Thursday, September 04, 2003
MY BITTER VENDETTA AGAINST THE WHITE STRIPES CONTINUES
And it continues in a sort of stop the presses way.
The latest Rolling Stone is out and, hide the women and children, it has an honest to god rock star on the cover - that's been dead for over 30 years. But if you are compiling the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, who else are you going to put on the cover but Jimi Hendrix? Naturally I went straight for the article, even knowing as I do that any kind of ranking of this sort, encompassing over 50 years of music, is going to be flawed and subject to various biases. In any case, I was more or less content with the list, even when it sort of veered off into obscurities that I questioned (Vernon Reid and not David Bryne?). Still, I saw enough of my favorites on the list to conclude that this was a legit undertaking. Lots of the guitarists on the list are dead, so I knew there couldn't have been too many PR consultants on the phone trying desperately to get their flash in the pan clients in the rankings.
Or so I thought. You be the judge.
Here is a partial list of guitarists ranked in the 20-100 slots:
Robby Krieger, Dave Davies, Tony Iommi, Neil Young, David Gilmour, Lightnin' Hopkins, Robby Robertson, Johnny Winter, Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young, Steve Howe, Dickey Betts, Ritchie Blackmore, Jourma Karkonen, Lou Reed, Mick Ronson, John McLaughlin, Joe Perry, T-Bone Walker, Les Paul, Frank Zappa, Robert Fripp, John Fogerty, Pete Townsend, Peter Green, Steve Cropper, Bo Diddley, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, James Burton and The Edge.
That's one impressive roster of pickers, I'll tell you that. Some have passed away, but every single one of them has or had a long, long, long and successful careers.
It's too bad that, according to Rolling Stone, they all take a back seat to Jack White of the White Stripes, listed at # 17. Hell, that's not all. At #18 is John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Am I the only one here that thinks this is just the biggest crock of shit of all time? What exactly has Jack White done that ranks him higher than Bo Diddley? Pete Townsend? Frank Zappa? Robert Fripp? I mean, these were not just guitarists, they were innovaters! Christ, I would wager that the D-Squad twin tandem of Bob Jones and Jeff Nixon could match White lick for lick - if the band ever got a chance. But that's besides the point.
If White had been included at towards the bottom of the list, closer to the guy from Blue Cheer, I might have said "Okay, I can deal with that, that's fair." But hell, they didn't even put Bo Diddley in the Top Ten and that's just ridiculous. It's kind of the equivalent of bringing in the bosses kid and promoting him to manager over all the other poor slobs who kept the company going during all the boom years.
Yeesh!
And it continues in a sort of stop the presses way.
The latest Rolling Stone is out and, hide the women and children, it has an honest to god rock star on the cover - that's been dead for over 30 years. But if you are compiling the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, who else are you going to put on the cover but Jimi Hendrix? Naturally I went straight for the article, even knowing as I do that any kind of ranking of this sort, encompassing over 50 years of music, is going to be flawed and subject to various biases. In any case, I was more or less content with the list, even when it sort of veered off into obscurities that I questioned (Vernon Reid and not David Bryne?). Still, I saw enough of my favorites on the list to conclude that this was a legit undertaking. Lots of the guitarists on the list are dead, so I knew there couldn't have been too many PR consultants on the phone trying desperately to get their flash in the pan clients in the rankings.
Or so I thought. You be the judge.
Here is a partial list of guitarists ranked in the 20-100 slots:
Robby Krieger, Dave Davies, Tony Iommi, Neil Young, David Gilmour, Lightnin' Hopkins, Robby Robertson, Johnny Winter, Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young, Steve Howe, Dickey Betts, Ritchie Blackmore, Jourma Karkonen, Lou Reed, Mick Ronson, John McLaughlin, Joe Perry, T-Bone Walker, Les Paul, Frank Zappa, Robert Fripp, John Fogerty, Pete Townsend, Peter Green, Steve Cropper, Bo Diddley, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, James Burton and The Edge.
That's one impressive roster of pickers, I'll tell you that. Some have passed away, but every single one of them has or had a long, long, long and successful careers.
