Utilitarian Review 9/24/11

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On HU

Vom Marlowe discussed Avatar: the Last Airbender.

I talked about Delta Swamp Rock, race, and the South.

I had an essay on the Black Eye Anthology, Johnny Ryan, and black humor.

Sean Michael Robinson on trolling natural disasters and the will of God.

I review Miranda Lambert’s pop country album Revolution.

Richard Cook on Giallo, violent Italian crime films.

A shoulder-shrugging country mix download for your listening pleasure.

I discuss race and the television show heroes.

And finally, I consider DC’s sexism and wish the company would just go out of business already.

And the Featured Archive post this week discusses fashion, fine art, and ontology.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Washington Times I sneer at Pearl Jam Cameron Crowe’s new documentary about same. Pearl Jam fans in comments freak out. You’d think I’d insulted Art Spiegelman or something.

At Splice Today I talk about Thelma and Louise and Women in Prison films.

And also at Splice Today I review Balam Acab’s latest effusion of New Age hipness.

Other Links

Archie Out of Context tumblr courtesy of Erica Friedman.

Charles Reece has a great essay on whiteness in Cowboys and Aliens and Attack the Block, part of the Pussy Goes Grrr Blogathon.

Michael Dooley interviews Percy Crosby’s daughter.

The Atlantic has a good article about K Pop taking over Japan.

Tessa Strain on the new Wonder Woman reboot.

C.T. May on Playboy Magazine.

TCJ with a big Johnny Ryan interview.

Slate with an article on the economics of being a fashion model.

14 thoughts on “Utilitarian Review 9/24/11”

  2. The fashion model maths is marginally informative but I don’t think anyone needs to lose any sleep over what models are paid. I’m assuming that the article is being completely serious and not meant to be satirical.

    Have you seen the Female Prisoner Scorpion series?

  3. Why is it okay to exploit fashion models exactly? It’s a difficult and uncomfortable job; the women who do it get paid for shit and are treated badly (for the most part). I don’t see why that’s any more laudable than any other kind of work exploitation.

    I haven’t seen female prisoner scorpion. I want to, but haven’t gotten around to it.

  4. FPS 701 is about as perfect film as has ever been made.

    Re: Pearl Jam, I remember being so disappointed upon hearing the next project from the remains of Mother Love Bone, which was one of the few good extensions of 70s T-Rex’s brand of glam. With Vedder they became another bar band. I agree with you that they were selling nostalgia, but I’m not so sure that it was as a reaction to hip hop. The rock top 40 was largely dominated at the time by AOR, the socalled hair ballads and the like. To a young listener with less knowledge of what came before, I’m sure Pearl Jam (or Nirvana) sounded like a revelation. It’s pseudoindividuation, selling the same as something novel. That’s pretty much Crowe’s whole approach to rock music. He’s the genre’s Wynton Marsalis, never tiring of the same old shit and determined to remain on the cultural hamster wheel. If it weren’t so obsessed with authenticity, as you say, I’d probably find it a lot less objectionable. Where I part company is with the idea that Beyonce and whatever’s replaced soul music is any healthier than rock. I’m not sure reveling in its shallowness as pure commodity is any better than conflating nostalgia with authenticity. I’d wager that Beyonce fans don’t believe her music the equivalent of a catchy Coke jingle. Popular music critics tend to treat her music seriously these days. What I’m trying to say is that honesty about an art’s vacuity doesn’t make the situation any better. These days, it serves to justify the dumb shit as something other than dumb shit, perversely adding a sheen of authenticity that wasn’t there for, say, 50s’ bubblegum music. Regardless, Poison was a much better band than either Nirvana or Pearl Jam.

  5. Beyonce’s inconsistent, but Writing’s on the Wall is a straight-up great album. Ke$ha’s great too; funny and smart with great hooks and some weird music. R&B could be healthier — the best artists, like Brooke Valentine and Amerie tend to get sidelined, which sucks. It’s not bad though. And Britney is pretty fantastic, I think. Not everything on the radio is great or anything, but in general I like contemporary R&B/pop’s willingness to try new gimmicks and hooks. Autotune for example, is a pretty bizarre development,and something that both Ke$ha and Britney use differently to great effect.

    I think R&B in the early 2000s was better than it is now, but like I said, it’s not bad.

    I don’t actually think Ke$ha is vacuous either — or no more so than the Beastie Boys. She’s working bratty girl feminism as vagina dentata. It’s post-Riot Grrrl, definitely. She’s miles and miles smarter than Eddie Vedder, and she’s got a good bit more to say than someone like Jack White. Who exactly was more meaningful pop in the past? Janis Joplin? Joan Jett? the Beach Boys? I like those people a lot, but I don’t find them more meaningful or smarter than Ke$ha.

    Lady Gaga’s pop isn’t especially empty either as these things go; queer positive politics are certainly relevant, even if her music isn’t that great overall.

    Nirvana was great; Poison’s not really all that good, to my mind. Journey’s awesome, though; I like them better than Nirvana, I think (though not better than Led Zeppelin.)

    I think PJ was a reaction both to R&B/disco (like Madonna or Michael Jackson) and to hair metal (which I think I mention in the essay?)

  6. I looked over it again. Am I missing the reference to hair metal? I was largely replying to:

    Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were the great white hope – the not-disco thing that would make Top 40 safe again for (overwhelmingly) white (overwhelmingly) male guitar bands with authenticity issues.

    Wasn’t radio largely dominated by male guitar bands at the time? Journey’s “Open Arms” was pretty much the blueprint. I don’t think much of Poison, either, just prefer them to the groups that reportedly knocked them off the top.

