I did a 360 on Taylor -- liked him as a kid, renounced him as a punk, returned to him as a geezer. But I don't think Bangs turned around so much as tried a new angle, because that's where his Romilar-fueled journey took him.
I’m not reading the damn thing because I wouldn’t give the Federalist the clicks, but I’d very much like to know how Hemingway delineates the difference between self-obsession and introspection. I didn’t realize in addition to “journalism” he had an advanced degree in psychology.
For the millionth time, as we all know, conservatives don’t understand art or artists. If they like an artist, the most mediocre trash is genius. If they don’t, anything the artist produces will be criticized. It feels like Hemingway is running around feverishly with a raised hammer, desperately searching for a nail.
There's a level of pretentiousness to the whole "Oh, it's not art because it's not soul-searching wrenching look-into-the-abyss" bullshit. While I'm definitely not a Swifty, I can see the appeal of her music because, for the most part, it's just fun. And if you don't think there's an art to that, just try telling a joke that you don't get.
This. Except Hemingway isn't astute enough to even recognize that concept, nor are any modern conservatives. They aren't sophisticated enough to be pretentious. They aren't even sophisticated enough to be truly critical, they just slap the labels "woke" or "elite" on things they don't like or don't understand.
And I'm also not a Swiftie, and definitely didn't have "leaping to the defense of Taylor Swift" on my bingo card for today, lol.
I think you give Hemingway too much credit. I doubt you will ever see him write a column praising the art of The Cure or The Smiths, let alone the songs written by Townes Van Zandt or Kurt Cobain. Nor will he ever write a column criticizing Kenny Chesney or Walker Hayes.
No what really grinds Hemingway's gears is the fact that Swift is young woman with a great talent for writing fun, catchy pop songs that millions of people around the world enjoy.
Yeah. He feels that Swift--or any woman, really--not "fulfilling her destiny" by popping out Moar White Babbiez for the Reich is not just a failure but an enemy of the state.
A single, childless, successful, attractive white woman is an Affront To The Narrative merely by existing. The misogynoir version is a Black woman merely being successful and visible -- a la Kamala Harris.
David Gerrold ruined my writing hobby for years; I read an essay by him in Starlog Magazine where he implied that if you don't have A Very Important Thing To Say, you shouldn't be writing. A Theme, An Impact, A Hand On The Collective Shoulder Of Humanity. And that just worked so well on top of my crippling self-doubt.
There's a place for (almost) every kind of writer. But creative writing is generally not one of those places. I write professionally, but I genuinely suck at creative writing.
Well! So I checked out Daily Deplorable’s RSS feed just for a single day and tsunami of demented horseshit was overwhelming. So congrats to Roy for being to stomach this shit.
And speaking of unhinged cretins, and circling back to today’s post:
Swifty, musically and otherwise means nothing to me. And being an old fart, her success is a complete mystery. But whatever.
But that said, if dating a quarterback gets the wing nuts crazy, here’s hoping she dates every person that drives the wing nuts crazier.
Not limiting it to one sport over another. If the idea of Swifty dating a given athlete in any sport driving the nut jobs yet more unhinged, then that’s who she needs to date. She can be a real American hero...
Totally agree. But I was also trying to make a (bad?) joke about maybe the wingnut’s Taylor hate had some component of jealousy about the football player and his “position”
In dating Travis Kelce, she is dating *the* tight end. Nobody else is even close. (And I’m not particularly a fan of the Kansas City Indigenous Leaders.)
Conservatives began hating Swift about 5 years ago when she stood up to Apple and demanded lesser-known musicians be treated and paid fairly. She threatened to pull her entire catalog off iTunes. Apple relented and now lots of musicians are at least getting SOME money for their music instead of Apple keeping it all.
So it was Swift standing up for others that made conservatives angry. After all, their vision of America at its greatest if FYIGM.
"She's an attractive, talented, single woman who is wealthy, popular, AND stands up for others" is more than enough to earn the loathing of most conservatives.
Yes!! They are terrified because massive youth voters will destroy them. And now with woke Travis Kelce on board promoting Bud Light, they’re falling into collective irritable bowel syndrome - Real and metaphorical. Wait till they find out Selena Gomez. - way ahead of even Taylor on Insta -- is a even more all in in youth voting.
Even without the Everything’s-About-My-Politics-And-Here’s-Why, an Old going off on Why The Music The Youngs Listen To Sucks is as relevant and as interesting as your average belly button lint, but way more self-absorbed.
My father's father listened to Caruso on shellac 78s. My father listened to Montovani, and his father thought it was noise. I listened to rock, blues, and soul, and my father thought it was noise. I hear what the kids listen to today, and I think "sounds like noise to me, which is about right in the grand scheme of things."
