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Jan. 28th, 2004 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutI was intending to write a cogent reply to the "Girl or Eight?" post and the responses it engendered (cough), but that will have to wait until tomorrow, because something else came up.
To wit: the East Bay Express's book section this week.
The teaser for the cover article is the pullquote "Why is it that anyone with a record player and an opinion feels qualified to write about music?" A sentiment that most working music journalists can probably get behind, almost instinctively. Rah rah rah!
Except that the sentiment is actually directed against Jeff Chang.
Specifically, the article opens up with a four-paragraph attack on Chang's Bay Guardian review of Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2003. It mentions in passing that Chang has a book coming out later this year. In fact, I think it's obvious that this is a cheap shot, an attempt to slag said book before it even hits print -- it's supposed to be a roundup review of a bunch of books related to music, and the first book mentioned isn't even out yet. I smell a vendetta.
Here I must confess my partisanship. Not only did I like Chang's original review, but he was my Music Journalism instructor at the Media Alliance (he's on the board), and, well, he's just a darn nice guy, too. I am a stupid besotted fan. I don't support everything he says unconditionally, but I find he always has interesting and thoughtful takes on music. Certainly he's got more than "a record player and an opinion" going for him.
It's telling, I think, that Matt King, the author of this article, doesn't like hip-hop -- and admits it with a sneer: "the truth about popular hip-hop that few are willing to admit is that it traveled from the dawn of Public Enemy to decadence in a matter of months, from daring to gross self-satire in the space of a few records." (Note the weasel-word "popular" there. And also note that Chang is known for his connections to various alternative hip-hop scenes, and isn't shy about covering non- popular acts that he thinks are worth the ink.)
Well, if you don't like hip-hop, you're not going to like Jeff Chang, that's for sure, and you're not going to appreciate his critique of Da Capo. "About half the 21 essays in its 2003 edition, edited by The Simpsons creator and veteran rock critic Matt Groening, discuss what Chang would call 'black' music. There are, for example, historical pieces on NWA, Motown, and postwar jazz." But how many of those pieces are written by people of color? That's the demographic question Chang was really posing in his review, and King seems to have missed the point. Deliberately or not.
I wouldn't be so pissed if it weren't for the cheap shot, though. Dismissing a book before it's even out is poor form. Doing so through a secondhand critique of an otherwise unrelated article is downright dirty pool. Certainly not unprecedented in the annals of literary criticism, but come on.
To wit: the East Bay Express's book section this week.
The teaser for the cover article is the pullquote "Why is it that anyone with a record player and an opinion feels qualified to write about music?" A sentiment that most working music journalists can probably get behind, almost instinctively. Rah rah rah!
Except that the sentiment is actually directed against Jeff Chang.
Specifically, the article opens up with a four-paragraph attack on Chang's Bay Guardian review of Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2003. It mentions in passing that Chang has a book coming out later this year. In fact, I think it's obvious that this is a cheap shot, an attempt to slag said book before it even hits print -- it's supposed to be a roundup review of a bunch of books related to music, and the first book mentioned isn't even out yet. I smell a vendetta.
Here I must confess my partisanship. Not only did I like Chang's original review, but he was my Music Journalism instructor at the Media Alliance (he's on the board), and, well, he's just a darn nice guy, too. I am a stupid besotted fan. I don't support everything he says unconditionally, but I find he always has interesting and thoughtful takes on music. Certainly he's got more than "a record player and an opinion" going for him.
It's telling, I think, that Matt King, the author of this article, doesn't like hip-hop -- and admits it with a sneer: "the truth about popular hip-hop that few are willing to admit is that it traveled from the dawn of Public Enemy to decadence in a matter of months, from daring to gross self-satire in the space of a few records." (Note the weasel-word "popular" there. And also note that Chang is known for his connections to various alternative hip-hop scenes, and isn't shy about covering non- popular acts that he thinks are worth the ink.)
Well, if you don't like hip-hop, you're not going to like Jeff Chang, that's for sure, and you're not going to appreciate his critique of Da Capo. "About half the 21 essays in its 2003 edition, edited by The Simpsons creator and veteran rock critic Matt Groening, discuss what Chang would call 'black' music. There are, for example, historical pieces on NWA, Motown, and postwar jazz." But how many of those pieces are written by people of color? That's the demographic question Chang was really posing in his review, and King seems to have missed the point. Deliberately or not.
I wouldn't be so pissed if it weren't for the cheap shot, though. Dismissing a book before it's even out is poor form. Doing so through a secondhand critique of an otherwise unrelated article is downright dirty pool. Certainly not unprecedented in the annals of literary criticism, but come on.
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Date: 2004-01-29 06:31 am (UTC)