It's too bad that, according to Rolling Stone, they all take a back seat to Jack White of the White Stripes, listed at # 17. Hell, that's not all. At #18 is John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Am I the only one here that thinks this is just the biggest crock of shit of all time? What exactly has Jack White done that ranks him higher than Bo Diddley? Pete Townsend? Frank Zappa? Robert Fripp? I mean, these were not just guitarists, they were innovaters! Christ, I would wager that the D-Squad twin tandem of Bob Jones and Jeff Nixon could match White lick for lick - if the band ever got a chance. But that's besides the point.
If White had been included at towards the bottom of the list, closer to the guy from Blue Cheer, I might have said "Okay, I can deal with that, that's fair." But hell, they didn't even put Bo Diddley in the Top Ten and that's just ridiculous. It's kind of the equivalent of bringing in the bosses kid and promoting him to manager over all the other poor slobs who kept the company going during all the boom years.
Yeesh!
Tuesday, September 02, 2003
RIAA IN THE NEWS
I'm sure everyone is breathless waiting to find out what's new on the Internet piracy/RIAA front. Indeed, much has happened in just the last couple of weeks and all of it is noteworthy in one way or another.
Just today, on the traditional first day of college, two like-minded articles, one from Christian Science Monitor and a front-pager in the LA Times, address the issue of alternative education and the "moral" dilemma, mostly ignored by college students, that confront dorm-room pirates as they gleefully snatch music off the Internet for free.
The CSM piece looks at the problem from the viewpoint of two East coast colleges that have been subpoenaed (thus far unsucessfully) by the RIAA and how they are presently dealing with it, in terms of educating incoming freshmen, the most likely new piraters to the scene. Boston College and MIT have kept the wolves at bay for now by refusing to identify personal information about student/file swappers (the RIAA only knows their file user names), but according to the report only because the RIAA filed their subpoenas in Washington D.C. and not in Massachusetts. If the RIAA refiles, the colleges indicate no qualms about selling out the student information, which likely would lead the way to hundreds of lawsuits. There's an interesting quote by B.C. public affairs director Jack Dunn, who sums up the recording industry's problems this way, "You can argue that the RIAA is fighting for its survival."
The Times reports that the RIAA is also trying to get to the kids through their parents, with limited success. However, deep into the article is this heretofore unreported music industry strategy: tying file-swapping to pornography in an attempt to get Congress to pay more attention to their demands. After all, smut peddlers use file-swapping programs too. (If this strategy sounds remotely familiar it's because they did the Feds did the same thing in the 30s, outlawing the hemp plant by tying it to the beastly flowers it contained, cannabis, in a successful bid to clear the market for Dupont's new line of industrial fibers)
The Associated Press also revealed last week the intense digital detective work being conducted on behalf of the RIAA. A Brooklyn woman, known only as nycfashiongirl, is being sued for file-sharing. She tried to defend herself by claiming all of her files emanated from legitimate over-the-counter CD sales, but the RIAA is countering that they have traced all of the files back to Napster.
The RIAA nailed somebody last week, according to the LA Times, a defendant pleaded guilty to online piracy and now faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. This is noteworhty because it is the first successful criminal prosecution in the federal courts.
Also, there are new reports, released by the NPD Group, that show file-swapping has decreased dramatically since early June, when the RIAA first went on the offensive. However, this may not be as great of news as the industry hopes as the report concludes that only "lighter downloaders" have jumped ship. The big boys are still playing.
So it looks as if the RIAA is making some headway in the fight "for its survival." But though they may be claiming some legal victories, not everything is turning up roses. With every triumph comes additional questions and, in the print media anyway, new detractors.
One is syndicated columnist James Lileks. He has an interesting piece on how just how tough it's going to be for the RIAA in the long run. My favorite line is where he concludes, "What really plagues the industry is an antiquated business model that requires putting out 10 tons of overpriced junk in the hopes that 3 ounces will make 11 tons of money."
Ed Quillen of the Denver Post has a column on the somewhat murky and Big Media influenced manipulations of the United States Copyright Law, of which forms the crux of the RIAA rationale for sueing college students, and how they can be changed to suit the whims of the industry. Quillen: "It's fine with Disney if Lewis Carroll's work goes into the public domain to be used by Disney, but Disney will get the law changed before its critters reach the public domain." On the RIAA's benevolence on behalf of its artists: "One reason the companies do this, they say, is to make sure the recording artists get paid. That's got to be a joke."