There is a reason why music is art; because it touches the soul. And different people have different tastes. What’s art is to some, is like scratching a chalkboard to others.
I define art and especially music as something mellifluous that both inspires and resonates with a person. Influence enough people, and your art or music is nirvana...:)
Who cares what some federalist society moron thinks. They seem to love Jason Aldean’s,” Try this in a small town.” Not because it’s art, but because it inspires a small group of haters to continue their insane rampage against the “woke” mob and their radical left-wing agenda (it’s not radical or left-wing).
They hate Taylor Swift not because of her music, but because of her influence on so many young adults, and her politics is at odds with their religious and dystopian agenda.
Hold on to that, could be used for any of these right-wing morons throwing a toddler-style tantrum about... well, anything. Not quite "Sourbro starter" but still a keeper.
Okay, so I went and gave the Federalist my one entire click and read the thing. Wow. The word that comes to mind is "embarrassing." Or maybe "pathetic." "I think pop music sucks" has never been an original thought and this seems a particularly stupid version that could've been written anytime over the last hundred years. Complaining that Swift (or pop music generally) has too many breakup songs? Is he kidding? And when he looks for an example of a time when pop was musically sophisticated he picks Eleanor Rigby, a song that was sui generis even for the Beatles eclectic output, and almost completely unrelated to the rest of popular music back then and since?
BTW, while trying to impress us with his musical knowledge, Hemingway gets that completely wrong, too.
"[Eleanor Rigby is] notable for its repeated use of “plagal cadences” where the IV chord resolves to the I, or root chord in the key. Musically, this particular songwriting move is most closely identified with hymnody — it’s also known as the “Amen Cadence” — a remarkable move for a song about church life, and one McCartney probably did instinctually."
Except there isn't really a single IV-I cadence in the entire song (the harmony almost continuously oscillates between Em and C (VI)). Reminds me of when Kevin Williamson strutted his lack of musical knowledge in public to criticize Jimi Hendrix.
On this point: I am listening to the audiobook of Steven Van Zandt's autobiography right now, and it is startling to me how he talks about songwriting. Nuts and bolts, conscious decision-making about arrangement and style, about the history of what songs might be considered antecedents to the one you're working on, about genre expectations -- how carefully artists work the craft to get what they want to sound like pure inspiration. It's really a great memoir and I'd recommend it to anyone who has even passing interest in Miami Steve's weirdly varied musician-activist-actor career.
Some people I know we're heading to Dearborn Michigan to see this band called the Stooges. I had sort of heard about them but I had tickets to a Reds game and decided to go see them.
They got shut out by Montreal three to nothing in the most boring game ever to be played in the major leagues.
If I'd read that Creem article I would probably have gone to the show.
Lester was genius and so was Creem. I loved so many of those late 70s early 80s Creem writers. They had more to do with my jaundiced perspective than anything I ever read in school. And you gotta think Lester and his pals would have had a good laugh when Jann Wenner stepped on his dick a few weeks back.
The only thing more stupid than deliberately stepping on a rake is faulting a group that includes Joni Mitchell for failure to meet Wenner's standard for "articulate."
One thing I can say about Taylor is she’s a phenomenon. My niece, who graduated from Johns Hopkins and is now getting her Masters at JH’s in Medicine Management is a huge Taylor fan: obsessed really.
I’m just wondering whether Taylor has actual fans or just millions of stalkers? I mean $250 tickets selling for $25k? That’s an obsession!....:)
Just when you think, " Christ Almighty, this internet thing has fucked up the entire world" an old dear friend sends you a link to a Lester Bangs article about a Van Morrison live performance
as well as a link to said performance and for awhile one Tuesday morning, for a brief few minutes, all is amazingly good.
Sep 26, 2023·edited Sep 26, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
I actually read about 3/4 of Henry James while I was in college, entirely on my own, because that's the sort of thing you do in college. For some reason lost in the mists of time, I decided to give James a try, and for some equally forgotten reason I picked up The Wings of the Dove. The first sentence absolutely knocked me on my ass, and I went on from there. Haven't read him since, but I suspect I'd enjoy him just as much, probably for different reasons.
Lester Bangs did a 180° on James Taylor? Damn. He still sucks and, even worse, he won't fucking go away!
I feel so heard.
I did a 360 on Taylor -- liked him as a kid, renounced him as a punk, returned to him as a geezer. But I don't think Bangs turned around so much as tried a new angle, because that's where his Romilar-fueled journey took him.
Randy Newperson knows that James Taylor is 𝘎𝘰𝘥! Proof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgcsMphORJo
Brilliant and unrecognized work by RN. And casting JT as a (malevolent) God is genius
[LORD]
Sorry ladies, to make you wait
There's a couple of Buddhists at the Pearly Gate
Ask my permission to come on board
[ANGELS]
What'd you do Lord?
