The Roar of the Masses Could be Farts
Admitting you like columnist David Brooks is kind of like admitting that you’re not trying to get to the right or left of anyone. The guy goes straight up the middle, which, in these polarized times, is rather annoying to some on the fringe. I suspect that a few of them will be upset by his characterization of the present-day pop and rock scene in this column from today’s NYT.
The column deals with über-segmentation, which is, as Brooks asserts, a long tail issue. That is, the many (all the bands that sell under, say, 100,000 to 500,000) can rival the few (the blockbusters) as long as there are good sales channels, such as Amazon or ArkivMusic.com. Brooks thinks it’s a problem. His solution? Ask Springsteen sideman Steve Van Zandt.
“Van Zandt has a way to counter all this, at least where music is concerned. He’s drawn up a high school music curriculum that tells American history through music. It would introduce students to Muddy Waters, the Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. He’s trying to use music to motivate and engage students, but most of all, he is trying to establish a canon, a common tradition that reminds students that they are inheritors of a long conversation.”
It seems to me, though, that the long-tail thing is a by-product of democratization. Just because you play kids a bunch of Dylan records doesn’t mean that they’ll like them better than the T-Pain track they just downloaded onto their iPod. When I was a kid, I would’ve much rather purchased a Joy Division record than a Dire Straits record, but, in my hometown, the Dire Straits record was all you could find. So, what we’re seeing now boils down to choice. More choice equals greater fragmentation.
It’s the downside of liberalization. When you give the people more options, you might not like what they choose.
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November 20th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Brooks likes to give the perception that he goes down the middle, but that’s not the case. His article defending Reagan’s use of the term “states rights” in a Mississippi speech was pure right-wing nonsense. So Brooks suddenly being interested in integration is laughable. His defense of Iraq policy and numerous other Bush things are just right-wing formula speak with a smiley face on them. This article was just more of the same.
Miami Steve and Bruce grew up listening to AM radio didn’t they—not some canon formulated by some upper 50s something guy (not that there’s anything automatically wrong with being a Sopranos actor into garage rock)?
So is it just kids without broadband internet who are listening to the major label rockers on commercial radio?
November 21st, 2007 at 9:20 am
Brooks ignores some of the same things SFJ ignores and then compounds things and makes it even worse. Like SFJ he does not explain why Eminem, Justin Timberlake and other pop folks, LCD SoundSystem, jam bands, and current groups incorporating afropop are willing to avoid political correctness fears and embrace and employ African-American or African or Caribbean rhythms.
There is also no real discussion of context. The role of major label only commercial rock radiosince the 70s and how it relates to earlier AM hits radio and FM freeform radio, and the fact that some folks who were listening to the Beatles in ‘64 were missing out on James Brown is not covered. The fact that fragmentation existed long before anyone talked about long tails does not mesh with Brook’s simplistic analysis.