Hmmmmm. . .

My biggest personal disappointment of the evening, in the context of my very public brush-off, was the response from Traci McGregor VP of Content and Communications at The Source. My turn at the mic followed someone who’Äôd bravely commented on the all-but-one male presence on the dais. Traci mentioned that she was called at the last minute to replace a hairy-gendered dropout. She spoke eloquently and passionately about the ordeal of being a woman in a male-oriented music and publishing world -- particularly, the challenges of the hipHop world for women. I’Äôd hoped to draw her our further with my comment on the tits & assification of our music culture. But, oddly, she was totally blasˆ© about The Source turning its cover over to a swimsuit issue -- what is that about? What does it say about The Source’Äôs content and what it’Äôs communicating? A new rap underground is bubbling up with the potential to rejuvenate a calcified middle-aged medium. At a time when Talib Kweli records a brilliant remake of Nina Simone’Äôs ’ÄúFour Women’Äù and J-Live has released what sounds to me like one of the finest rap discs ever stamped (and at the moment has sold, I’Äôm told, only fifteen thousand units) -- what does it mean when The Source is inking its pages with babes in bikinis?

Pop music journalism does not have a long history. Jazz criticism was always a music driven affair even when it was the pop music if its day. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald never posed for the cover of Downbeat in babewear. The videogenically challenged Fitzgerald (even as a teen in Chick Webb’Äôs band) could not have gotten a gig as a backup singer in the post-MTV world. Rock criticism really started in the late 60’Äôs with Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone as antidotes to the kiddie fan mags. That trend continued into the 70's and part of the 80's with Jazz & Pop and Musician.

Before MTV, synergy and the media cartel -- culture grew fungus-like from the ground up. In this era of media consolidation and entertainment saturation, culture -- even counterculture -- is packaged and sold from the corporate marketing department down. Except for a few truly MUSIC oriented fan mags like The Wire, the jazz mags and trade mags aimed at musicians -- we’Äôre back to kiddie fan stuff like the current Rolling Stone, Blender and Spin. So, if you’Äôre under 40, it’Äôs reasonable to imagine that music is, and always was, showBiz. But Coltrane, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Muddy Waters, Cannibal Ox, Tool, Joe Henry, Nirvana, Chuck D, John Fortˆ© and their listeners were, and are, not about showBiz. They’Äôre about music. It’Äôs not a badaboom thing for some of us. We dig entertainment too. Honest. We’Äôre entertained by the spectacle of humans who can move us with words, pictures and noise. It’Äôs that existential tickle we get when our brains are burning in new synapses and we notice colors, noises and essences that were not there before. All because we heard this band last night or saw that film or that painting or read that book.

The world Chuck Eddy inhabits -- the music departments of the Voice, New York Press, Boston Phoenix , LA Weekly -- are speaking to people who are more musically curious than the mainstream. Robert Christgau, despite the sometimes indecipherable delirium of his writing, undeniably has gigantic ears, a very rare asset in pop music journalism. Most pop music journalism, sad to say, has always been written not by musicians who can write, but by writers who happen to like music. Very few music journos, past and present, have any experience with genres outside their main focus; even fewer have a serious historical perspective on the music they cover and the cultural environment that spawns the music. Many are impressed with a band whose influences run the gamut from rock to hip hop (A to B). Few can explain in their reviews what is going on in musical terms. For years whenever I'd look at record reviews I'd keep reading about what so & so’Äôs new album is ’Äúsaying.’Äù It’Äôs about the terrors of true love lost; the artist’Äôs recent divorce; the bleakness of da da da. And then some vague reference to "jangly guitars" or "bubbly funky rhythms," whatever that means. We learn quickly that the writer should be reviewing books but not music.

I’Äôm in no way suggesting that music journos should be writing Italianate music jargon. As a musician who’Äôs not formally trained, most of that stuff would go over my head as well as the non-musician’Äôs. But having some degree of musical background in evidence seems at least as relevant to music journalism as what JLo wore at the Grammys or the latest rap feud. Let the fan mags and Entertainment Tonite cover that shit.

The dirty secret that’Äôs been in the cultural shadows for decades is that a purple-haired consumer of safe punk genre conventions is as hip as the bowtied consumer of every rehash of Brahms. A fifty-minute wall of distortion and rage is as bland and predictable as Celine’Äôs next bombastic crescendo. The way I see it -- the critic should be a few steps ahead with a hunger for hatemail.

Polar Levine
Editor, popCULTmedia