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=> GENERAL DISCUSSION => Topic started by: Bags on April 16, 2004, 11:50:00 am
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NY Times article link (http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?tntget=2004/04/16/arts/music/16REVE.html&tntemail0)
April 16, 2004
Corporate Culture Clash: Elitism, Popularity and Rock 'n' Roll
By JOHN ROCKWELL
When I was the chief rock critic of The New York Times in the 1970's, I used to say that rock critics were the most extreme elitists I knew. I meant it as a compliment, up to a point. Rock critics, at least two of whom are still among my closest friends, were smart about music, vivid writers, serious thinkers and in touch with the larger world beyond music. The pattern holds true for a lot of the younger writers about pop music, film and even television whom I have encountered since.
Elitism has its dangers, or at least its amusing paradoxes, for a pop-culture critic. Sometimes you can wander so far into the byways of your own peculiar passion â?? small-town indie rock bands or lesser-known Japanese anime directors or obscure 1970's TV sitcoms that never made it past the pilot â?? that you forget that popular culture is, by definition, supposed to be popular. But who defines what is popular? Sales charts, more or less rigged, measuring those artists with access to the giant distribution machine controlled by large corporations, that's who.
Nothing is more contentious among pop-culture critics than the role of corporations in the dissemination of that culture. Terrifyingly evil or merely monstrous seems about the range of the discussion. The subtitle of Lawrence Lessig's new book tells it all: "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity."
For some critics (and philistine editors and publishers and record-company executives and studio bosses) there is no issue here. Pop culture is not necessarily interesting in itself: it's merely an index of the state of the broader social culture, or a way to sell newspapers or CD's or commercials. The trouble with that mercantile mindset is that the popular arena is indeed the source of some of the best art out there, and artistic excellence calls forth smart criticism. Even elitist criticism â?? the kind produced by critics who love popular art but scorn the populace as a bunch of Menckenesque rubes easily manipulated by commercial interests.
A disdain for corporations is not new. They have traditionally been regarded with suspicion by leftist intellectuals, a subset that includes most pop-culture critics, academic and journalistic. Theodor Adorno, that dour German intellectual whose centennial his admirers recently celebrated, complained bitterly about what he called "the culture industry." The theory was that anything promoted heavily could become popular, which is transparently false.
Lovers of folkie protest music in the 1930's despised commercial entertainment, and the residue from that prejudice led to their bitterness when Bob Dylan "went electric" by switching to amplified instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. For them, rock 'n' roll epitomized triviality as business, so that Mr. Dylan, previously regarded (and so billed, by himself) as Woody Guthrie's successor, had defiantly thumbed his nose at all those who had made his career.
The booers and hissers at Newport might have realized that it was Mr. Dylan who made Mr. Dylan's career, not them, and in choosing to broaden his artistic palette into rock 'n' roll he was making more genuine folk music than the earnest strummers of acoustic guitars.
To get his music out to a mass audience, however, Mr. Dylan needed corporations who dealt on a mass level. Looking back, we can see the 1960's as a kind of golden bubble in the relationship between big business and artists. You could really believe, back then, that corporations, like American society itself, were being transformed by youthful idealism. Certainly a lot of good music was distributed by corporate record labels and their enlightened leaders. A new wave of young film directors seemed poised to revolutionize Hollywood, and a curious mixture of socially conscious and brightly amusing television shows defined the medium in its first two decades.
As it happened, no matter what their fashionable trappings, corporate executives did not deep down mutate into bearded, bead-wearing hippies. Greed proceeded apace, as did the mergers that Mr. Lessig protests. Big corporations got even bigger. Today the chairman of the entertainment division at ABC is under fire, not because he had an excessive aspiration for quality but because the reality shows he championed, like "Are You Hot?" and "All American Girl," have failed. Donald Trump rules the airwaves, or (to de-hype him) has scored a healthy success, with "The Apprentice." Sic transit the gloria of American popular culture.
R.I.P.? Not quite yet. The faith of those pop-culture critics who got their start in the 60's and believed that artists could reach the public through corporate channels was not totally naïve; there's life in the corporate/artistic nexus. But it remains a constant series of small battles, involving more or less intelligent, more or less sympathetic individuals, not grandiose leftist theories of the evils of capitalism or neocon theories of its inherent moral superiority.
Good CD's and movies and television shows still do get made, along with the inevitable avalanche of vulgarity. Somehow a few musicians and directors and producers manage to fight their way through layers of corporate bureaucracy and mendacity and produce outstanding work that gets distributed to the broader public by the very corporations it's so easy to excoriate.
Elitist pop-culture critics must, in the end, be mindful of what large numbers of people actually see and read and listen to. Because the underlying mythology of pop culture is still the idea that the approval of large numbers of people validates that culture and the society that produces it. If something is truly loved by millions of people, it has touched those people, has tapped into some stream of universality that indicates a life force attenuated in more elitist art.
