I'm In With The Out Crowd
Sep. 17th, 2012 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotHaven't listened yet to the whole Farrah Abraham album or followed much of the discussion. But Phil Freeman calls it "pure outsider art — fucking brilliant. Makes Peaches and Le Tigre sound like Taylor Swift." And Dave seems to be endorsing this characterization, "outsider art," in his Atlantic piece. Not sure whether or not I'd use it on her, or how often I'd use it on anyone. But to poke around further, let's ask the following questions:
(1) What is Farrah Abraham outside of?
(2) What might she be inside of? Who might her models and sources be?
I'm thinking of people like Teena Marie, Sophie B. Hawkins, Stevie Nicks — not as Farrah's sources or models, but as people who had sources and models themselves for their ideas of song lyrics and liner-note poetry; they were drawing on ideas of poetry that were probably as abundant as "real" poets' ideas, if not more abundant.*
EDIT (June 2019): Farrah seems to have deleted all the vids from My Teenage Dream Ended, but here, at least, is what she sounded like ("On My Own"):
END EDIT
*As far as I know, Teena, Sophie, and Stevie were never called outsider art (nor were Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, for that matter, whom I wouldn't say were themselves altogether "inside," and who probably helped to make Teena et al. possible, though were hardly their main sources). But this might be just because no mainstream critics ever made much of a case for Teena et al. as poets (unlike Dylan and Morrison, whom I'm keeping inside parentheses — Dylan was sometimes slotted as "folk poetry," a term that hardly explains anything, but does point to people not being merely outside).
By the way, I don't think Farrah presents her stuff as poetry, but that doesn't mean she doesn't draw on poetry. Actually, I've never seen the Teen Mom shows, nor do I know much about her, nor have I read her book; so I don't know if she's claimed any poetic ambition. I'm guessing not, from the way she embeds her words in home-made pop tracks.
(1) What is Farrah Abraham outside of?
(2) What might she be inside of? Who might her models and sources be?
I'm thinking of people like Teena Marie, Sophie B. Hawkins, Stevie Nicks — not as Farrah's sources or models, but as people who had sources and models themselves for their ideas of song lyrics and liner-note poetry; they were drawing on ideas of poetry that were probably as abundant as "real" poets' ideas, if not more abundant.*
EDIT (June 2019): Farrah seems to have deleted all the vids from My Teenage Dream Ended, but here, at least, is what she sounded like ("On My Own"):
END EDIT
*As far as I know, Teena, Sophie, and Stevie were never called outsider art (nor were Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison, for that matter, whom I wouldn't say were themselves altogether "inside," and who probably helped to make Teena et al. possible, though were hardly their main sources). But this might be just because no mainstream critics ever made much of a case for Teena et al. as poets (unlike Dylan and Morrison, whom I'm keeping inside parentheses — Dylan was sometimes slotted as "folk poetry," a term that hardly explains anything, but does point to people not being merely outside).
By the way, I don't think Farrah presents her stuff as poetry, but that doesn't mean she doesn't draw on poetry. Actually, I've never seen the Teen Mom shows, nor do I know much about her, nor have I read her book; so I don't know if she's claimed any poetic ambition. I'm guessing not, from the way she embeds her words in home-made pop tracks.
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Date: 2012-09-17 04:20 pm (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VhuhdggrhE
Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-18 12:58 pm (UTC)I hesitate to buy into these distinctions, but Comolli & Narboni developed a kind of taxonomy for "outside/inside" in *Cahiers du Cinema* -- their categories describe something like the intentionality or unintentionality of "dominant ideology" (hmm) and "subversiveness" (hmm), with one category for straight-up dominant ideology (e.g. propaganda), one for straight-up resistance, and then others for things that are not "straight-up."
I actually don't find these categories that useful, but the idea that there are lots of different ways to do "what's expected" and "what's unexpected" -- to pander to the expected and to genuinely or accidentally defy convention (and, further, that these ways of conforming and defying cluster) might have some value somehow, outside of the reductive ideological lens.