So just another week in the trenches.
My viewpoint. First of all, not that I'm a genius or anything, but like Lileks I am on record as saying the problem with the industry is less the fault of piracy than it is with the refusal of the industry to change its excessive and talent-busting ways. And like Quillen, I have reported that although U.S. Copyright Law gives the industry a moral and legal footing, the laws can be changed if lobbyists can twist enough arms in Congress to skew it towards big business and away from artists, consumers and small time entrepenuers. Of course, when I point this out I am just being a "bitter" artist with nothing more than a sour grape to grind. So it's heartening that others in the mainstream media are echoing some of my previously archived sentiments.
But here's a couple more rants to throw out at you.
First, as for the industry employing high-tech digital sleuths to ferret out pirates. Can anyone besides me see the plainly obvious irony here? Some say the industry decline is due to perenially deficient talent. I have worked up a nice sweat about how the industry can't get off its butt and track down acts that fall between the cracks. Yet, apparently, the same industry can do plenty of great detective work finding out how you stole their music. Hey, dunderheads! If you used the same energy to track down quality acts, instead of making them jump through all number of frivolous hoops, you wouldn't be in this mess to begin with! Duh!
And. let's face it, the RIAA has staked it's whole strategy on the fact that it is internet piracy that is behind the sagging CD sales. So shouldn't a report that online piracy is down in numbers coincide with a report of surging CD sales? Well, here's the latest from Billboard and it appears the problem may be more than a few ungrateful college kids after all. To be fair, these figures are for the first half of the year - before the crackdown - but it still emphasizes a fly in their ointment. The fact is that the RIAA has not proven any actual quantifiable link between sagging sales and online piracy. What will they say when they scare away all the pirates and still nobody is buying their product? Who will they blame then?
Stay tuned.
I'm sure everyone is breathless waiting to find out what's new on the Internet piracy/RIAA front. Indeed, much has happened in just the last couple of weeks and all of it is noteworthy in one way or another.
Just today, on the traditional first day of college, two like-minded articles, one from Christian Science Monitor and a front-pager in the LA Times, address the issue of alternative education and the "moral" dilemma, mostly ignored by college students, that confront dorm-room pirates as they gleefully snatch music off the Internet for free.
The CSM piece looks at the problem from the viewpoint of two East coast colleges that have been subpoenaed (thus far unsucessfully) by the RIAA and how they are presently dealing with it, in terms of educating incoming freshmen, the most likely new piraters to the scene. Boston College and MIT have kept the wolves at bay for now by refusing to identify personal information about student/file swappers (the RIAA only knows their file user names), but according to the report only because the RIAA filed their subpoenas in Washington D.C. and not in Massachusetts. If the RIAA refiles, the colleges indicate no qualms about selling out the student information, which likely would lead the way to hundreds of lawsuits. There's an interesting quote by B.C. public affairs director Jack Dunn, who sums up the recording industry's problems this way, "You can argue that the RIAA is fighting for its survival."
The Times reports that the RIAA is also trying to get to the kids through their parents, with limited success. However, deep into the article is this heretofore unreported music industry strategy: tying file-swapping to pornography in an attempt to get Congress to pay more attention to their demands. After all, smut peddlers use file-swapping programs too. (If this strategy sounds remotely familiar it's because they did the Feds did the same thing in the 30s, outlawing the hemp plant by tying it to the beastly flowers it contained, cannabis, in a successful bid to clear the market for Dupont's new line of industrial fibers)
The Associated Press also revealed last week the intense digital detective work being conducted on behalf of the RIAA. A Brooklyn woman, known only as nycfashiongirl, is being sued for file-sharing. She tried to defend herself by claiming all of her files emanated from legitimate over-the-counter CD sales, but the RIAA is countering that they have traced all of the files back to Napster.
The RIAA nailed somebody last week, according to the LA Times, a defendant pleaded guilty to online piracy and now faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. This is noteworhty because it is the first successful criminal prosecution in the federal courts.
Also, there are new reports, released by the NPD Group, that show file-swapping has decreased dramatically since early June, when the RIAA first went on the offensive. However, this may not be as great of news as the industry hopes as the report concludes that only "lighter downloaders" have jumped ship. The big boys are still playing.
