Elaine: Before we suddenly switch topics, let me jump in to say that I love, love what Kat wrote. It is hilarious and it's knowledgable. You really have to know Springsteen's music to write like that. Also, Bruce's new CD? Sucks. Makes Magic, the previous one, look like Born To Run.
Kat: There's cross-talk and I'm jumping in to say I'm thrilled everyone enjoys it. I hadn't planned to review it. I'd heard it awhile back and thought it was disappointing. Wednesday, I read a wonderfully written review of the album by David Marchese in Spin and steered people to that thinking that was that. Then Friday night, Mike's father asked me if I'd heard it and the tone of his voice betrayed how disappointed he was in the CD. So we sat and listened to it. And a lot of things that flew over my head -- I got it was bad, I didn't get how bad -- originally came out in that listen. So thank you to Mike's father who was a sounding board for some of my more acid remarks. And thank you to C.I. because C.I. was editor on that piece. I wanted to have two pieces up this weekend and so when we got on the plan Saturday morning, I just wrote like crazy. The Tracy Chapman one, which goes up today, required less editing. But with the Bruce review, C.I. edited like crazy. My opening and conclusion, for example? I didn't have them. What's now the opening and conclusion was one paragraph with C.I. hollering to me for a phrase to add to open the conclusion. My plan was to just write it out in a frenzy, come back and, when typing, put in the 'little' things like intro and conclusion that were missing. However, that plan can sometimes leave me in front of the computer for hours and hours. So C.I. grabbed my notes and typed up both reviews. I got up Saturday evening and came over here -- C.I.'s house -- intending to get to work on the reviews and C.I. boots up a laptop and tells me there's only one thing needed, a phrase to lead into the conclusion. Believe me, I was thrilled not to have anything else to do.
C.I.: All I did was edit and type. To be clear. Kat earned her praise.
Kat: I wrote long. The original is three times what went up. I didn't cover more songs in it. But I used more words. C.I. cut out whole sentences, grafted others together and just made it so much more powerful and funny. Again, credit Mike's father because there would be no review without him and credit C.I. because I'd still be staring at the screen otherwise. Probably posting a note at my blog Monday about how I really intended to have two reviews done over the weekend but time ran out.
Dona: Just to provide an example, you were actually writing as it was going up. "Take the first track."
Kat: Right. First sentence of the second paragraph. It wasn't in there. C.I. said that was needed and I was still sort of stunned reading it because it was so much stronger than I thought it was -- I was going through the longhand version and then the version that made it up and just marveling over how it was edited. So I say, "Oh, it's fine without" and C.I. says, "Okay" and hits publish just as I say, "Take the first track!" But there's no opening sentence originally because that was something like paragraph twenty something. It was way down in the mix. Some of what came before got scrapped in the editing, some of what came before is used elsewhere in the review. But C.I. felt that section was the strongest description and brought it in earlier. By the way, there are many reviews where C.I.'s edits for me. And I generally note that at my site. I've got the thing written but can't figure it out. But usually, I'm there. When that happens, we take everything I've written and cut it up physically. Each paragraph goes on one piece of paper and we go through and edit out weaker spots. And then we assemble what's left. But I had mentioned, on the ride home from the airport, that I was so not looking forward to editing -- generally, I sleep on the plane ride home. And C.I. said, "Look, if I have time, I'll edit and it'll be done before you even wake up." And I'd laughed because, no way. There's no time. But C.I. made time and I really appreciate that.
Jess: You've got four reviews so far this year. We've read your Tracy Chapman that goes up later today and you've also reviewed a Janis Ian collection and a Phoebe Snow live album. So it's February and you'll have four reviews done. You agreed to eleven a year and you do your music in review pieces. For a total twelve. I am pointing that out.
Kat: Right. I agreed to try for twelve. That's counting the year-in-review. Apparently I only made 10 in 2008 -- a very hectic year. And I never hear the end of it. So note that since I've often gone over 12, when I reach 12 this year, I may just stop. Or maybe at 11 since the 12th piece would be the year-in-review.
