Pop Music MusingsI realize that no one gives a diddly damn about what I think about the recordings to follow. But I have a good ear for pop, and here's my opinion on some things I've heard lately:
Green Day: American Idiot
While I liked much of their music, one thing I didn't like about The Clash was their "we're the only band that matters" slogan and attitude. There were plenty of bands that "mattered" besides The Clash even at their peak. And if to "matter" meant to have some effect on the politics in England, they didn't succeed. Not a single Tory began to rethink his/her political dialectic in socialist terms just because The Clash were there saying things had better change...
Green Day borrows both from The Clash's rhetoric and their music. They seem to think that by being the only major label group to openly try and stick it to the Bush Administration that what they do "matters" in the same sense. It doesn't - America is going to continue being what it is, at least for the time being, unfortunately. And it doesn't help that most of Green Day's music sounds the same. American Idiot was supposed to challenge me, but instead it bored me.
Gwen Stefani: Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Gwen is a rich white woman who is slumming in other people's cultures. She is able to take her limo down to South Central, hit the pipe with the homeboys and then fly to Japan for a runway show. Along the way she is able to gorge herself with cool culture, but in a way that suggests a kind of gluttony rather than a heartfelt absorption of what the culture is or means. She practices a kind of cultural imperialism in hopes that other fools will think she is some kind of multi-cultural goddess of everything that's cool - borrowing a page from Madonna's book.
But Madonna she ain't, and she needs a better role model, or at least better career advice. There is this idea among pop musicians that pushing difficult social issues represents a kind of innovation in music, important as they have no means, guts or knowhow to innovate in the music itself. Gwen views herself as an actress playing a variety of roles, much as Madonna did. But by the time Madonna dropped her mask and decided to let us in on what she was really up to, the world that she revealed was so horrifying that only creeps, perverts and weirdos wanted to follow her there. And Gwen seems to be well down that track.
"Long Way to Go" is practically an advertisement for interracial love, something that is not going to sit well with many parents, especially in the South and in the Red States. Teenage girls are by far and away her largest audience, yet one can imagine the J-girl who likes "Harajuku Girls" going "Wha-?" when "Long Way to Go" turns up on the I-Pod. Gwen thinks she's doing African-America a favor by extolling their struggle against justice, but she doesn't seem to be aware that the vast majority of African-Americans are hard working, religious folk who do not need her help. Therewith her effort is dedicated to uplifting the cause of gang-bangers who would gladly kick her pretty blonde head in as to have sex with her, especially if they could figure out how to get at her money. "Party at my house, and Gwen's paying for it." This makes Gwen appear as a supreme fool rather than as goddess.
You can't escape "Hollaback Girl" this summer, but if she expects to be around next summer, she needs to find a new angle. This one might serve her in South Central, but will not play in Peoria. The business of the music business trying to conduct itself like the tobacco industry, hooking innocent people on things that they are not supposed to desire or don't properly understand, is getting old and played out. At least Carmen Miranda knew how to sell a banana without putting the word "shit" before every mention of it. "come on, potty mon, potty me banana."
Avril Lavigne: Let Go
It was hard for me to concentrate on the songs that have been overexposed, but I perservered. Musically Avril's album is quite excellent, with great production and imaginative arrangements. She's not half bad herself, although she uses that pseudo-yodelling thing a bit too much, and she should consider having good songwriters write new material for her - some of her lyrics are kind of dumb. Of these three, this was the only album I felt like returning to again, but I'd still have to skip "Complicated" and "Naked" - I've heard these songs too far many times already.
Uncle Dave Lewis