We Must Be Superstars
I cannot stop thinking about this article.
The dirty little secret is it’s hard to read on a computer screen. An iPad too. The backlighting makes it so our eyes glaze over, we scan for the essence and then move on. Ever read the same article in the newspaper, the physical edition, after reading it originally online? It’s about the same thing, but it’s completely different. You glean additional facts, sometimes you even glean complete concepts that eluded you online.
And I’m not trying to be a Luddite here. But right now, "The Huffington Post" and other sites win because only the headline looks good online. Will this be forever? Probably not. Technology marches forward. But for now, books read much better in E Ink than on an iPad. Which may be one reason they outsell them in the former format. At this point, Kindles and Nooks are so cheap you can own both, an iPad for those dazzling photos and effects, and an E Ink device for real reading.
All of this is to say people e-mailed me this article and I didn’t get it until I read the version in the physical magazine.
Yes, "New York" is no longer just a lowest common denominator service magazine. It’s the opposite of Arianna Huffington’s site. Instead of moving downscale, it’s moved upscale, they’ve even got Frank Rich now, and if you’re not subscribing, you’re missing out.
Which brings us to this article…
There’s too much in it. It reads like both an attack and a defense and as a result the main point gets buried. Which is the reason all those songs on the Top Forty are self-aggrandizing is because they’re made by oppressed minorities who latch on to braggadocio to boost their self-esteem as they try to navigate a world stacked against them. Yes, women, gays and African-Americans. They own Top Forty and they’re all oppressed:
"Another change that’s swept through the charts since 1980 is the steady disappearance of white men. In 1980, more than half the artists at No. 1 were white men; in 2010, the only white guy in the top spot was Eminem. Today’s pop world is female, African-American, and Latino, dance-pop and hip-hop and R&B. The audiences it’s usually associated with are female, African-American, Latin, gay, and young. And the music running through the charts is filled with qualities that look a lot like the aspirations and survival strategies of people who’ve felt marginalized-people for whom ego and self-worth can be existential issues, not just matters of etiquette."
Now this writer goes on to attack rock music. Which I think is missing the point. The point is Top Forty is a niche, and the mainstream doesn’t realize that what was Top Forty back then, the best of the best, is all about club tracks now.
One can also argue that the club rules. In the gym, in the car, at the actual club, where people dance to records whereas they used to dance to bands. Club music is innovative and vital, risk-taking, outsiders don’t care what the mainstream thinks of them. Whereas white males veer from the center of the highway and they’ve got to apologize. Which is why Bon Jovi smiles and says nothing offensive and can’t sell a record and the denizens of the Top Forty are constantly saying outrageous things and being arrested. They’re just bringing their marginalization to the fore.
So where does this leave us?
To conclude what the Tea Partiers want to ignore. That our country is no longer dominated by white males, at least not culturally. They rule in the boardroom, but out in the street a generation weaned on a rainbow of colors on MTV has interracial friends and is nowhere near as racist as its forebears, that’s how Obama got elected.
It appears if you’re not an oppressed minority, if you’re a white male, you’ve got to run from the mainstream to make it. Play on your emotions, not be a cartoon. Which is why Bon Iver gets all that press.
But will Bon Iver ever be as big as Katy Perry?
Probably not. Katy speaks to all women. Bon Iver speaks to a subspecies of males willing to own their emotions.
I’m still thinking about this article.
Read it.
