Summer 2010- read up to today- entry 4

In the last few days, I have read:

Tim Wise, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, up to p. 157- revised and updated edition, 2008
Steve Jones and Kevin Featherly, "Re-viewing Rock Writing: Narratives of Popular Music Criticism"- pp. 19-38 in Pop Music and the Press, ed. Steve Jones, 2002
Tricia Rose, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--And Why it Matters, up to p. 30

I've decided on a number of books I want to read for a college newspaper column in the fall--something like "Alternative Views: Readings on Contemporary Society." The Hip Hop Wars will be one of the books, I presume, as will books on immigration, gay rights, race, and religion, among others. More to come.

Summer 2010- read up to today- entry 3

In the last week, I have read:

Tim Wise, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, up to p. 126- revised and updated edition, 2008

In addition, I hope to read soon:

An article on themes in rock music criticism
Mariama Ba, Une si Longue Lettre (the French version of So Long a Letter)
Peggy Macintosh, "White Privilege and Male Privilege" (full-length essay- I think I'd previously read an abridged version)
Michael S. Kimmel, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
Essays from Black on White: Black Writers On What it Means to be White. ed. David Roediger

Summer 2010- read up to today- entry 2

In the last 24 hours I've read:

Robert Palmer, "Liner notes for Ray Charles, The Birth of Soul"- 1991, collected in Blues & Chaos: The Music Writings of Robert Palmer, 2009
Tim Wise, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, up to p. 40- revised and updated edition, 2008

Will continue to update.

Why does country music sound white? Nostalgia?

Last year for an academic independent study called "Race, sexual orientation, and pop culture theory," I read an article by Geoff Mann called "Why does country music sound white? Race and the voice of nostalgia" which argues that nostalgia is the characteristic that marks American country music as racially white. This means that according to Mann, whites, as opposed to people of color, cling to a desire for an idealized set of historical circumstances, manifest in the instrumentation, lyrics, and other aesthetic and musical dimensions of country music. I have a couple thoughts on this that have stuck with me since reading the article.

You could certainly argue that across class and geographic region, whites in the U.S. cling to the past more than groups of color. As one example, Confederates argue that the American South should have won the Civil War of the 1860s as a matter of states' rights, with some deeming the antebellum south as representing an ideal society. Of course, the South would only have been ideal for those in power, and slaves were not in that position. So the idea of nostalgia usually works by ignoring the more complex nature of history--that is, as interpreted by and within different groups, well, differently.

As a quite different example, upper-class whites--think of the kinds of hipsters and yuppies described in the blog Stuff White People Like--love older music and studying history from an idealized perspective. Unquestionably, I've listened to lots of older music in my lifetime, more because my tastes are rooted in what I grew up hearing than because of convictions about newer music lacking quality. But the point is that nostalgia cuts across class lines, so even if country music is more associated with lower-class whites than, say, indie rock, there is merit to saying white people love nostalgia.

But is nostalgia exclusive to white people? In my opinion, doubtfully. I suspect that part of nostalgia in, for example, African-American culture is more about generation and class than about race--think of some older blacks who broadly devalue hip hop as opposed to jazz or any other, older forms of music dominated by black musicians.

And another question arises: if country music sounds white--an idea with which I agree--is such music largely nostalgic? The first counter-example that comes to my mind is Steve Earle's 1986 track "Someday", which is about as contrary to nostalgia (with lines like "There ain't a lot that you can do in this town" and "I'm gonna get out of here someday") as a song gets. Aesthetically, it still contains the vocal and instrumental "twang" that Mann writes about as marking whiteness in country music. At the same time, I must note that Earle and his music are as opposed to the mainstream politics and style of Nashville as country music can be, so perhaps nostalgia is something that marks commercial, mainstream country music as white.

But what about such alternative artists as Earle, Gillian Welch, and Lucinda Williams? What makes their music sound white, if it indeed does contain similar aesthetic traits as at least some, more traditional country music (as opposed to most pop-country on the radio)?

Discuss.

Summer 2010- read up to today- entry 1

Summer is here, and I have a lot I want to read. Here is what I have read in the last two days.

bell hooks- "Back to Black: Ending Internalized Racism" (in Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, originally published 1994)
David Hajdu- "The Music of Starbucks" (in Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture, 2009)
Greil Marcus- "Sly Stone: The Myth of Staggerlee" (in Mystery Train, originally published 1975)

I hope to have made a gigantic cumulative reading list by August 20 or so, perhaps to expand my sense of oppositional cultural literacy (if such a thing can exist, which is unlikely).

If interested in what I have to say about specific readings, feel free to comment.