Ruth: You have us not going dark in 2009.
Kat: I do, don't I? I think we're extending for six more months in April. I think we'll see out 2009. I don't know about after that. But Jess is correct that once my Tracy Chapman piece goes up, I will have done four so far this year. Only eight more to go. I always say I'm going to start listing them on my site, in links on my blogroll, but I never do. There's never time. I don't think most people realize how busy we are. It's not just that I'm lazy -- though I freely admit to that -- it's also that we're really busy. But someday.
Ava: Actually, that's pretty much taken care of. C.I. added a ton of links to your site Saturday.
Kat: Let me see this. Oh, wow. It's all there.
C.I.: I'm sure I've missed a few. But those were the ones I could think of. They start with the most recent and go backwards. Sort of. When you've got more than one in a month, they're grouped by months but they may not be in order in terms of months of the day. That would have taken more organizing and time than I wanted to give.
Kat: Whatever, this is so cool. And not just because it's done and I didn't have to do it. Oh, wow. There are CDs here that I had forgotten I reviewed. I'm counting and seeing 72 pieces. And I'm counting because a number of e-mails really did do a guilt trip on me regarding 2008. That's so cool. Some day when we're not on the road talking about Iraq, I'm going to just go through some of the reviews.
Jess: In terms of 2008, there really wasn't a great deal of good music put out.
Kat: No, there really wasn't. And you had a bunch of Barackers who tried to put out product -- don't call that garbage music, Jackson Browne and when you're raiding yourself with "the killing floor," that's the first hint that you don't have a new album in you -- in the fall as the year was closing. I'm more than happy to review a real band like Augustana but I'm not interested in product.
Mike: Bruce's new CD, Working On a Dream, is nothing but product. My dad likes a lot of Bruce's music and was really hoping for something with this CD but instead he just got disappointed. He hates it.
Kat: He really does and that's why I was able to do the review. If I don't have a way in, I can't write about it. Doesn't matter if I love it or hate it, if there's not a road into it for me, I can't do it. I heard it and thought, "bad album." I was done with it but your father's grave disappointment with the album gave me the road in. I was planning to do the Tracy Chapman review regardless but it was only after talking with your father about the album that I decided to do the Bruce Springsteen one. Picturing other people who were eagerly awaiting it being disappointed made me want to offer a warning. But in terms of me, he can't disappoint me anymore. I really have no interest in him. He's a highly conservative artist who has so very little to offer and abuses his fans by releasing an album and then, months later, to sell a little more, adding tracks to it that force his dedicated to go out and buy it all over again.
Elaine: Good intentions -- if he has them -- do not necessarily make for good music and there's something very sad about the man who had to report for his draft physical during Vietnam still having so damn little to say. Think about how old he is and how embarrassingly immature his work is. I'd argue it's gotten more immature with each decade.
Rebecca: I agree. There's something really sad about a 60 this year man singing about 'girls'. And offering such superficial lyrics. What's the point of getting older if you're going to try to be the exact same person you were forty years ago? If you're not going to learn a damn thing, I really don't know why most of us would get out of bed each morning. And for all his 'progressive' nature -- allegedly -- he is the most deeply conservative artist when it comes to his lyrics and point of view. His flag waiving, jingoism has always left me cold. And someone can whine in an e-mail, "Reagan misinterpreted 'Born in the USA!'" but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how every human situation is reduced to the US and how any problem is just a US problem. For an alleged liberal, he has a very narrow frame of refrence and some of his lyrics border on xenophobia.
Cedric: I'd agree with that and I'll also note that he was awful at the Super Bowl. That was like an Elvis in Vegas performance. Was he even singing live? I don't know but too much drama, not enough music. And it was so over the top.