I'd put Ashlee in with Stevie, Sophie, and Teena, at least in terms of "impact according to what's there (according to me/critics I know)" versus "impact according to (other) critics." They create their own "inside," which sometimes connects with a real "inside" (all were legitimately popular in some kind of mainstream) but also connects with an "outside" through critical conversations about the artists. (Maybe not unlike what the auteur critics were doing with Howard Hawks et al?)
The complaint about Ariel Pink and Jandek on ILM was that there's no "outside" left for them -- ditto Daniel Johnston, who recently had a show at the Whitney Biennial and is pretty widely regarded as an "inside" (art world) artist. "Outsider" usually just means "person who can't say the same of their own work that most people looking at their work can say of it; isn't invited to the same conversations or come from the same world." That would probably be a connection for Teena or Ashlee (neither of whom I'd call "outsider artists," though...), not so much for Bob Dylan or Stevie Nicks. Outsider is a bit of a shell game, where sometimes it's the backstory that counts and sometimes it's the recorded output. Even the "definitive" outsider compilations confuse the terms -- Chuswid's Songs in the Key of Z has stuff from American Song-Poems and alien cults but also demos from Joe Meek and Captain Beefheart.
Interesting how little is still known about the production of the Farrah Abraham album. If I had to guess, I would think that she collaborated with a semi-professional DJ or music producer, got some demos, listened to the music as inspiration, and recorded vocal tracks that either she or the producer then fit to the demos. No idea who Farrah might have taken as a model for that writing, or if this is even what happened (for all I know she could have improvised in the studio or something). But that's a total guess -- wouldn't be impossible for Farrah to have produced the music herself, obviously, but somehow I doubt it, just like I doubt the "Hot Cheetos and Takis" kids had anything to do with the beat that was produced for that song.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-19 04:54 pm (UTC)Nonetheless, it would be useful for you to try to answer my questions, if only speculatively. Even if they'd not gotten any recognition, Jandek, Ariel Pink,* and Daniel Johnston never would have counted as outsider art in the way that Phil is applying the term to Farrah Abraham. I've got an intuitive sense to what's on Phil's mind (even if my intuition is wrong, and even if he's wrong), and presumably he's not taking her to be drawing on indie cassette culture or a tradition of avant garde, experimental music. So those are two things she's outside of. (And of course we can always ask Phil, though I'm too busy today.)
The question, "What is she drawing on?," is the more interesting question, even if it's hard to know without asking her. (And she may not immediately have in mind whom she's drawing on anyway, just as you and I aren't always conscious of where our tropes and inspirations are coming from.) But we can ask ourselves whom she resembles. E.g., Monday, the day I posted my Farrah questions, I happened to be listening to Lianne La Havas; at the end of "Lost & Found," La Havas goes back to her refrain, "You broke me and taught me how to truly hate myself/Unfold me and teach me how to be like somebody else," and then sings it again (with a slight variation), "You broke me and taught me how to truly hate myself/Unfold me and teach me to be like somebody else," all this taking almost a full minute. Now there's a family resemblance here to Abraham, both the message and the repetition. Of course, La Havas has a lot of jazz and pop mastery in her singing. And jazz combining with pop allows for such repetition.
I don't assume she's one of Farrah's inspirations (among other things, Lianne's album is too recent). But we can guess a common source in teen girl confessional poetry and diary writing, and perhaps also in all the charting quirk girls drawing on "folk" and soul and jazz the last few years (with predecessors on and off since the mid fifties). And there are long-standing practices of telling stories to music, rapping to music, reading poetry to music, etc. Add to this the recent trend among rappers to use Autotune for both electro-sound and for melody (Kanye would be especially relevant here for how this took him to confessional content too). Put these together, and you've got the materials that Farrah put to use — including her decision not to force her lyrics and singing into song form or into rap and rhyme.