    I make distinctions in crap that I like, too, but, man, I don’t hear anything worth a damn in Ke$ha. She sounds pretty much like every other autotuned girl singer out there. I haven’t read any interviews with her, but I have found Lady Gaga’s comments interesting — certainly more so than Vedder’s or Crowe’s. I know a guy who dated Ke$ha, and insightful or feminist don’t fit his description. The music is all just as bland as Pearl Jam at its worse, though. New trinkets, same sludge. I’m not opposed to autotune or any new recording technology, but much of it is used more like Milli Vanilli than for innovation. The early Beastie Boys albums were richly textured examples of sampling, so I can’t see the point in comparing that to the white girl assembly line. There’s Company Flow or Public Enemy or Anti-Pop Consortium and then there’s what’s been on the radio for the past 10 years. I think there’s pretty clearly an distinction in aesthetic quality that should be made.

    And, yeah, I’d put the Beach Boys above most of what passes for pop music today (even though I can’t stand them). I prefer Sinatra, too. Modern heavily produced pop is to the classic variety what the modern car chase is to the French Connection. One has to almost infer the music instead of its actually taking place.

  7. I talk about my love of Ke$ha here. I don’t know that second hand accounts from ex boyfriends are especially likely to sway my opinion? I have no doubt she’s an asshole. The Beastie Boys were assholes too…and their first album was not especially richly textured. It was still great though.

    The Beach Boys are awesome, and I like Anti-pop consortium a lot, even if their beat poet lyrics annoys me. But Timbaland production is amazing too…as is Ryan Leslie, and Britney’s handlers. If you appreciate high-gloss production from the past, I don’t really see the reason not to appreciate the stuff that’s on the radio…it’s a very high level of craftsmanship.

    “One has to almost infer the music instead of its actually taking place.”

    That’s the joy of high gloss production in any era. I mean…did you like Abba? The Bee Gees? I love that stuff; I don’t see any reason not to like the stuff on the radio that’s like that stuff just because it’s on the radio now.

    I think the issue is maybe made clear when you say you can’t stand the Beach Boys. If you don’t like them, there’s not a lot of point in listening to highly polished radio pop. Is there *any* superslick radio pop of any era that you like? Michael Jackson for example? The Carpenters?

  8. Oh, and this is the line I was thinking of Charles:

    “The film barely mentions their most current popular predecessors, whether Madonna (who didn’t influence them) or Guns N’ Roses (who certainly did).”

    Journey was a little earlier; more of a late 70s mid-80s phenomena.

    Here’s the billboard hit list for the 80s; lots of folks like Richard Marx and Phil Collins and Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston. Some Poison too, but definitely tilted more towards R&B inflected AOR balladry than hair metal overall.

  9. “Why is it okay to exploit fashion models exactly?”

    It’s not “okay” to exploit fashion models but with a limited amount of time in this world, they would not be high on the list of people I would give my time and money to (in terms of charitable causes). Why not third world poverty or the homeless guy a few miles from where you live? Or even lowly paid American commercial airline pilots who might actually pose health and safety issues? What’s more, the article clearly states that these models have a choice – they could do more of the commercial jobs to earn their keep but don’t (because it’s grunt work). They choose the world of low paying glamour on the chance of getting that big break. Of course, that article could just be full of shit but we would have to read the book in question to find out…a sort of circular reason for justifying its existence.

    The K-Pop article in The Atlantic must have been prompted (or done in conjunction) with the recent wire press releases about the Japanese protest movement against K-Pop. I almost sent you a link to the Atlantic article but thought it was too frivolous. Strange that this kind of thing takes years to reach American shores (or maybe this is just an excuse to fill page space). K-Pop (in particular K-Drama) has been conquering the “world” for over half a decade. They’ve completely displaced Japanese drama as the next “hot” thing.

  10. I love the Nashville Sound, 50s era Capitol, etc. and I love Abba and the Bee Gees, too. I appreciate the ability of Brian Wilson (just can’t stand the voices). I kind of find it mindboggling that you’d jump to any of that from the shit on the radio today. I’d have to care more than I do to even bother going through contemporary pop, but, really, Noah, the Gibbs were really good song writers. Is there any Britney song (whoever may have written it) that comes close to “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”? Look at the old songwriters that Sinatra used to cover and compare them to, who, Diane Warren, or that gal from the Four Non Blondes. I’ll grant you that Timbalake has some good stuff, but Abba had more hooks in one song than most have on an entire album. I see a pretty drastic dropoff in pop craftsmanship. Maybe it’s that technology is driving the songs, rather than the other way around.

    Oh, yeah, I never really considered GNR hair metal, so that’s why I didn’t get your meaning.

  11. The Bee Gees are great songwriters. The folks Britney has writing for her are great songwriters too; it’s just all more processed and a lot of the hooks are based around the bleeps and bloops. I wouldn’t say that the technology is driving the songs so much as that the craftsmanship and the songs have fused.

    I love Kelly Rowland’s “Still In Love With My Ex” by Soulshock and Karlin as much as I love anything by the Bee Gees or the Carpenters, and for the same reason — gloppy, gorgeously smooth schmaltz. Ryan Leslie too; immaculately precious saccharine goodness.

    Not that everything’s great. Like I said, Lady Gaga’s songwriting is really disappointing; Nicki Minaj’s last record was disappoining — I haven’t heard a front-to-back solidly great pop album all year (except for Britney’s latest.) But I think the 80s and 90s were worse moments for pop R&B than right now is. (The early 2000s were probably better.)

    It’s Timbaland by the way, though Justin Timberlake is worthwhile in his own right. And Guns N’Roses is definitely hair metal.

  12. Suat, I don’t know that I’m doing anything especially helpful for anyone in general…. I always remember this great article about interns from the Baffler though, where the author said that just because people are well off and stupid doesn’t mean they should be exploited. Working conditions for anyone kind of matter for everyone, is maybe the thing. That’s why unions matter.

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