So it looks as if the RIAA is making some headway in the fight "for its survival." But though they may be claiming some legal victories, not everything is turning up roses. With every triumph comes additional questions and, in the print media anyway, new detractors.
One is syndicated columnist James Lileks. He has an interesting piece on how just how tough it's going to be for the RIAA in the long run. My favorite line is where he concludes, "What really plagues the industry is an antiquated business model that requires putting out 10 tons of overpriced junk in the hopes that 3 ounces will make 11 tons of money."
Ed Quillen of the Denver Post has a column on the somewhat murky and Big Media influenced manipulations of the United States Copyright Law, of which forms the crux of the RIAA rationale for sueing college students, and how they can be changed to suit the whims of the industry. Quillen: "It's fine with Disney if Lewis Carroll's work goes into the public domain to be used by Disney, but Disney will get the law changed before its critters reach the public domain." On the RIAA's benevolence on behalf of its artists: "One reason the companies do this, they say, is to make sure the recording artists get paid. That's got to be a joke."
So just another week in the trenches.
My viewpoint. First of all, not that I'm a genius or anything, but like Lileks I am on record as saying the problem with the industry is less the fault of piracy than it is with the refusal of the industry to change its excessive and talent-busting ways. And like Quillen, I have reported that although U.S. Copyright Law gives the industry a moral and legal footing, the laws can be changed if lobbyists can twist enough arms in Congress to skew it towards big business and away from artists, consumers and small time entrepenuers. Of course, when I point this out I am just being a "bitter" artist with nothing more than a sour grape to grind. So it's heartening that others in the mainstream media are echoing some of my previously archived sentiments.
But here's a couple more rants to throw out at you.
First, as for the industry employing high-tech digital sleuths to ferret out pirates. Can anyone besides me see the plainly obvious irony here? Some say the industry decline is due to perenially deficient talent. I have worked up a nice sweat about how the industry can't get off its butt and track down acts that fall between the cracks. Yet, apparently, the same industry can do plenty of great detective work finding out how you stole their music. Hey, dunderheads! If you used the same energy to track down quality acts, instead of making them jump through all number of frivolous hoops, you wouldn't be in this mess to begin with! Duh!
And. let's face it, the RIAA has staked it's whole strategy on the fact that it is internet piracy that is behind the sagging CD sales. So shouldn't a report that online piracy is down in numbers coincide with a report of surging CD sales? Well, here's the latest from Billboard and it appears the problem may be more than a few ungrateful college kids after all. To be fair, these figures are for the first half of the year - before the crackdown - but it still emphasizes a fly in their ointment. The fact is that the RIAA has not proven any actual quantifiable link between sagging sales and online piracy. What will they say when they scare away all the pirates and still nobody is buying their product? Who will they blame then?
Stay tuned.
Sunday, August 31, 2003
CULTURE WARS R U.S.
I had this dream the other night. In the dream I was in Dan Quayle's seat at the 1988 Vice Presidential debate, and seated on the other side was Clarence Darrow, of Scopes Monkey Trial fame (actually, it was Spencer Tracy in the role of Clarence Darrow, that's how I knew it was him). So we're having this debate and at one point I make a point about the "culture wars" and next thing I know Darrow is all over me, thundering out in a booming voice:
"Culture war! Let me tell you something Mr. P, I know culture wars and what you are fighting for is no culture war!"
Or something like that. It was a hell of a dream.
Anywho, after all this hoohaw over my idea of a culture war, I thought it might be revealing to see just what constitutes a culture war these days, at least in the eyes of the media. So I popped "culture war" into a Lexus-Nexis search and came up with no less than 60 articles in just the last month and a half that mentioned some current news event in the context of "culture war." The two most prominent wars being fought currently would come as no surprise to anyone who has even a toe in the water of current events. However, it is apparent that the term "culture war" is applied liberally to a wide range of topics - some heavy-duty, others rather trivial - and that in itself is noteworthy. It makes sense, in pure media terms, because conflict is what makes news in the first place. Everyone always brays about the paucity of "good" news, but the truth is that very few people read or watch news that is conflict-free. And since culture by nature is this ever-changing void that is shaped and molded by an entire society, it stands to reason that there is always going to be some kind of battle being fought somewhere. Here is what we have just for August 2003:
Gay rights are at the forefront this month, if not every month somewhere, but especially in light of the decision by the Episcopal Church to accept gay priests. Also, same-sex marriage has been a hot topic this month, and there are the many new TV programs ("Queer Eye") that are getting lots of attention. In fact, just today in the LA Times is an article by Shawn Hubler on the marriage issue, and "culture war" is invoked. Separate from this, but timed well, as a commodity, is a new movie entitled "Family Fundamentals," a documentary on Christian fundamentalists who have gay children, that was released this month.
