Sorry, I couldn't embed it. And yes, the name of this band is Yogurt-Pooh. Don't laugh. And yes, the song you're listening to has a different title than the one I wrote above. That's because it's not the song I wanted you to hear.
I just found out the hard way that Yogurt-Pooh songs are really, really difficult to track down. The song "Fuzz Pop," which I originally wanted to be the Awesome Song of the Week, is nowhere to be found on the entire internet. So as a substitute, I'm posting a different Yogurt-Pooh song that is nowhere close to being their best song. My second choice Yogurt-Pooh song for this week was also impossible to find, and ususally I have very good googling skills.
So give "TV Movies Make Me Happy" a listen, but just know that the actual awesome song of the week is "Fuzz Pop." Now you can just sit there and try to imagine how good "Fuzz Pop" is. I hope that when you actually hear it you won't have overhyped it for yourself.
Just for some background information, Yogurt-Pooh is a J-Rock band, as you've probably already figured out. They write really good songs that are impossible to find.
Nobody, however, does it with more flash, more excess, and more outright quirkiness than the people who were actually there.
Two of the biggest, most ridiculous names of the Reagan Era (accompanied by some other guy) joined forces in the decidedly non-eighties year of 2004, to produce what would certainly be called a monstrosity at any other point in history. It' all here! Gary "in cars" Numan's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw) eerie synth-pop whine, Afrika "party peeeeople" Bambaataa's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_vLzsG2TCU) distorted, jam-starting invocations, an inexplicably dated rap by the aptly named MC Chatterbox, and, as a special surprise to those of you who endured the rapping, a verse from Blondie's Heart of Glass (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CmhqoB1lNE). Oh yes.
I may have neglected to mention that there are also bitchin' analog synthesizer sounds and kinda ridiculous lyrics about alienation and a lower capital gains tax and television programs about oil millionaires and all that.
So put down that gram and put on your leg warmers and nonprescription frames! Mr. Gorbachev: tear up this floor.
I've brought up stories and commentary before about white people who consume reggae, a historically black musical genre (I totally fall under the category of white people who consume reggae). Now I'd like to complicate things a little by talking about white producers, rather than consumers, of reggae. In order to do this, I'd like to examine three (primarily) white bands that have played reggae, or at least reggae-influenced music: The Police, UB40, and The Aggrolites.
First, lets look at the Police. While I'll acknowledge that Stuart Copeland is an awesome drummer, Sting's fake Jamaican accent has always annoyed the shit out of me. Let's listen to an example:
While The Police were never really a reggae band by definition, the song "Walking on the Moon" is one of the best examples of the massive reggae-influence on their music, which can also be heard in Sting's vocals. For their first few albums, Sting put on a ridiculous fake Jamaican-style accent (he never really got it right), presumably to try and imitate the Jamaican Patois heard in many reggae songs. The thing that's always amazed me though is that Sting really really overcompensated. Let's listen to a song by Jimmy Cliff to compare:
Notice anything different? I've been in linguistics classes where we've examined Jamaican Patois, and one thing we've noticed is that Jimmy Cliff doesn't really use it in his songs. The same goes for a lot of other reggae singers. In the music of the Police, however, Sting makes a huge effort to put on a Jamaican accent. The other thing to note is that Sting phased out the fake accent later in his career, but by this point the Police were playing a lot of other stuff besides reggae-influenced-pop. Basically the point I'm trying to make is that in the reggae music of the Police, Sting used a fake Jamaican accent as a signifier of reggae, even though he really didn't need to, since Jimmy Cliff didn't, and he's one of the best reggae singers of all time.
So, to reference a question raised by scholar Terry Boyd in relation to hip hop, is the music of the Police an imitation of reggae, or is it influenced by reggae? Well, the answer is both. They're not mutually exclusive. I kind of think that to an extent one implies the other, and you'll noticed that I've already used both words in describing The Police. The point, however, is that, to an extent at least, the music of the Police WAS an imitation, since Sting pretty blatantly imitated Jamaican English, which he at least saw as a major signifier of reggae.
On to the next example: UB40. The two things that really really separates them from The Police are that
1. They were obviously a reggae band, and
2. They were an even more blatant imitation
I'm not even gonna try and defend their music, since it was almost 100% imitation, rather than influence. Seriously, they became famous just by covering reggae songs that were already hits in Jamaica. The album that made them famous, Labour of Love, is all covers. I've listened to every song on that album, and I've listened to the original versions of every song on that album, and in every case the original is better. Actually that's just a matter of opinion for me, but my point about UB40 is that they fall under the category of imitation rather than influence, since they made massive amounts of money by literally imitating reggae songs that had already been played by less successful people. And their lead singer, who was also white, also sang in a fake Jamaican accent. I would go so far as to call UB40 the Elvis of reggae.