This doesn't necessarily put her inside a particular cultural practice. But it does put her inside contemporary culture as it's unfolding. Also, it makes her less of an isolate** than are the art bruttists or outsiders whom (I gather from Wikip) Jean Dubuffet and Roger Cardinal have in mind.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-20 12:23 am (UTC)That would probably change the frame in terms of influence -- a producer working with recorded vocals and making them work is a lot different from someone playing around with software for themselves. In that case, there would probably be separate influences on the lyrics (Farrah's) and all aspects of actual music production (producer's) -- Farrah's might be no more inspired than the influences of emo and confessional song lyrics, poetry from high school literature, and more spontaneous stuff picked up from the air, the kind of things that children and teens replicate without really knowing "where it's from."
The production is some combination of dubstep, minimal, and EDM -- would guess that Skrillex is a touchstone. But one question I have is whether this was a project like Rehearsing My Choir by the Fiery Furnaces, where they did an oral history from their grandmother and edited it into song forms, with some occasional involvement from grandma providing a hook (IIRC), or whether it was something more amorphous or even accidental -- a kind of mutation of the 808s and Heartbreak or Rebirth strategy.
What's complicated, too, is that a lot of artists are doing experimentation in programs like Garage Band and then polishing the work after playing around -- Erykah Badu did this for New Amerykah Part 1. Would be interested to hear what the "demos" and experiments from Erykah sound like -- would they be in conversation with FLA? Is this what a pop album sounds like at the "trying things out" stage?
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-21 05:30 pm (UTC)Obviously, you'll have to guess. But the music jumps out for being different, and commenters are jumping to conclusions about where the difference places her — or her and collaborator(s) — socially. Do we call her (them) (an) incompetent(s), outsider(s), experimentalist(s), or all three, or what? Phil wasn't just applying a concept randomly when he called it "outsider art." And while the musical arrangement makes a difference — that it's* in the general realm of pop or dance rather than, say, jazz or new age — the vocals are why we're having this discussion, their apparent inappropriateness or novelty.
I just listened to a couple of songs from Rehearsing My Choir and there's nothing socially jarring in the way F. Furnaces mix together talking, singing, and accompaniment. (I ought to ponder why it's not socially jarring.) The Autotuning and manipulation of a baby's voice on DJ Champion's "Baako" is effective and exciting but plays the role of an African horn part and fits in with time-honored DJ manipulation. Presumably, if she wanted to, Farrah (and/or possible producer) could have made the music sound somewhere in the neighborhood of Rehearsing, or in the neighborhood of "Baako," rather than what it did sound like. (Whether she/they'd do it well is a different matter. But then, I find the two tracks from Rehearsing pretty dreary.)
*The three tracks I've heard, that is.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-23 02:47 pm (UTC)They seem to be outside of a coherent community or audience that might "receive" this work, meaning listen to it for what it is. One reason "outsider" is a strange term is that it's usually the word for performers who have brought "inside" something -- the formal art community, the indie musicsphere, whatever -- despite having characteristics (of upbringing, developmental ability, cultural context, whatever) that seem superficially to put them outside of this community. And not just superficially, since often outsider/naive art is literally incapable of participating in the conversation around the art. Now, I would guess that in music this is a little different, and already I'm thinking of a million of exceptions. There are plenty of artists whose work critics talk about that couldn't participate in the conversation meaningfully, and why shouldn't the art itself be how the artist "speaks" to the conversation, and what about when the artist is openly challenging those assumptions intellectually/self-consciously (Bob Dylan) or by just doing what they do whether the conversation cares or not (Teena Marie, maybe?).
There's long been an effective (academic) separation between fine arts and pop art in academic music, much like there is in the fine arts/museum community. The kinds of people who theorize about experimental or new classical music often don't have much meaningful to say within pop communities, even when they "use" them. And pop communities often don't really know what to do with experimental music.
