Dec 23 2009
Re: Gaga, Palmer, Madonna
My grrl Amanda Palmer posted this video on YouTube the other day, articulating her feelings about pop music, women and so forth.
The song is charming (posted with permission):
But I don’t happen to be down with the idea that pop music is art just because it’s self-expression. I believe that some pop music is art, but most pop music is business, and when you sell a bunch of records in a world that worships $$$, you can call yourself an artist or a monster or whatever the hell you want. I’ve seen Donald Trump quoted claiming that he’s an artist; Madonna was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first year she was eligible, while the Stooges are being inducted in 2009, after being turned down 7 times! 7 times!!! They’ve been eligible for 16 fuckin’ years, and one of them didn’t even live to see the day (guitarist Ron Asheton began the 2009 rock ‘n’ roll death count last January 6). Anyway, here’s the response I emailed to her. Enjoy!
Yes, there is a music continuum, and yes, I don’t think it’s really part of the artist’s job to figure out where they fall on it or how their work measures up. That’s for fans, critics and posterity to decide. Madonna, Palmer and Gaga should all do their work and not worry about whether it’s art or product, durable or disposable. Just try and make the best work you can.
BUT that doesn’t mean the work is all of the same artistic quality and value. And in the same way that I wouldn’t call a Twinkie a great pastry, I wouldn’t call a Madonna or Gaga song a work of art. To my soul, ear and heart, that kind of post-modern pop music- with all the vocal processing (can we please lay off the Vocoder for a while, people?), mind-numbingly familiar melodic and rhythmic conventions and superficial S/M veneer- is the Happy Meal of musical experiences: millions (even billions!) of people may love it, but that don’t make it good. Or art.
I think there is a sort of backlash going on these days, where we’ve swung from a pre-modern idea of art (art is produced by masters who have rigorously subjected themselves to study and practice along a very strict set of parameters) to a post-modern one (it’s art if we say so, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah). While on the one hand, it’s bad to have an academy that’s too rigid (case in point: Sandman- comic book AND literary masterpiece. They said it couldn’t be done!), I think it’s also a mistake to throw out the academy all together, because as a society we need limitations, standards and ideals in order to knock down the next set of barriers that keep us alienated, thwarted and confused. Work that feels like art to me doesn’t just make me smile, or shake my ass. It validates a deep sense of identity, creates possibilities in my mind and sets off a shitstorm of inspiration and hope. The funny thing is that I get that feeling from, say, Bill Frisell’s cover of Madonna’s “Have a Little Faith” but not from the original version. Or from “Girl Anachronism” but not from “Bad Romance”.
To me (and maybe this is because I’m super-old) Lady Gaga is just a Leigh-Bowery-via-Vegas ripoff, which infuriates me because the really fabulous, transgressive performers who pioneered the styles that Gaga claims are completely original to her are pretty much all dead now. They died of the Plague, mostly, and we lost some of the wittiest, most creative souls who ever wore a corset, a molded plastic dress or a pair of sky-high fetish heels. We have all been deprived of the beautiful, twisted, glamorous works they would be making right now if they had lived.
Obviously, when you sell 2 million records in 2009, you can say what you want about yourself and people will lap it up and spit it right back out. But personally I’m tired of hearing 110-lb usual suspect masochist blonds talk about how they’re breaking down the beauty standard*, and challenging the status quo, and creating amazingly transgressive, original art. They’re not.
* I hate the term beauty standard, and am preparing an essay that I’ve been rolling around my brainpan on the subject that I will publish at the beginning of the new year. Stay tuned…