Anyway, let's move on to my last example: The Aggrolites. They're even more noticeably different from the other two examples, because:
1. They're American
2. They're not as popular
3. They play a very different style of reggae
4. They don't put on ridiculous accents
The last point is reason enough to believe that the Aggrolites fall less under imitation and more under influence. But the other thing that makes the Aggrolites stand out for me is that, unlike The Police and UB40, who use fake Jamaican accents as a reggae signifier, The Aggrolites use something very different as a signifier: the skinhead image. Just to provide some background, the skinhead subculture originally emerged in England in the 1960s and was in no way affiliated with Neo-Nazis. While the original skinheads did exhibit racism towards Indian and Pakistani immigrants, they showed solidarity towards Jamaican immigrants, and were huge fans of reggae and ska. As a result, some reggae bands, most notably Syramip, began targeting their music towards skinheads, most obviously in the song "Skinhead Moonstomp."
Now listen to this song by the Aggrolites and compare it to the Jimmy Cliff song and the Syramip song:
This one is obviously more influenced by Syramip than Jimmy Cliff; the tempo is almost exactly the same, the production is just as minimal, and the vocals are shouted and chanted rather than sung. I've also seen The Aggrolites live, and they performed Skinhead Moonstomp. Basically, The Aggrolites choose to use the skinhead subculture as a reference point for the reggae that they play. This choice is still problematic, no question. But they're not pretending to be Jamaican. There are two factors at play in this. For one, by referencing skinheads the Aggrolites show a familiarity with the history of reggae. The Police and UB40 just put on fake accents as an obvious way of saying "This is reggae," but the Aggrolites choose instead to reference an aspect of reggae that people might not be as familiar with, showing their familiarity with the music. It should also be noted that while The Police and UB40 played music that had all the surface elements of reggae as a way to make money, the Aggrolites have played a different type of reggae and not been as successful. The second factor at play is that by referencing the skinhead subculture, it could be argued that The Aggrolites are acknowledging their status as outsiders of reggae. While not all of The Aggrolites are white, not all skinheads were white either, and by referencing skinheads rather than trying to sound Jamaican, the Aggrolites are acknowledging their status as consumers of reggae and not pretending to be the original producers of it. Both strategies are ways to claim authenticity, but the strategy the Aggrolites employ is one that acknowledges their outsider status.
So to return to that question again, do the Aggrolites imitate reggae, or are they influenced by it? Again, the answer is both. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and I think it's almost impossible for them to be entirely separate. But since, by referencing skinheads rather than just putting on fake accents, the Aggrolites have engaged with the history of reggae and also acknowledged their status as outsiders in reggae, I'd say they fall more under the category of influence.
This week's awesome song was picked by Andrei Kopelevich, a member of the experimental music group Intense Whispers and a DJ for UC Berkeley's radio station.
Sensoria closes their 1984 album "Micro-Phonies" and was probably the closest they ever came to a hit. The single version marks a striking attempt at what would later be called a mash-up, consisting of bits from both "Sensoria" and their other song "Do Right" spliced together. This single, and the attendant album, mark the closest the group came to commercial success, and it's not hard to see why. It's got everything! Cheezeball handclaps, cryptic and memorable vocal samples, rubbery synth basses, trippy electric guitar bits for that crossover touch, and, yeah, kinda inane dance music lyrics. The music video's opening crane shot would later be imitated by later Sheffield group Pulp in their video for "Do You Remember The First Time" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PeOlzEXsZA) (that is to say if the whole thing is not just a coincidence, but come on!). The surprising longevity of an experimental group's self-conscious decision to sell out can be witnessed in the fact that the Bloody Beetroots, Italian electro-house darlings signed to the tres hip Dim Mak label, remixed Sensoria in 2008. (with help from something or someone called "the SirBilly Experience") And they even had the keen sense to throw in audio clips from my favorite Kurt Russell movie! Enjoy. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlC1t6VtZIE).
"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it." – George Orwell
"Although American rap music has been used as a vehicle for the creation of novel indigenous musical styles (in South Africa), it has come under heavy criticism from the older generation of South African musicians, some of whom have dismissed indigenous rap as hopelessly imitative of the worst excesses of American culture…. South African jazz musician Hugh Masekela complained that 'our children walk with a hip hop walk and they think they are Americans….' Ironically, the jazz music Masekela… pioneered owed an equal debt to American jazz artists as kwaito does to American rap. Furthermore, Black jazz musicians of the 1950s were subject to similar criticisms by the cultural elite." – Zine Magubane, "Globalization and Gangster Rap."