The controversy over the 10 Commandments monument in Alabama is also a bonafide culture war. The Houston Chronicle reported on Aug. 21 that a man walked 700 miles from Austin, Texas to Montgomery in a frock, and engaged in a 10-day hunger strike on top of that, to show his solidarity with Judge Moore on the issue. He is quoted as saying, simply, "This is a culture war."
On top of that, there is recording industry icon and TV pundit Daniel Goldberg, who is on a junket to promote his new book "Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit." This book is a historical study as well as a memoir - it chronicles the culture disparity between Left and Right, and how Goldberg feels the Right has absorbed more power in the last 20 years by courting the youngsters and influencing them to become Republicans.
But these constitute about half of what has been reported in the United States in just the last month and a half, and that's just the newspapers. There are various other sundry wars being played out across the country: Former Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin gets paroled, invoking the past culture wars of the 60's (Newsday, 8-25), college academics vs. hip-hop intellectualism (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8-25), the Catholic League vs. shock jocks (NY Daily News, 8-18), culture in American voting patterns (Times London, 8-8), Bush judicial nominees (Buffalo News, 8-4), the surge of SUV's vs. fuel effiency (NY Times, 7-29 & Hartford Courant, 8-29). In one or two articles Pat Buchanan and the early 90's Republican party culture war is mentioned, as well as Newt Gingrich (Hartford Courant, 8-29) and his role in the Clinton culture wars. Even the Lewis & Clark Bicentenial is reported as having avoided a culture war, as opposed to the Christopher Columbus quincentenary in 1992, which ignited one (Washington Post, 8-25). And the Christian Science Monitor used the Scopes Monkey Trial in an article on modernism vs. religious fundamental laws (8-21). Government funded art popped up a couple of times, including an 8-21 NY Daily News piece on the Howl! Fest, attended by the notorious Karen Finley who "was not a favorite of conservatives when she smeared her naked body with chocolate onstage at the height of the '90s culture wars."
And culture war is not just an obsession in America. In Australia right now there is a big huge donnybrook being fought between the rival political parties and such subjects as, according to The Australian (8-4), "philisophical relativism, Judeo-Christian heritage, victim mentality and Australia's place in the world." I mean, there is some heavy shit going on down under.
In any case, there is more than enough evidence here to conclude that America not only fights these wars on a daily basis, somewhere, for whatever reason, but that the media is only more than happy to report all these tiffs as culture wars. I have suspected for quite some time that linguistics and semiotics plays a large role in understanding the media. Of course, those were two subjects I did not take at school, so I am at a loss to explain just how important that role is, at least for now. But if semiotics is the study of the signs and signals of communication, then certainly the term "culture war" is the most convenient way for the media to designate the various battles that take place. Americans are comfortable with the term, even if the term itself is applied liberally to jarringly disparate subjects, almost so many that it risks being diluted by overuse and misuse (as with the now useless term "awesome", now used to describe any banal event that comes down the pike - "You washed your hands for dinner? Awesome!").
Of course, the media has not quite connected the line from A to B as regards to the problems facing the music industry as being the result of culture wars fought and lost, but you know, part of the culture is that of what I call the "promo pack" model - where elites sit back and wait for a nice packaged design (from an artist or publicist) to hit their desk instead of pounding the pavement in search of whatever it is they are hoping to find. This is central to my argument - that this type of thinking has to change because it eliminates all such artists that don't fall neatly into this model. In a boom market, this model is understandable; in a bust market, it is worthless.
And that's all I am saying - models have to be current with the culture. If they begin to fail, you have to be smart enough to construct another one. The reason this hasn't happened yet in the music industry, in my opinion, is that most of the bigshots are still earning truckloads of money somehow. When the pot of gold vanishes, lots of these bigshots will find out too late that they should have been adapting their models to meet the needs of the changing technology.