[LORD]
I had to have 'em put out with the trash
Sing it
[ANGELS & LORD]
Oh Lord, (Heavenly) how great our Lord!
Sing to me
Oh Lord, (Hmm) how great our Lord!
https://genius.com/Randy-newman-glory-train-lyrics
“Sour-bro starter” belongs in the Smithsonian.
I’m not reading the damn thing because I wouldn’t give the Federalist the clicks, but I’d very much like to know how Hemingway delineates the difference between self-obsession and introspection. I didn’t realize in addition to “journalism” he had an advanced degree in psychology.
For the millionth time, as we all know, conservatives don’t understand art or artists. If they like an artist, the most mediocre trash is genius. If they don’t, anything the artist produces will be criticized. It feels like Hemingway is running around feverishly with a raised hammer, desperately searching for a nail.
There's a level of pretentiousness to the whole "Oh, it's not art because it's not soul-searching wrenching look-into-the-abyss" bullshit. While I'm definitely not a Swifty, I can see the appeal of her music because, for the most part, it's just fun. And if you don't think there's an art to that, just try telling a joke that you don't get.
This. Except Hemingway isn't astute enough to even recognize that concept, nor are any modern conservatives. They aren't sophisticated enough to be pretentious. They aren't even sophisticated enough to be truly critical, they just slap the labels "woke" or "elite" on things they don't like or don't understand.
And I'm also not a Swiftie, and definitely didn't have "leaping to the defense of Taylor Swift" on my bingo card for today, lol.
I've got a 20 year old daughter. "Leaping to the defense of Taylor Smith" is always at the top of my bingo card!
I'd just like to leap on Taylor Swift.
Yes, I'm 15.
Leap on Swift is the Hop on Pop ripoff that got banned from all the libraries.
"Not sophisticated enough to be pretentious" is a species of "not even wrong."
LOL, exactly.
I think you give Hemingway too much credit. I doubt you will ever see him write a column praising the art of The Cure or The Smiths, let alone the songs written by Townes Van Zandt or Kurt Cobain. Nor will he ever write a column criticizing Kenny Chesney or Walker Hayes.
No what really grinds Hemingway's gears is the fact that Swift is young woman with a great talent for writing fun, catchy pop songs that millions of people around the world enjoy.
He should give a cut of his royalties to David Allen Coe.
"No what really grinds Hemingway's gears is the fact that Swift is young woman"
who's never even heard of Mark Hemingway.
And to think she has company...!
Yeah. He feels that Swift--or any woman, really--not "fulfilling her destiny" by popping out Moar White Babbiez for the Reich is not just a failure but an enemy of the state.
A single, childless, successful, attractive white woman is an Affront To The Narrative merely by existing. The misogynoir version is a Black woman merely being successful and visible -- a la Kamala Harris.
David Gerrold ruined my writing hobby for years; I read an essay by him in Starlog Magazine where he implied that if you don't have A Very Important Thing To Say, you shouldn't be writing. A Theme, An Impact, A Hand On The Collective Shoulder Of Humanity. And that just worked so well on top of my crippling self-doubt.
There's a place for (almost) every kind of writer. But creative writing is generally not one of those places. I write professionally, but I genuinely suck at creative writing.
For consolation, read Nabokov on writing. He's the opposite: spare me your wisdom and insights and "message." Cultivate style.
In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.
Borne out by almost every piece of literature that survives the era of its publication.
Nobody reads Strunk & White’s “Elements of Sincerity” these days.
"how Hemingway delineates the difference between self-obsession and introspection..."
When I do it, it's introspection, when YOU do it, it's self-obsession.
Well! So I checked out Daily Deplorable’s RSS feed just for a single day and tsunami of demented horseshit was overwhelming. So congrats to Roy for being to stomach this shit.
And speaking of unhinged cretins, and circling back to today’s post:
Swifty, musically and otherwise means nothing to me. And being an old fart, her success is a complete mystery. But whatever.
But that said, if dating a quarterback gets the wing nuts crazy, here’s hoping she dates every person that drives the wing nuts crazier.
Nascar drivers. Then leaves them eating her dust...the exploding heads would power our clean-ish energy future beyond the sun's expiration date.
Not limiting it to one sport over another. If the idea of Swifty dating a given athlete in any sport driving the nut jobs yet more unhinged, then that’s who she needs to date. She can be a real American hero...
Taylor Swift leaves a Nascar driver for Colin Kaepernick. The supernova would be visible from the Andromeda galaxy.
Oh please oh please oh please oh please….
Yeah, I'd give CK a knee for that.
Dating a “tight end” not a QB. So go where you want in that position.