"The Arabic hip hop genre has faced strong resistance from various cultural forces. Abbas, who traces the development of this genre across the Arab world, argues that this resistance was not necessarily the result of musical evaluation, but rather a natural reaction to anything that sounds western as well as the response of people who feel directly implicated and threatened by hip hop's criticism of their way of life." – Usama Kahf, "Arabic Hip Hop"
"Those interested in black music and black politics should check out studies on the racial uplift ideology literature of the late 19th Century through 1950s, which reveals, among other things, “New Negro” discomfort with black folk culture (demonstrative church music, blues, jazz, narratives depicting uneducated black folk.). This literature features recurring questions such as “How does popular black art affect the moral training of black children?” and “How will this art make us look to white people?” If you replace all of the “negro”s with “black”s or “African American”s,” you’d swear that these things were written today." – Gordon Gartrelle "The Problem With These Rap Critics Today"
"No question. Rap is the repetition of the minstrel show." – Wynton Marsalis
I know I'm just listing quotes, but that's because the quotes speak for themselves.
If you can't tell already, the aim of this post is to examine some of the most prominent criticisms of rap music. In some ways, these quotes contradict the points that I made in my earlier post about de-politicization. In that post, I discussed how white cultural critics have often criticized black musical forms because of their political aspects. But, as I noted, white critics have never been the only ones to criticize new black (or) political musical forms. As you can see, South African jazz musicians have criticized South African rap, Arabic hip hop has faced criticism in local communities, and Wynton Marsalis, a prominent black jazz musician, has been an incredibly vocal critic of hip hop.
What really amazes me is how almost universal these criticisms are. It seems that no matter what context hip hop is created in, there are always vocal critics of it who attack it using countless different arguments. A lot of these criticisms are valid; lots of feminist thinkers, for example, have rightly noted that a lot of hip hop contains deeply misogynist lyrics. But I think the key phrase in statements like this that makes them valid is "a lot of hip hop." The problem I have with criticisms such those of Marsalis is that they are sweeping generalizations that don't allow any room for exceptions. To label an entire musical form as "the repetition of the minstrel show" is a deeply problematic easy way out. Plus, a lot of these criticisms seem to be representative of an unwillingness to accept new musical forms.
One common thread that seems to lie behind all these criticisms of rap is a desire to hold on to tradition. This ties in to Kahf's quote about how many people "feel directly implicated and threatened by hip hop's criticism of their way of life." This argument can even be applied to my discussion of musical de-politicization (sorry to reference myself, but I do think it's relevant). The fact that lots of white cultural critics have criticized political black musical forms can easily be read as a desire to hold on to a tradition of power, since these critics feel threatened by hip hop. The critics discussed in the pieces by Magubane and Kahf can also be seen as feeling threatened by other political aspects of hip hop. Globalization is a powerful force, and the United States are one of the most influential countries globally; I observed this first hand while traveling this summer. While hip hop can be used in local communities as a tool of resistance, it still has ties to America, since it is historically an American musical form. This is another way in which people probably feel threatened by hip hop; American media can be seen in lots of different countries, and people who have this media imposed on them may understandably reject American musical forms that can even be used subversively. We can even read Wynton Marsalis's criticism as being a reaction to the threat that Jazz has faced from hip hop, which is a far more popular genre among young people today.
I'd like to discuss Marsalis's statement a little bit more, and why I feel it is so deeply problematic. Lots of people have proposed the "hip hop is minstrelsy" argument before, but some people, such as Jeffrey Ogbar, author of the book Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap, have taken a better approach to it. The problem I have with Marsalis's argument as opposed to Ogbar's is that while Marsalis condemns the entire form of hip hop, Ogbar makes a clear distinction between hip hop he sees as being a reprisal of the minstrel show, and hip hop that he views otherwise. In addition, he also provides historical context on both minstrelsy and hip hop. I don't have a problem with criticizing hip hop, as long as you don't dismiss the entire form, and as long as you back up your ideas without making sweeping claims.
I'll also add that the issue of holding on to tradition vs. accepting globalized music is a really complicated one, and I'm not trying to make it seem like the people who criticize hip hop in a global setting are wrong, since I really don't know enough about the specific contexts. I'm just pointing out that a lot of criticisms of hip hop come out of the same desire to hold on to tradition.
My goal for this series is to introduce people to a lot of new bands, so I was hesitant about posting a Grandaddy song this week, since I've already featured them here. But this song is just too awesome to pass up. This was the song that got me through my all-nighter on Monday. Every time I felt too stressed, or like I wanted to go to sleep, I just listened to this silly song and watched a bunch of animals dancing, and then I was ready to work again.
It's very rare that something this simple is this amazing. The song only consists of three chords and one verse, and it's so repetitive, but that's just what makes it so catchy and infectious. And it's such a happy song. I know I've been posting some more depressing stuff, but I guess this shows you that I'm not a completely morbid guy. This song just makes me want to walk up the side of a mountain, and then probably walk down the other side of the mountain. Truly awesome.
