Theresa on Conan O’Brien
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In case you missed it, here’s Theresa Andersson’s appearance from last night. She’s in the last 10 minutes, and I skipped to her, stopping only for a pretty funny Patton Oswalt segment.
February 5, 2009
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Thanks for posting that. I finally listened to the album (twice, back to back, with the kids I teach) and it’s really f’n good. I assumed she was getting credit for being super creative just in terms of New Orleans, where people aren’t that creative (mostly just dexterous). But the album is truly, truly dope.
And then you guys vote her “best rock band”? Is that true? And if so, are you kidding me? I listened to the album back to back twice, and there are not two seconds of that disc that “rock”. There is no rock anywhere near the thing. Y’all, everything that isn’t jazz/blues/funk/zydeco, is not automatically “rock”. That record has more in common with chamber music.
Man, you guys.
Comment by michael patrick welch — February 5, 2009 @ 8:11 am
Michael – Taxonomic questions are always difficult. Where do you put John Boutte? Kermit Ruffins? Irma Thomas? She and Dr. John are blues artists according to the Grammys, though Little Freddie King’s manager says she’s R&B. As that example illustrates, context counts. When R&B is defined by Beyonce, Irma has to go somewhere else because she’s not like her. Hence “Contemporary Blues”.
And you of anyone ought to recognize the fuzzy, ephemeral lines of genre because your music cuts across so many of them. “Rock” is certainly a catch-all term, but it has been for a long time. Does Jerry Lee Lewis rock like the Yardbirds, and do they rock like Stiff Little Fingers, and do they rock like Sonic Youth? Does all rock music rock? Do Stereolab or Animal Collective rock? And will the genre labels for all of the above still be the same 20 years from now? What was once considered metal now is pretty tame by comparison with modern metal, so much so that it sounds now like something else. For marketing purposes, Aerosmith and Black Sabbath – both once considered metal – are now classic rock.
Genre labels have purposes attached to them. In record stores, it’s to sell music by putting like with like, even though a lot of the like isn’t much like the other. For our purposes, I’m not sure what the option is – to create a new category, even if Andersson is the only person who qualifies for it? How much further do we breakdown the categories? Chamber rock? Post-New Wave rock? Neo-traditional Camaro rock? Ahistorical traditional jazz? Meandering funky jazz? Stuck in the ’70s funk? Hope for the best, mean well and play a lot of notes funk?
I suspect some things in life are inevitable. When I was on the faculty senate at Delgado, faculty complained yearly about parking, no matter what was done to improve the situation. I’ve had the same experience regarding award categories here and at Gambit and expect to continue to field those complaints for as long as I’m a part of award-bestowing institutions.
Comment by Alex Rawls — February 5, 2009 @ 8:49 am
“Rock” (if it is still short for “rock’n'roll”; and if it isn’t, what is it?) has always been nothing but a marketing label, from back in the day when you couldn’t sell something as Black-identified as rhythm ‘n blues (itself a marketing term coined by BillBoard to replace the dated “Race” genre label (no need to explain what race that would be!?!)) to white teenagers, not if you didn’t want get lynched or sent back to Cleveland in disgrace (e.g., Alan Freed.)
I think Offbeat and Gambit could neatly avoid the whole problem by dropping the whole awards game altogether; I sure wouldn’t miss it.
Comment by belyin — February 5, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
That’s true, but it avoids an issue that isn’t strictly a marketing question. That might be the most obvious use of genres – to classify items into groups that make them easier to sell – but it’s not the only use, and it’s probably not the most common use. How we listen to music and evaluate it has a lot to do with genre, or our perceptions of the genre. The qualities that make a heavy metal song good are a problem incorporated into folk music, and the things fans of Americana value are anathema in country music these days. Here too, genres exist in flux, and we as listeners are involved in a dialogue between our received notions of genre, the genre-based values we actually embrace, and the artist’s work. That means we don’t all agree on genre definitions and accounts for genre definitions shifting, and it suggests that the problem isn’t quite as frivolous as simply who wins awards for what.
Michael’s complain about Theresa winning a rock award is an attempt to stabilize genres and assert some measure of energy and/or guitar-oriented distortion as crucial to the definition. That certainly holds up in many cases, but is it the essential characteristic of rock? If so, what about the Go-Betweens, the High Llamas, Stereolab and Animal Collective? Fleet Foxes? Or the turntable-and-computer work of Girl Talk? Or Justice? Girl Talk was the most rock ‘n’ roll show I saw last year as a collective experience of style, community and energy. Does that make Girl Talk rock? I’m not sure, but it makes me equally uneasy declaring in such absolute terms what isn’t, which in effect cuts off a dialogue that should be ongoing.
Comment by Alex Rawls — February 7, 2009 @ 1:52 pm