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One of my favorite Bowie songs:



I'm reading the 33 1/3 series on Low. It's really good, one of the better one's I've read. The first chapter talks about Station to Station, and I almost wish the whole book was about that album. It's a fascinating point in Bowie's career, made even more intriguing by the fact that no one can seem to remember recording the album. The record seems really personal and it has the electronic experimentation, the plastic soul, and the glam rock all kind of duking it out.

It’s still ok to have reservations about Michael Jackson

   Look, this isn’t about me. I don’t get any sort of pleasure from being on the outside of collective human suffering. I understand that a very talented man died, and a lot of people are upset.
But I still don’t get it. I understand the enormity of his talent and fame. I understand his unreal celebrity status and his too-ridiculous-to-be-true personal biography. I know about the seductive and hallucinogenic quality of celebrity disaster. But the reaction to MJ’s death just doesn’t add up. Wasn’t he already dead? I don’t mean to be crass here. I mean, didn’t the MJ that America fell in love disappear somewhere during the 90s? Didn’t we watch the man slowly disintegrate before our eyes as the truth of his abusive past and the allegations of pedantry surfaced. I know there was a big trial not too long ago, but didn’t that already prove that the Michael Jackson of the 80’s had finally been eclipsed by Wacko Jacko.
   And this is why I sighed a little at the news of his death. Not a sigh of boredom, but a sigh of relief. Not of personal relief, but relief on behalf of the man himself. Relief that the whole horror show of celebrity decay was over, and that the man can finally leave a world that really didn’t suite him. I had a vain and ultimately vanquished hope that after his death we could finally see him as a human being and put the whole tragedy in perspective.
   Silly me, I should have known that his death would stir the same voyeuristic panting fandom that has plagued him during his life. And I can’t help from being more than disgusted by it.
   When I was too young to fathom why or how, Kurt Cobain committed suicide. He was a huge celebrity to me, even though I was too young to identify fully with what he stood for. In time, he would become a mythical figure in my mind, the misunderstood musical rebel plagued by fame and his own personal pain. In even more time, I would have to come to terms with my (our) problematic mythology of the man. And now, I see the symbolic importance of his death: the end of the tragic rock and roll hero. It wasn’t a final, total end. Nor was he the last musician to die by his own hand. But I see his death as the end of the rockstar era, and for so many reasons that is an unequivocal good.
   Nirvana famously knocked MJ off the top 40 charts he’d dominated for so long. It’s tempting to think this has some historical significance, a changing of the guard, a rock and roll coup, the end of an era. Rockists see it as a victory for gritty and authentic music over slick and sterile pop. I’m sure there’s another camp that saw this as a big downer, and a sign of the boring decade to come. (On a side note, I doubt Kurt had it in for Michael as much as he had it in for hair metal and G&R. And we should thank grunge for killing that genre). The issue for me isn’t who was the better star (MJ, no question), the better artist (debatable, probably MJ), or who was more fucked up (even split). The issue I have is our desire to turn people into spectacles. Kurt Cobain as alterna rock savior and Michael Jackson as pop deity are more than silly titles, they’re destructive expectations.
   And so, yes, I feel really off about celebrating the musical career of a man who was coerced into the entertainment business by the threat of domestic violence. I see a great problem with wanting to gloss over his fall from grace to celebrate his years of greatness, because few are willing to admit that crazy MJ has anything to do/is the same man as the king of pop. He was brilliant, yes, incredibly brilliant. But I don’t want to hear the words god given talent. Why? Because his talent and the fame it brought him was no blessing. That talent was fostered and exploited by a maniacal father and a sanguinary entertainment industry. That fame allowed him to disappear into himself in a multimillion dollar fantasy world funded by you and I.
   Well, ok, maybe that’s unfair. I’ll stop shorting of hanging all the blame on his fans. They really do adore him, and most want only to see the best in their idol. But that same impulse also pushes back all the dirty pain stuff, and I wonder if that’s why Michael himself never seemed to come to grips with reality. No one wanted him to be real.
   I bring Kurt Cobain up for this reason. Kurt was plagued the opposite curse, the pain and suffering only curse. The same unfortunate situation Ian Curtis found himself in. When you make your name and reputation being the perpetual downer, you’re already painted into a corner. You’re not allowed to make fun music. And your fans only want to see and know the pain and suffering, they only want the martyr. Well, I’d rather have a living Kurt Cobain that faded away. That ultimately was his choice to make, but I think that was the stupidest decision he ever made. And you know what, I’d rather have had a human Michael Jackson, a man who could eventually look hard into his past and at least try to come to terms with it. From what I can tell, he did try. But eventually, it was just easier to disappear into a world where he couldn’t be touched.
   And I’m back where I started. Listening to Barry Gordy mourn Michael Jackson and feeling sick to my stomach about it. Hearing the hitmaker wax elegiac about the greatness of a star, completely ignoring his humanity. And I’m hoping that the popstar era is dying with him, dying with the music industry as we know it, and hoping there isn’t a new generation of Joe Jacksons and Barry Gordys waiting and ready to exploit the talent of tomorrow.
   I know it’s not true as I remind myself of the Disney channel celebrity making machine and the fucked up (but successful) kids it chews up and spits out. But maybe one of those kids is watching the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and thinking long and hard about the price of a life lived in the spotlight. One can only hope.