And as I peruse these articles on current culture wars, two stick out the most to me. One is the Goldberg book, and his notion that political affiliation starts very early in the process, when you are a teenager. I am attempting to make the same point when I say that kids in the early 90's started looking away from rock and roll for inspiration and to the newer, fresher, more appealing genres like hip-hop, pop and country. I believe that is why these genres have more star appeal in today's market place. The only way to overcome this is to fight another war.
And, secondly, the Finley piece, if only because once smearing chocolate over yourself onstage was considered "controversial", especially if Americans were picking up the bill, and also since I kinda do that myself and it's accepted. When I do it (not 100% naked, but at least 98%) it is wacky, it is gross, it is outrageous, but never is it "too much". I'm really only a hurdle or two away from making it somewhat mainstream.
This is not as far fetched as it sounds. It wasn't all that long ago that anyone putting any weird color in their hair, or bleaching it in an unacceptable shade, was absolutely verboten in society. Hell, in the 80s we wrote a song about it called "You Look Stupid". Punk fashion, however you construct it, was just nor ready for prime time as currently as five years ago. Now, you can do just about any damn thing to your hair - mohawk it, shave it, make it a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavor nightmare - and it's like, okay. You can go to work or to school and almost no one bats an eyelid.
Strange, isn't it?
I had this dream the other night. In the dream I was in Dan Quayle's seat at the 1988 Vice Presidential debate, and seated on the other side was Clarence Darrow, of Scopes Monkey Trial fame (actually, it was Spencer Tracy in the role of Clarence Darrow, that's how I knew it was him). So we're having this debate and at one point I make a point about the "culture wars" and next thing I know Darrow is all over me, thundering out in a booming voice:
"Culture war! Let me tell you something Mr. P, I know culture wars and what you are fighting for is no culture war!"
Or something like that. It was a hell of a dream.
Anywho, after all this hoohaw over my idea of a culture war, I thought it might be revealing to see just what constitutes a culture war these days, at least in the eyes of the media. So I popped "culture war" into a Lexus-Nexis search and came up with no less than 60 articles in just the last month and a half that mentioned some current news event in the context of "culture war." The two most prominent wars being fought currently would come as no surprise to anyone who has even a toe in the water of current events. However, it is apparent that the term "culture war" is applied liberally to a wide range of topics - some heavy-duty, others rather trivial - and that in itself is noteworthy. It makes sense, in pure media terms, because conflict is what makes news in the first place. Everyone always brays about the paucity of "good" news, but the truth is that very few people read or watch news that is conflict-free. And since culture by nature is this ever-changing void that is shaped and molded by an entire society, it stands to reason that there is always going to be some kind of battle being fought somewhere. Here is what we have just for August 2003:
Gay rights are at the forefront this month, if not every month somewhere, but especially in light of the decision by the Episcopal Church to accept gay priests. Also, same-sex marriage has been a hot topic this month, and there are the many new TV programs ("Queer Eye") that are getting lots of attention. In fact, just today in the LA Times is an article by Shawn Hubler on the marriage issue, and "culture war" is invoked. Separate from this, but timed well, as a commodity, is a new movie entitled "Family Fundamentals," a documentary on Christian fundamentalists who have gay children, that was released this month.
The controversy over the 10 Commandments monument in Alabama is also a bonafide culture war. The Houston Chronicle reported on Aug. 21 that a man walked 700 miles from Austin, Texas to Montgomery in a frock, and engaged in a 10-day hunger strike on top of that, to show his solidarity with Judge Moore on the issue. He is quoted as saying, simply, "This is a culture war."
On top of that, there is recording industry icon and TV pundit Daniel Goldberg, who is on a junket to promote his new book "Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit." This book is a historical study as well as a memoir - it chronicles the culture disparity between Left and Right, and how Goldberg feels the Right has absorbed more power in the last 20 years by courting the youngsters and influencing them to become Republicans.