Stan: I know and, I'm sure this happened in many African-American homes across the country, I had to explain who he was. I know who he is and so do a number of other African-Americans but the bulk of us don't know him. His music has really never spoken to the community. It's because he doesn't have any sense of rhythm. If you see John Mellencamp or he comes onstage at the Super Bowl, you're going to have African-Americans who know him because he's got rhythm. We know his songs and we know him. But Bruce is so clodding and unrhythmic that he really was on the Super Bowl singing to and for White America only. And that Super Bowl performance was awful.
Cedric: I'll second that. Take any Mellencamp song, not just something obvious like "Hurt So Good," something that was this obvious hit, but any of his hit songs and there's a recognition factor -- even if you don't know all the words -- that's absent with Springsteen's work. Springsteen really lacks rhythm.
Betty: And the Black community has a natural hostility to him because Diana Ross was already The Boss before he claimed the title. My oldest son asked Jim during the game, "Is that Bob Dylan?" He doesn't really know Dylan but he's heard of him.
Jim: Right and I say, "No, that's Bruce Springsteen." He looks at the TV for a bit and then he turns back to me and asks, "Is he a country singer?" I had to laugh. Since this has become a musical roundtable -- and that's fine, we're always getting e-mails asking for more on music -- I want to raise an issue that comes up from time to time in e-mails. There's this feeling that we don't cover music because of Kat. And we don't do music reviews per se because of Kat. She does it so well there's no reason for us to horn in. But a new strand of e-mails is that Kat reviewed less in 2008 because we did more music here.
Kat: This will be known as 'the roundtable everyone wished Kat would just shut up in.' The way it works is not like that at all. I've already said why I write one. I like, love, dislike or hate the album and feel I have a way to write about it. If I don't, I don't. What's done at Third has no impact on my doing or not doing a review. I like the musical pieces we do at Third. But it doesn't impact what I'm doing.
Ty: What we tend to do here lately is a more technical piece. We do have more of those planned, in reply to those e-mailing and asking. And let's talk about how awful music was in 2008. You had a lot of Barackers who embarrassed themselves. There was more life in music in 2006 in terms of calling out the illegal war. 2007 saw that fade a little and by 2008 it's pretty much gone.
Wally: Right and the Iraq War is not over. But it's as if no one can be bothered. Oh, I'm sorry, is real life harshing out your studio session? Boo, damn f**king, hoo. We were listening to "Mexico" earlier, by Jefferson Airplane, and who has the guts to do that sort of song today. In 2007 and 2008, the bulk of them, if they 'referred' to the Iraq War in a song, they 'referred.' They 'alluded.' They didn't really write a song about it because that might mean they lost a fan or two. And better to go along with the flow because that's what a watered-down, broken-down 'artist' does.
Marcia: What month were we in Indiana? Wally and I spent a month there doing our bit for Hillary in the lead up to that state's primary and they had some real radio stations. They may or may not think so but compared to other states, they had some worth listening to. But what Wally and I kept noticing was that none of the songs said a damn thing. And when we'd stop and buy music, we'd be buying older music. 2008 in music? It sucked. So when it was time to campaign in Puerto Rico, it's no surprise that we were all thrilled to hear Linda Ronstadt's hit collection. For one thing, it stands up. For another, 2008 had less than 10 albums worth listening to that you could put in the popular music category. Artists don't self-censor and they certainly don't do it for a politician.
Elaine: Marcia's last comment reminds me of Kat's hating Carole King's awful live album and how she wrestles with it and finally grasps that Carole sold out by changing the words to the hit "Sweet Seasons" because, as Carole explains it, politicians don't like to lose. Oh, boo, hoo. Carole King made herself the ultimate joke right then and there. I have no desire to ever hear from her again. When an artist is changing a line because a politician doesn't want to hear "sometimes you lose," he or she isn't much of an artist. And to pull in Wally's point, where is today's Jefferson Airplane? And the Airplane wasn't alone in their approach. This wasn't a band that applauded LBJ but hissed Nixon. They weren't a musical organ of the Democratic Party. We really don't have that anymore. We have cowards like Pearl Jam that supported Ralph Nader in 2000 but, worried about their career, bend over backwards to act like that never happened and suck up to John Kerry or Barack Obama or any Democrat. Same thing with Patti Smith. Can we get a link in here for Nellie McKay because she supported Ralph in 2008 and that was a very brave thing.