A recent study reports that audiences watching a movie will register similar brain-wave patterns. Pessimists might see this as proof of pop culture as brain control. Optimists would regard it as a key to artistic universality.
No single work of art can appeal to everyone. But when a movie like "Titanic" is seen all over the world, it suggests that its director, James Cameron, has reached down to artistic bedrock. Or when people throughout the United States, watching at home on their isolated television screens, are riveted by the final episode of "Sex and the City," that helps bind us together.
This country's great gift to world culture has been its popular arts. Partly because such art offers this kind of bonding experience â?? corporately distributed popular culture as intimations of community â?? and partly because the art at its best is so good, on the strictest elitist criteria.
So critics (a term, in this age of the Internet, that means most anyone passionately interested in the arts) have to tread carefully, trying to balance their own taste with a recognition of popular taste and an appreciation of the role that corporations can play in forging communal bonds. It's not always easy to sort out the strands. But that very complexity is one of the things, besides the art itself, that makes loving it so enlivening.
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Man, this great article in the New York Times which no one reads or even cares for proves that rock critics are clearly in the lower echelon of writers.
Nice to see the heads up to Adorno.
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I dunno, a tuneless band like Fugazi has achieved moderate success without corporate assistance.
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Originally posted by thirsty moore:
...the New York Times which no one reads or even cares for...
On what planet?
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Ever hear of Jayson Blair?
Originally posted by Bags:
Originally posted by thirsty moore:
...the New York Times which no one reads or even cares for...
On what planet? [/b]
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"The theory was that anything promoted heavily could become popular, which is transparently false."
So transparently false that the writer gave no examples...... I would contend that this would explain the sucees of at least pop tarts and Milli Vannilli.
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The author isn't an Adorno fan, it seems. I will say that being hyped heavily really really helps, though. But it doesn't guarantee that crap will turn into gold in the eyes of the public. Say, 'Big Brother' (at least in the US). Heavily hyped, watched by about a dozen people.
And I hope to god that The Swan is failing miserably.
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Sure, but I don't think that has changed the Times' status as, if not the most, one of top two or three most influential papers in the U.S. What other paper outside of the WSJ or, on the lower-brow side, USA Today, is read as extensively outside of its geographic market?
Originally posted by nkotbie:
Ever hear of Jayson Blair?
Originally posted by Bags:
Originally posted by thirsty moore:
...the New York Times which no one reads or even cares for...
On what planet? [/b]
[/b]
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I quite liked the swan. It gives me hope that if someone spent $30K on me to look better, it could instantly turn me into a shallow self-obsessed individual.
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
"The theory was that anything promoted heavily could become popular, which is transparently false."
So transparently false that the writer gave no examples...... I would contend that this would explain the sucees of at least pop tarts and Milli Vannilli.
I agree with you - I was struck by the same thought that there were no examples; certainly a flaw in the article.
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The New York Times is obviously a highly read newspaper. I was joking. It was a continuation of the "rock critics are poor writers" conversation.
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Originally posted by mark e smith:
I quite liked the swan. It gives me hope that if someone spent $30K on me to look better, it could instantly turn me into a shallow self-obsessed individual.
You don't need to spend the $30K, Markie. And you know that.
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that could almost be taken as a compliment.
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One person in our household is really digging the Swan.
It's fun to make fun of pathetic, desperate people, isn't it?
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Originally posted by ballsnotbeats:
It's fun to make fun of pathetic, desperate people, isn't it?
Yes. That's why I mock you so often.
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But neither elitism or heavy promotion accounts for the Darkness. Wherein lies their magic formula? Catsuits?
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Originally posted by ballsnotbeats:
One person in our household is really digging the Swan.
It's fun to make fun of pathetic, desperate people, isn't it?
that's not why I like it, that's why I like American Idol, though
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Originally posted by mrpee:
But neither elitism or heavy promotion accounts for the Darkness. Wherein lies their magic formula? Catsuits?
also bands like Phish and Dave Matthews Band have zero elitism and aren't really formally promoted, right? their magic formula is weed and frat boys that wear their baseball hats too tight, I guess...
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The article doesn't say it's impossible to become popular without substantial promotion. It states that anything can become popular if you promote it enough. That's not the same thing.
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Originally posted by Skeeter:
The article doesn't say it's impossible to become popular without substantial promotion. It states that anything can become popular if you promote it enough. That's not the same thing.
that's a good point...
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Originally posted by Skeeter:
It states that anything can become popular if you promote it enough.
The article says that is not true.
The theory was that anything promoted heavily could become popular, which is transparently false.
I think one point of the article is that mass acceptance should not be misconstrued as quality, but, at the same time, it shouldn't be misconstrued as simply being the product of corporate marketing acumen either.
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Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Originally posted by Skeeter:
It states that anything can become popular if you promote it enough.
The article says that is not true.
The theory was that anything promoted heavily could become popular, which is transparently false.