New Music in Brief

Between a new job and being in a band that is coalescing into more of a reality than a fantasy, I haven't had as much time to listen to new music. Summer is also a culprit. Albums are a good way to keep my sanity during the dark and cold seasons, but during the summer a nice bike ride or a walk is all I need to escape whatever stresses come my way. Also, my mp3 player is busted. Yet, some things have popped up on my radar worth mentioning.

The Diamond District-In The Ruff

I've been listening to this since the first couple days of spring warmth, and I can't say enough about how this is a perfect summer afternoon album. I'm at a loss as to how to push this album on my friends. Usually I can point to several awesome 'oh shit' moments on an album to lure someone in. This album doesn't run high on those moments, which is no slight. The charm and strength is in its sustained level of quality, and it's warm lived-in yet confident production. Neither the beats nor the rhymes ever steal the show, but work together letting it all go down easy. And yet, during that time these guys paint a refreshingly honest and clear eyed view of American life in the Obama era, despite the occasional dated Bush reference. And the beats are so good. Just straight up flawless musicianship. Like that organ part on “I Mean Business” that could have been hackneyed, chopped up, or overdone. Instead, it hangs there haunting, Oddisee having the foresight to let it ride through a long progression, allowing it to play perfectly with that little rhodes part when it comes in. And when it fades into “Get In Line,” it's like, yess. That's what this album trades in, those yess moments that make it look so easy. The title track is just one long yess moment, especially when it hits it's stumbling outro. Put this on when you're doing dishes or something, watch your quality of life improve.

Five O'clock Shadow Boxers-The Slow Twilight

A dark, brooding album not afraid to sample Radiohead or Velvet Underground for maximum effect. I have to say, I was surprised how well they used such recognizable source material. Sometimes when people have the balls (gall) to sample something like Venus In Furs, it feels like a celebrity cameo. Charming and sometimes exciting, but ultimately a distraction. The grimy production pulls these samples into its own sense of paranoia and violence, not unlike the way Scorcesse can get away with using Rolling Stones hits (well, before that was a punchline). Zilla himself is so so as an MC. I mean, he's not lacking in ambition or tenacity, but he's not engaging enough to live up to his dramatic backdrop. It's like you're expecting Travis Bickle to come out with his gun in hand, and instead you get some guy talking about being a weird kid in high school, his grandma's tuna sandwiches, and how he took enough martial arts that he doesn't need a gun to fuck you up.


Sunset Rubdown-Dragonslayer

Spencer Krug has taken some cues from Dan Bejar and has learned how to wield his maniacal yelping into self referential epics. Not that his previous work was anything less than epic, but Dragonslayer is less aural onslaught and more lyrical, and fuck it, way more musical than Random Spirit Lover. Whereas RSL was so much catharsis and exclamation points, Dragonslayer is more nimble, more dynamic, and more rewarding for it. Sure, RSL is some document of impenetrable genius. But Dragonslayer makes good on some promises made by Krug's earlier work. It's occasionally just downright beautiful. Like the refrain “Anna Anna Anna oh, why'd you change your name?”