Jess: Well think about Patti Smith, for example. If independents aren't going to support independent politicians, why should anyone support their independent music? I lost respect for so many including the Peace Queen whose name C.I. has asked us to just not mention again. But, hate to break it to Peace Queen, you don't endorse War Hawks. It was as if you endorsed LBJ and no one hear gives a damn about you. Your little stunt cost you an album because it shocked your fans -- the few who actually spend money purchasing your albums -- and there's no come back until you apologize for your mistake. Peace Queens do not support Barack I Will Leave Troops In Iraq And I Will Send Even More To Afghanistan To Kill Even More People. Buy a clue, you damn idiot.
Jim: I think it's rather obvious who we mean but if any long term readers are confused, Jess took the Peace Queen to task when she made her idiotic comments and immediately packed up all of her CDs in a box and shoved it in a closet. None of us have listened to her since that endorsement and will most likely never listen to her again. Jess could not believe that the Peace Queen who wasn't a Democrat or a Republican and spent years making that point over and over would ignore actual peace candidates just because they weren't Democrats.
Jess: Right. She could have endorsed Cynthia McKinney -- which would have made more sense considering who she works with -- or Ralph. But she's just another lying sell out. F**k her. She'll spend her final years exposed as a fraud. No one's fault but her own. F**k her.
Ava: And just to explain, Peace Queen likes to play the third party card which is why Jess is especially offended that Peace Queen turned around and hopped on board Barack Train. It was a huge error because (a) she's one more celebrity endorsing Barack and it doesn't help her stand out, (b) an endorsement of Ralph or Cynthia would have been appreciated by their supporters, (c) in terms of selling albums, it was (b) that would provide her with an audience. Barack's youthful cult isn't the least bit interested and his middle-aged contingent long ago stopped buying the Peace Queen. All she really did was upset the radical base which was who she was performing for. I haven't checked her concert ticket sales but I'm sure they're not where they were in 2005. We hear complaints about her endorsement on every campus we go to.
Elaine: And she's the perfect example of a fool. I know her and she obviously didn't do any research at all, just endorsed because baby boy asked her to. Well it was her name and she trashed it. Ava's talking about the reaction to it still being strong and that's not the half of it. As Barack's war mongering ways become more evident, this is a career and legacy destroyer for Peace Queen. She goes down with that endorsement. I'm not joking, I'm not using hyperbole. There are many artists who betray their own careers in the final years and then it's over for them. That's the case here. You cannot endorse a War Hawk and be a Dove. With that endorsement, she negated everything she stood for. She exposed herself as a worse fraud than her detractors used to say she was back in the sixties. And I'll cut some people some slack. I know a lot of musicians who didn't like Barack, who knew he was a War Hawk and just stayed silent or made a "I'll vote Democrat" remark starting in July. They were too intimidated to stand up. That's sad but I'll cut them some slack. It's different with those cheerleading him early in 2008. They weren't forced. They pimped him, they whored out their reputations. Well, Peace Queen, you whore out your image, you're not a Peace Queen. And if your peace legacy is negated, you really don't have a great deal to offer musically. Range? Most women had a bigger vocal range than you did. Interpreter of song? Your interpretations really aren't considered the final word. Hit singles? Oh, that's funny. Your whole image was tied in with peace and when you whored that out, you whored out the last thing you had.
Jess: Amen.
Jim: C.I.?
C.I.: I didn't say anything. She disappointed -- she gravely disappointed -- many. She has to live with it.
Jim: I know you're taking notes but I just wanted to be sure you didn't want to jump in.
