Covering this past weekend™s newly constituted Lollapalooza weekender in Chicago, the New York Times™ Jon Pareles wonders what™s up with the lack of big name hip hop acts, correctly assuming that locals like Kayne West or Common wouldn™t have been musically inappropriate nor unhelpful in selling tickets.
A similar question could be posed of this September™s Austin City Limits festival, an event coincidently booked by the same firm, Austin™s CSE.
First of all, I don™t think any large scale musical event is obliged to encompass anything other than what the organizer™s choose to showcase. Neither Lollapalooza nor ACL are Hip Hop fests, nor have either claimed to represent every genre. Though given the likely musical tastes of those attending both festivals, the omission of hip hop is a little curious.
Without knowing the facts behind either instance, I’d guess that this has less to do with the booker’s musical sensibilities and more to do with licensing, insurance, security paranoia that would surely come into play — perhaps unfairly — were a well known hip hop artist given a prominent spot on the bill. Saul Williams might escape the radar, but Common would be another issue entirely.
My favorite performance at last year’s ACLfest was by The Roots. I was also a little perplexed by the lack of a big hip hop act at this year’s festival but there is Free Sol, the funk/rock/hip hop hybrid that will fit in nicely with the rest of the ACL line-up. I’m skipping this year’s fest though, except for Roky Erickson it all seems so boring.
A number of CSTB in-house faves are playing this year’s ACL (Spoon, Futureheads, Rilo Kiley, Wilco, Roky, etc.) so I’m not with you on the “boring” summation.
Plus, there’s the opportunity to figure out if I can tell one Gallagher brother from the other. As long as I don’t get hit with any smashed melon, it’s all good.
Nothing stopping you or me from booking a festival featuring plenty of hip hop (or none whatsoever). Well, other than being lazy.
Has anyone else felt squeamish/annoyed with the seemingly growing impulse on the part of certain critics (esp. NYTimes writers like SF Jones, Kelefa Sanneh, etc.) to remind indie music fans of their supposed insularity (code for, among other things, pastiness)? There was a piece trashing The Believer’s music issue & compilation cd, then a less than loving review of the Pitchfork Intonation festival, and a few other refs that seem to spell a developing theme: some vague new kind of correct consciousness that suggest that indie/punk/rock fans are perpetrating … something … lameness/small-mindedness or even racism by not embracing (in an authentic enough way)hip hop, grime, Brazillian drum & bass, what-have-you. Thoughts?
Hey, watch that rockism there, buddy!
I don’t know about racism, but there’s nothing wrong in my book with calling an insular music festival insular.
A far worse insult, however, would be say to say the bands in question were lousy.
If K.S. has a hang-up about particular musical genres, hopefully he understands that the musicians themselves aren’t trying to do anything other than play what they want. Well, the good ones, anyway.
If the audiences and websites are immersed in juvenille identity politics, well, what audiences (and websites) aren’t?
As long as it all comes down to judging individual artists as… well, individuals, and not part of some poorly defined movement, I think everyone can be subjected to criticism, even the bands I like.
And the same thing point about unsatisfactory music festivals applies to unsatisfactory music criticism. If anyone thinks KS or SFJ are abusing their positions to advance a non-musical agenda, the very fact that you can type indicates you are capable of providing an alternative.
For those of us deaf to the charms of hip hop, it would be nice to occasionally go to a music event where compulsory lip service (and agonizing stage time) are not granted to this inescapable genre. Hip hop is all over the radio, television, film, the fine arts, talking teddy bears, hold music, wedding receptions, etc. That ought to be enough to dispell any notion that there is some kind of “minority” or “under-represented” status to the genre.
If a musical genre is inescapable elsewhere, it should be laudatory to present a program that doesn’t feel compelled to be inclusive of it.
I don’t think the real ale enthusiast of the world should feel compelled to invite Pabst to their conventions.
Wait a minute. I don’t got to festivals by choice, so I don’t care. I was dragged to an evening of Lollapalooza this year, and the music was quiet enough that I could successfully ignore it while watching Billy Idol go through five changes of shirt (six if you count shirtless). I had a lovely evening in the park.
“For those of us deaf to the charms of hip hop, it would be nice to occasionally go to a music event where compulsory lip service (and agonizing stage time) are not granted to this inescapable genre.”
Steve, this is your lucky day. Or rather, September 2 and 3 are your lucky days!
http://www.bloodstock.uk.com/
Guaranteed, no hippity hoppity whatsoever!
Where is the online petition, ala Fiona Apple, to rescue Billy Idol’s unreleased Lava album?
The flipside to the (very real) music critic phenomenon JDS talked about has been more palpable to me of late than the reflexive rejection of indie music’s supposed “insularity.”
I’m talking about the weird spectacle of otherwise sensible music critics throwing down in dorky cred battles to see who cares more (and more authentically) for, say, Houston-area hip-hop — Pareles himself got in one of those goofy blog-beefs with some other pasty music-crit someone regarding UGK or some such Tex-hop group some months ago, although I don’t remember where (I found the argument through a link from this great, now-dormant basketball blog). Or they mix it up over who likes the new Cam’Ron record more (some critics I respect a lot got mixed up in this one; I think the Village Voice chose it as their best album of last year). Anyway, one scene’s insularity is… usually paralleled by another scene’s insularity. The Frogs never opened for Smut Peddlers or Kool Keith, after all, nice a bill as that might’ve been. Perhaps it’s easier at the moment to score points against one side than the other, but it all amounts to navel-gazing — or standard issue surface-level liberal self-excoriation (as if harsher self-interrogation might somehow change who’s in the oval office) — from where I sit. If Kelefa Sanneh wants to think I’m rockist for going to a (fill in the blank) show with a bunch of people who look like me then I’ll reserve the right to think him silly for still taking Common — now deep in his Mets-era George Foster period as a rapper — seriously.
Also, Gerard, where do we send our checks for CSTB at Bloodstock Day? Are you going to get the whole name on the scoreboard this time?
Nobody’s keeping score at Bloodstock, David, lovers of real metal are the winners. I won’t be there in body, but I will be there in spirit. Like Santa Claus.
A Kool Keith/Frogs bill doesn’t sound so loony to me.
I’m not gonna try and visit the mind of Kelefa (especially because this was originally about Jon Pareles’ questioning of Lollapalooza — and no one has commented on whether or not the paucity of hip hop was about musical prejudice as opposed to fear of higher overhead), but the fact remains that covering music for the NY Times isn’t the same thing as blogging or ‘zine wars.
I respect the fact that the Times has a broader, more general audience than say, Arthur, and as such, it might occur to the writer (if not his employer) every once in a while that something like 48 hours of Pitchfork curated rock, is either inappropriate for the readership or requires some kind of condescending introduction.
Decision “a”, I could, y’know, live with. Decision “b” is where all hell breaks loose and the heavy concentration on genre does a disservice to the performers, if not the audience. Some of whom (at least 3 percent!) do not resemble David Roth.
On various occasions, Kelefa has sought to do battle with the windmills typified by his peers’ bias towards singer-songwriterism, indie rock, the-guitar-as-force-for-social-change, etc. Whether or not that is a worthy fight, is for you to judge for yourself. The only thing that interests me is what someone actually sounds like.
Hey, doesn’t Lollapalooza feature G Love and Special Sauce?
I thought they played the rap music that all the kids are talking about!