Wednesday, May 17, 2006
it's a crime
So, Sasha Frere-Jones and Jessica Hopper think Stephen Merritt is a racist because he doesn't like hip hop... or appreciate Beyonce... or state his love of "enough" black artists in public. I will comment on the ridiculousness of this insinuation by posing the following:
In 2004 SF-J published this best of the year list. Please note that amongst the 158 songs and 52 albums there are only three openly GLBT artists (Tegan and Sara, Indigo Girls, and, ironically, Magnetic Fields)... and I guess "Michael" had some pretty strong homosexual undertones, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for including a Franz Ferdinand song (even though it was "Dark of the Matinee").
Now subtract from that number (three and a half if you're keeping score) from the number of artists on the list that have lyrics that are pretty openly homophobic (and don't even start with that "they don't really mean it like that when they say 'faggot' on record"). The resulting number is a negative integer.
I bet he doesn't own any Melissa Etheridge records... or if he does, it's just for show.
Does that mean Sasha is homophobic?
Note also, Jessica Hopper's 2005 Pazz and Jop ballot. The closest thing to an openly homosexual artist is Kate Bush, who is straight, but lots of gay dudes happen to like her.
I bet she has better taste than Sasha and doesn't like any Indigo Girls songs either.
Is Jessica Hopper, therefore, homophobic?
now playing: the Nasty On - Lester Bangs
it's a crime
I'm pretty sure this has been talked about elsewhere, but I was thinking about it this evening.
So, Sasha Frere-Jones and Jessica Hopper think Stephen Merritt is a racist because he doesn't like hip hop... or appreciate Beyonce... or state his love of "enough" black artists in public. I will comment on the ridiculousness of this insinuation by posing the following:
In 2004 SF-J published this best of the year list. Please note that amongst the 158 songs and 52 albums there are only three openly GLBT artists (Tegan and Sara, Indigo Girls, and, ironically, Magnetic Fields)... and I guess "Michael" had some pretty strong homosexual undertones, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt for including a Franz Ferdinand song (even though it was "Dark of the Matinee").
Now subtract from that number (three and a half if you're keeping score) from the number of artists on the list that have lyrics that are pretty openly homophobic (and don't even start with that "they don't really mean it like that when they say 'faggot' on record"). The resulting number is a negative integer.
I bet he doesn't own any Melissa Etheridge records... or if he does, it's just for show.
Does that mean Sasha is homophobic?
Note also, Jessica Hopper's 2005 Pazz and Jop ballot. The closest thing to an openly homosexual artist is Kate Bush, who is straight, but lots of gay dudes happen to like her.
I bet she has better taste than Sasha and doesn't like any Indigo Girls songs either.
Is Jessica Hopper, therefore, homophobic?
now playing: the Nasty On - Lester Bangs
2 Comments:
Well thank God I have TV on the Radio on my ipod! I'm not racist!
By 
, at
4:52 a.m.
i enjoyed the Slate article. I don't know the Magnetic Fields very well, nor do I care about either critic, but it's an interesting issue nonetheless. my music collection probably contains less than 1% of albums by black people...the only ones that come to mind are The Dears, Ben Harper (who's half black), and MJ's Thriller. Stevie Wonder's rad, but I don't have any of his albums yet.
By , at
11:02 a.m.