But these constitute about half of what has been reported in the United States in just the last month and a half, and that's just the newspapers. There are various other sundry wars being played out across the country: Former Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin gets paroled, invoking the past culture wars of the 60's (Newsday, 8-25), college academics vs. hip-hop intellectualism (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8-25), the Catholic League vs. shock jocks (NY Daily News, 8-18), culture in American voting patterns (Times London, 8-8), Bush judicial nominees (Buffalo News, 8-4), the surge of SUV's vs. fuel effiency (NY Times, 7-29 & Hartford Courant, 8-29). In one or two articles Pat Buchanan and the early 90's Republican party culture war is mentioned, as well as Newt Gingrich (Hartford Courant, 8-29) and his role in the Clinton culture wars. Even the Lewis & Clark Bicentenial is reported as having avoided a culture war, as opposed to the Christopher Columbus quincentenary in 1992, which ignited one (Washington Post, 8-25). And the Christian Science Monitor used the Scopes Monkey Trial in an article on modernism vs. religious fundamental laws (8-21). Government funded art popped up a couple of times, including an 8-21 NY Daily News piece on the Howl! Fest, attended by the notorious Karen Finley who "was not a favorite of conservatives when she smeared her naked body with chocolate onstage at the height of the '90s culture wars."
And culture war is not just an obsession in America. In Australia right now there is a big huge donnybrook being fought between the rival political parties and such subjects as, according to The Australian (8-4), "philisophical relativism, Judeo-Christian heritage, victim mentality and Australia's place in the world." I mean, there is some heavy shit going on down under.
In any case, there is more than enough evidence here to conclude that America not only fights these wars on a daily basis, somewhere, for whatever reason, but that the media is only more than happy to report all these tiffs as culture wars. I have suspected for quite some time that linguistics and semiotics plays a large role in understanding the media. Of course, those were two subjects I did not take at school, so I am at a loss to explain just how important that role is, at least for now. But if semiotics is the study of the signs and signals of communication, then certainly the term "culture war" is the most convenient way for the media to designate the various battles that take place. Americans are comfortable with the term, even if the term itself is applied liberally to jarringly disparate subjects, almost so many that it risks being diluted by overuse and misuse (as with the now useless term "awesome", now used to describe any banal event that comes down the pike - "You washed your hands for dinner? Awesome!").
Of course, the media has not quite connected the line from A to B as regards to the problems facing the music industry as being the result of culture wars fought and lost, but you know, part of the culture is that of what I call the "promo pack" model - where elites sit back and wait for a nice packaged design (from an artist or publicist) to hit their desk instead of pounding the pavement in search of whatever it is they are hoping to find. This is central to my argument - that this type of thinking has to change because it eliminates all such artists that don't fall neatly into this model. In a boom market, this model is understandable; in a bust market, it is worthless.
And that's all I am saying - models have to be current with the culture. If they begin to fail, you have to be smart enough to construct another one. The reason this hasn't happened yet in the music industry, in my opinion, is that most of the bigshots are still earning truckloads of money somehow. When the pot of gold vanishes, lots of these bigshots will find out too late that they should have been adapting their models to meet the needs of the changing technology.
And as I peruse these articles on current culture wars, two stick out the most to me. One is the Goldberg book, and his notion that political affiliation starts very early in the process, when you are a teenager. I am attempting to make the same point when I say that kids in the early 90's started looking away from rock and roll for inspiration and to the newer, fresher, more appealing genres like hip-hop, pop and country. I believe that is why these genres have more star appeal in today's market place. The only way to overcome this is to fight another war.
And, secondly, the Finley piece, if only because once smearing chocolate over yourself onstage was considered "controversial", especially if Americans were picking up the bill, and also since I kinda do that myself and it's accepted. When I do it (not 100% naked, but at least 98%) it is wacky, it is gross, it is outrageous, but never is it "too much". I'm really only a hurdle or two away from making it somewhat mainstream.
This is not as far fetched as it sounds. It wasn't all that long ago that anyone putting any weird color in their hair, or bleaching it in an unacceptable shade, was absolutely verboten in society. Hell, in the 80s we wrote a song about it called "You Look Stupid". Punk fashion, however you construct it, was just nor ready for prime time as currently as five years ago. Now, you can do just about any damn thing to your hair - mohawk it, shave it, make it a Baskin-Robbins 31 flavor nightmare - and it's like, okay. You can go to work or to school and almost no one bats an eyelid.
Strange, isn't it?
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