I think Farrah falls somewhere between these two, and there's something strange about it. I bring a kind of focus to the album (mostly through the vocals) that I would bring to a Lygeti concert or something, but I also listen to it "as pop," because it recalls enough pop structures -- especially through electronic music ("After Prom" is close enough to a minimal techno artist like Pantha du Prince) -- that I can walk to it.
So I would posit, even if there are exceptions, that for the most part, "people who hear pop singles that debuted in InTouch magazine" have very very little overlap with "people who go to experimental music concerts in major cities or at universities or at museums, etc." But to "get" Farrah, you kind of need to understand both worlds, even when these worlds can often self-consciously define each against the other. One reason people go to experimental music concerts is to opt out of the culture typified by watching Teen Mom, etc., and there's no end of run-of-the-mill anti-intellectualism in entertainment/reality/gossip communities.
(2) So what they might be inside of would be something like "unironic straddling of entertainment culture and fine arts culture and criticism." Or: collapse of "high and low" in more than just lip service, since "high" and "low" are more social characteristics determined by "who listens and how" than some aesthetic component of the work. You can reclaim pop and listen to it with erudition, but that doesn't follow that you actually engage with the music as a target audience member or care about the natural discomfort that comes in the social chasm separating you from some other fan.
Pockets of the music crit community do this sort of, but I think it's a pretty small subset of an already small group. These are critics who are both intellectuals and fans in all of the connotations that that word holds -- shrill hordes of teenybopper intellectuals. Something like that. I think Teena Marie lives here; in their own way I get flashes of this straddling -- the "right in the middle"-ness of that straddling, not just gestures to one side or the other -- in Michael Jackson, Andrew WK, t.A.T.u., Shakira. All of them seem unstable somehow in their "preferred sphere" -- Teena Marie and MJ and Shakira in mass appeal pop, Andrew WK in an indie subset of mass appeal pop, t.A.T.u. in a chic club subset.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-23 02:48 pm (UTC)I think that we have to go back to social expectations, though. If I knew going in that this album was done by an up-and-coming experimental artist who wanted to make a "statement" about reality TV by taking recordings of Farrah Abraham and sticking them on top of their amateurish electronic productions, I would probably be galled enough at the implications not to listen very carefully. I would probably miss the magic in the music, which is still there whether it was done in earnest good faith or not. Because I was able not to engage those expectations of electronic art -- built up through ad hoc experiences with smug appropriation projects -- I was listening to it "with Farrah," from the perspective of the reality TV star now trying her hand at art therapy pop. That put it in conversation with youth media, a really fascinating and frustrating amateur mode of production usually not widely circulated outside of enrichment programs that can often sound pretty strange. It's not too far removed (in that sense) from "Bootlegged," the weird song my students made (with some of my amateur production help) in 2009.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2012-09-19 05:04 pm (UTC)**Is "isolate" in common usage in this way, as a noun for an isolated individual? It should be. "Loner" doesn't capture the idea, and I'm not finding more apt synonyms over at Merriam-Webster. Dictionary.com gives us "a person, thing, or group that is set apart or isolated, as for purposes of study," and "Psychology. a person, often shy or lacking in social skills, who avoids the company of others and has no friends within a group." More useful might be the idea of "language isolates" (Wikip gives Basque, Korean, Ainu, and Burushaski as examples). Obviously those languages came from somewhere, but each seems to have no ancestor in common with any other language. I'd be less stringent in my standards for individual artistic or musical isolates, since of course such people will necessarily draw on the culture around them. There's nothing else for them to draw on. The question would be how consistently they're going their own way, being unwilling or unable to reconnect with the streams, substreams, sidestreams, and counterstreams around them.
Re: Outside Looking In
Date: 2019-06-25 04:02 am (UTC)***Which on one cassette included me (Your Mom Too's England's Newest Hit Makers).