "Tally Ho!" Wait a minute...New Zealand had a '60s? Interpol, "PDA" The "we have 200 couches where you can sleep tonight" line sounds like they're describing some fantasy Williamsburgh bar that would exist if the NYC of my dreams and the NYC of fact were a little more closely acquainted with each other. And no, they really don't sound that much like Joy Division. Christopher Hitchens, "Machiavelli in Mesopotamia" "From conversations I have had on this subject in Washington, I would say that the most fascinating and suggestive conclusion is this: After Sept. 11, several conservative policy-makers decided in effect that there were "root causes" behind the murder-attacks. These "root causes" lay in the political slum that the United States has been running in the region, and in the rotten nexus of client-states from Riyadh to Islamabad. Such causes cannot be publicly admitted, nor can they be addressed all at once. But a slum-clearance program is beginning to form in the political mind." The burning question is: will they take the Robert Moses approach to slum-clearing or the Jane Jacobs approach? Who could possibly think it's anything but the former? Hitchens starts from the same arrogant premise that everyone from Bush to Gore Vidal does in their arguments:trust me on this one, I know better than you, I've got an inside track, I've got sources I can't divulge. Trust me. |
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