Clueless Uncle In Pieces?

[koganbot]

Remember when we all used to listen to Conway Twitty?

In case you didn't see this piece by David Brooks in the NY Times, it's nothing extraordinary. Even he says the fragmentation of music listening is an old story, but he says it continues on apace.

I like David Brooks a lot of the time. He's like a clueless but friendly and curious uncle. And he takes "hairstyle" seriously ("hairstyle" is my shorthand both for culture that is considered frivolous and for cultural differences).

Actually, in real life I'm a clueless but friendly and curious uncle too. Just clueless on slightly different matters.

So, here's my question. Is this "fragmentation" in fact occurring? If it is occurring, why do we call it "fragmentation" rather than "diversity"? (Steve Kiviat asked this question when we were discussing this issue 15 years ago in Swellsville.)

Here are some hypotheses:

Interconnectedness and knowledge generally increasing in "advanced" nations. General actual differences among different societies decreasing. Knowledge of other cultures increasing. People able to identify with groups outside their immediate face-to-face environment much more. Within that face-to-face environment this can give the appearance of greater "diversity" or "fragmentation," but this doesn't mean that the world overall is getting more socially fragmented.

Music is something of an odd case anyway, where a particular low-status local music of the early 20th century - black and white music of the United States' southeast - absorbed and changed the general popular music it was coming into contact with and created hybrids that swept a good deal of the world. With the rise of this music came the decline of the idea of a stable cultural center, given that this music (1) was made by people who legitimately felt themselves to be outsiders, (2) seemed to be coming from the "outside" to people who hadn't been the primary audience for r&b or country, (3) seemed to be coming from the "outside" to people who still felt themselves to be the primary audience for r&b and country.

My own experience is that it was possible to be a white teenage music fanatic in the 1960s and not know of Conway Twitty's existence, barely know of James Brown's existence, never have heard classics like Little Richard and Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry except for a few cover versions, to have only heard occasional bits of Elvis Presley and to assume that his impact was long over, to have no idea what was happening in contemporary "serious" "classical" music, and so forth.

Other than the ignorance of "classical" music, which continues for later generations, I don't think it's possible for the equivalent teenager (an endlessly curious music fanatic) to be so ignorant of recent and contemporary music that wasn't quite in his neighborhood - this is because other musics would penetrate his neighborhood far more. Where he or she is ignorant, this would be because there is simply far more available to know, not because of "fragmentation" that is restricting access, and not because of any indifference on his or her part.

What do you think?

Comments

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Here's my real problem with the SFJ article, (I'd post it on the SFJ thread, but I'm a little intimidated by the size at this point): He totally ignores passionate music to make his case. Not only is there passionate white rock music (which he can argue, persuasively or not, borrows from black music) but there's also passionate country music, and showtune music, and classical music. Which makes SFJ's statement ridiculous: Why is all the good black-inspired white music black-inspired?

[koganbot]

I don't get this comment. Which SFJ statement are you referring to? His main point was about the relative lack of "miscegenation" in today's indie. He never claimed that only black or black-influenced music was passionate. His description of Arcade Fire makes it seem as if he considers them passionate.

But then, I don't have the time this second to reread his piece. But its major flaw, much more than his not citing the indie that does draw on black music, and his not making anything of the fact that there is all this "miscegenated" music in pop [which makes his claim about political correctness preventing the miscegenation ridiculous], is that he barely gives any reason why he thinks it matters whether or not modern indie draws on black music. Which is to say, he never tells us why he wants Arcade Fire to play "syncopated patterns" or to "[linger] in the low registers," or why he wants a "bit of swing, some empty space, and palpable bass frequencies."

Oh, wait, I did glance at the Frere-Jones, and here's a relevant statement: "Why did so many white rock bands retreat from the ecstatic singing and intense, voicelike guitar tones of the blues, the heavy African downbeat, and the elaborate showmanship that characterized black music of the mid-twentieth century? These are the volatile elements that launched rock and roll, in the nineteen-fifties, when Elvis Presley stole the world away from Pat Boone and moved popular music from the head to the hips." (I just noticed the statement about stealing the world away from Pat Boone, which is ridiculous. Boone was both hugely popular among teens at the same time Elvis was and like Elvis was drawing on black sources.) Yeah, and it is ridiculous to imply that there weren't any white sources for Elvis's ecstatic singing and elaborate showmanship. But again, he's not claiming that Arcade Fire aren't passionate, and he's reporting passionate reaction to them from the audience.

I think his piece was very confused, actually, but if he wanted to make the case that the subset of indie he was citing makes music that is not as black-derived or as passionate as the music of white rockers of the '60s, I think he can make a good case, but those are two different points.