I think one point of the article is that mass acceptance should not be misconstrued as quality, but, at the same time, it shouldn't be misconstrued as simply being the product of corporate marketing acumen either. [/b]
You're right. My bad. Must be time to go home.
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I wonder about the notion expressed in the subtitle of the Lessig book referenced in the article, "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity."
Is the goal of "Big Media" *really* to "lock down culture..." or that stuff just a by-product of the true goal, to make profits? This subtitle implies that there is some active, sinister plot to squelch creativity...I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence
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<img src="http://images.ibsys.com/2004/0302/2888676.jpg" alt=" - " />
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I'm assuming the book probably goes into detail about how creativity isn't a problem until something interesting/creative starts posing a threat to big media. It's friday at 4:30 so I'm not about to spout off political rants, but you could argue some of what's happend to Howard Stern recently is relevant. Not to mention something like the Dixie Chicks (getting really far away from rock critic elitism here) where when they made their antiwar sentiments public they were demonized on a lot of clear channel owned stations...etc. Sorry...not coherent...must get outside...
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Originally posted by Ball Girl:
This subtitle implies that there is some active, sinister plot to squelch creativity...I think it's just an unfortunate coincidence
I think less than a sinister plot, it's more a desire to be able to steer what is popular based on what the corporation has at the ready, under its control and able to yield the best results financially for the corporation. So that, a big company with a low-cost, high-yield contract with a young new band like O-Town would rather promote that band and see it hit the heights (bringing in big returns to the corporation) than see a DIY, outsider or seasoned performer (who retains a larger share of the profits, at the expense of the corporation's share) succeed to the same degree.
Further, if radical creativity turns the tides of what is popular, that may be again at the expense of the corporation as its roster of talent is devalued.
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Originally posted by skonster:
you could argue some of what's happend to Howard Stern recently is relevant.
Or you could argue that Stern's ratings have been dropping for the past few years and there's nothing like a little self-generated controversy to get some free publicity.
Howard wasn't screaming censorship when he was on top of his game in 1995-1997 and the FCC was levying fines that dwarf his recent one.
Originally posted by skonster:
Not to mention something like the Dixie Chicks (getting really far away from rock critic elitism here) where when they made their antiwar sentiments public they were demonized on a lot of clear channel owned stations...etc.
Common misconception. The Dixie Chicks were demonized by right-wing pundits (big surprise there, huh), many of whom are on Clear Channel stations. However, Clear Channel the corporation actually increased spins of the Chicks album on its stations overall, and CC was also a promoter for the Chicks summer tour, much of which was booked into Clear Channel-owned venues.
I think Celeste is on the right track. It is far easier and more economically efficient for a corporation to attempt to dictate what is cool then to forecast and discover what the next "cool" thing is in a world of infinite creativity.
It's kinda paranoid to believe that corporations have war rooms or something where they plot how to actively stymie any creative outbursts that may potentially undermine their perceived control over culture.
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Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Howard wasn't screaming censorship when he was on top of his game in 1995-1997 and the FCC was levying fines that dwarf his recent one.
Are you kidding? He put out a CD called "F*** the FCC." He was rabid about it back then (were you listening to him?), but in 2004 he sees it as part of an even more troubling and escalating shift to the religious right by the administration, rather than a more discrete FCC-manic issue.
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I'm still at least somewhat interested in what the point of that reference book is, though. Maybe it will have a higher quotient of examples than the article. It's a difficult argument to make, and I can't see it relying on much more than tangential/circumstantial examples, though.
But dealing with 'indie' music though, a lot of the stuff I enjoy isn't really trying for the same thing as pure mass culture appeal. So when something sort of off kilter like modest mouse (for example) gets on a major label and has some success doing so (as they're doing now) some people don't know what to make of it. Obviously the label they're on wants them to do well and probably doesn't care what the message is.
System of a Down's 'Steal this Album' is put out by Sony...
Ok it's after five, i'm going to enjoy the weather now.
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Originally posted by Bags:
in 2004 he sees it as part of an even more troubling and escalating shift to the religious right by the administration, rather than a more discrete FCC-manic issue.
Because that sells much better.
He can bring in the Janet Jackson thing (which I gather is based on the premise that before 2001 bare breasts on TV were a regular occurrence??) and tap into the Air-America market.
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I disagree his current take is because it sells better. He came back from a vacation having changed his mind on Bush, talked about that extensively, then a couple weeks the FCC brouhaha began. He sees it as all intertwined in his case -- political revenge rather than a concern with indecency.
As for tapping into the Air America market, I'm not sure how many *new* listeners are coming out of this, rather historical listeners are being moblized.
I'm not clear on your point about JJ's boob.
Originally posted by ggwâ?¢:
Originally posted by Bags:
in 2004 he sees it as part of an even more troubling and escalating shift to the religious right by the administration, rather than a more discrete FCC-manic issue.
Because that sells much better.
He can bring in the Janet Jackson thing (which I gather is based on the premise that before 2001 bare breasts on TV were a regular occurrence??) and tap into the Air-America market. [/b]