C.I.: I was listening enough to take notes but reflecting back on the attacks on Elton John. I think it's really unremarked upon how they attacked Hillary. I know whining middle aged 'media watchdogs' say Hillary didn't do this or that. But the reality is that those same White men couldn't shut up about Barack and "Black." Even though Barack is bi-racial. They couldn't stop turning every other word into a racist attack -- "Fairy tale! That's racism!" But when ever anyone tried to note the sexist attacks on Hillary, the same watch dogs attacked. Elton John noted the sexism and they really went after him for doing so, to try to bully him into silence. Elaine was mentioning some artists she and I both know and the fact of the matter is that Barack's a good thing in one way. Never again will you see so many who don't believe go along. There are numerous artists who did who were smart enough to reject him when he bombed Pakistan. Your In The Closet Movie Performers go along with that but musicians are artists and they don't go along with it. Yes, that was a swipe at ___. I really don't like closet cases to begin with but when they're also conservative closet cases trying to caution everyone to be silent, I really, really dislike them.
Rebecca: That's a good point because Elton really did get attacked. I couldn't believe the amount of hate aimed at him for making that obvious remark about the sexism. But, as you pointed out, we could never explore that. The same men would spend forever inventing racism to defend Barack from, to protect the Christ-child. But they didn't give a damn about sexism.
Ruth: I actually disagree with Rebecca. They did give a damn about sexism. They weren't against sexism, they were for it. And they took the attitude of, "Oh well, if she wants to be president, she's going to have to learn what it's like to take her lumps." First, Hillary Clinton knows what it's like to be knocked. Second of all, if a woman needed toughening up because she would be 'new' as a president, then presumably a person of color would need toughening up as well. But they really wanted Barack to always have baby-soft hands so they did all the light and heavy lifting for him.
Rebecca: That's a good point. Ruth's really nailed it. They did give a damn about sexism, they actively embraced it and used it. It's foolish for us to say -- as I did -- that they didn't give a damn about sexism. If they didn't give a damn, they would have just ignored it but they didn't do that, they used it over and over.
Betty: One thing I want to add here, I've been holding for months now but it applies here, is that Barack was repeatedly said not to need to prove his alleged 'Blackness.' And anyone who questioned it -- which all should have -- was in the wrong. But when Laura Flanders or Betsy Reed or Naomi Wolf or any of those crazy self-loathers trashed Hillary, they were questioning her as a feminist and as a woman. They were implying -- and sometimes outright stating -- that she wasn't really a woman, that she was a female impersonator. And that never got called out. Now if Hillary was what people were implying, she'd be half-man and half-woman. What does that sound like? Sounds like projection to me. Barack is half-White and half-Black. So they take that, spin it around to gender and try to smear Hillary with it. And Short Troll in NYC can write private e-mails about how he ignored the sexism because Hillary never spoke out about it but that doesn't explain why he wrote over and over about racism, now does it? The explanation is that racism strikes him as wrong but sexism is fine. I already loved a lot of Elton's songs but I'll always appreciate the fact that he called out sexism while so many -- including women -- were either silent or taking part in the sexist attacks.
Marcia: Let me state my agreement and I just got Elton's double disc greatest hits for that reason. I wish, to take it to 2009, that we'd find a large number of artists willing to sing honest songs and not the claptrap. But I don't know that we have many artists today who are capable of being honest. Where is today's Jefferson Airplane? Well, first off, most weren't as smart as Grace Slick and company, they didn't move on. Instead, they hang on and on and spend less time trying to say something and more time trying not to offend whatever they think the popular opinion of the moment is. They're cowards because they got old and flabby.
Ty: Right, they can't say anything because they're too busy worrying how it will play. They're no longer making music, they're running political campaigns. It's disgusting. And that's it. I'm done.
Jim: Ty saw Dona making the wrap it up signal. So we will. This was a musical roundtable. We'll be doing a piece on downloads at some point in the near future.