TBH, I know less about jocks than I do Taytay.
But even with my mistake, the point remains: I wish for her to date everyone that drives the wing nuts crazy that she can. She’d be a hero if she did.
Totally agree. But I was also trying to make a (bad?) joke about maybe the wingnut’s Taylor hate had some component of jealousy about the football player and his “position”
Hah.
Except it’s a bunch wing nuts having their feefees hurt.
One might say “butthurt” to continue the “tight end” position.
Now you’re prying into what Taytay did on her date. Even I would draw the line with that.
The important thing isn’t the what but the who.
Wingnuts vs. wingbacks
Also, Kelce has a vaccination commercial out currently
In dating Travis Kelce, she is dating *the* tight end. Nobody else is even close. (And I’m not particularly a fan of the Kansas City Indigenous Leaders.)
Conservatives began hating Swift about 5 years ago when she stood up to Apple and demanded lesser-known musicians be treated and paid fairly. She threatened to pull her entire catalog off iTunes. Apple relented and now lots of musicians are at least getting SOME money for their music instead of Apple keeping it all.
So it was Swift standing up for others that made conservatives angry. After all, their vision of America at its greatest if FYIGM.
"She's an attractive, talented, single woman who is wealthy, popular, AND stands up for others" is more than enough to earn the loathing of most conservatives.
Didn't she also tell her fans to register to vote? Anathema to Republicans!
Apocalyptic!
Bingo. This is what they're really pissed about. Got young women to register to vote.
Yeah, but the Supreme Court did the same thing, and they're not mad at them?
Yes!! They are terrified because massive youth voters will destroy them. And now with woke Travis Kelce on board promoting Bud Light, they’re falling into collective irritable bowel syndrome - Real and metaphorical. Wait till they find out Selena Gomez. - way ahead of even Taylor on Insta -- is a even more all in in youth voting.
IIRC correctly she stuck it to Ticketmaster too, so she's okay in my book.
Even without the Everything’s-About-My-Politics-And-Here’s-Why, an Old going off on Why The Music The Youngs Listen To Sucks is as relevant and as interesting as your average belly button lint, but way more self-absorbed.
My father's father listened to Caruso on shellac 78s. My father listened to Montovani, and his father thought it was noise. I listened to rock, blues, and soul, and my father thought it was noise. I hear what the kids listen to today, and I think "sounds like noise to me, which is about right in the grand scheme of things."
Well, pedantically speaking, it is all noise.
A Redwing Blackbird: "Look, I'm no music critic, but I know what I like and this ain't it."
Now get outta my marsh!
Hope your father also listened to Kostelantetz.
1001 Strings!
Attached!
Goodbye Columbus reference.
Really. A guy who writes an "here's why I, a 50-something man, dislike Taylor Swift" article shouldn't accuse anyone else of being self-absorbed.
OOFYEAH!
Damn straight!
Truth
A succinct and fatal blow.
Also, as relevant and as interesting as it was when my parents' generation said the same thing about the Beatles, et al.
Pretty sure it's been going on since ancient Egypt.
There is a reason why music is art; because it touches the soul. And different people have different tastes. What’s art is to some, is like scratching a chalkboard to others.
I define art and especially music as something mellifluous that both inspires and resonates with a person. Influence enough people, and your art or music is nirvana...:)
Who cares what some federalist society moron thinks. They seem to love Jason Aldean’s,” Try this in a small town.” Not because it’s art, but because it inspires a small group of haters to continue their insane rampage against the “woke” mob and their radical left-wing agenda (it’s not radical or left-wing).
They hate Taylor Swift not because of her music, but because of her influence on so many young adults, and her politics is at odds with their religious and dystopian agenda.
Just my humble opinion...:)
I myself prefer chalkboards scratched.
To each is own...:)
Oh if only I had room enough and chalk for my own chalkboard. Things would change around here, is all I'm sayin'...
Clearly, you have way too much time on your hands...:)
So much time; so little wallspace...
FYI: my dog agrees with you....:)
That makes one of us!
Fear the wrath of the Whiteboard Supremacists.
The Wrathchilds!
Hold on to that, could be used for any of these right-wing morons throwing a toddler-style tantrum about... well, anything. Not quite "Sourbro starter" but still a keeper.
I'mo scrawl it on my chalkb – Ah, crap!
Okay, so I went and gave the Federalist my one entire click and read the thing. Wow. The word that comes to mind is "embarrassing." Or maybe "pathetic." "I think pop music sucks" has never been an original thought and this seems a particularly stupid version that could've been written anytime over the last hundred years. Complaining that Swift (or pop music generally) has too many breakup songs? Is he kidding? And when he looks for an example of a time when pop was musically sophisticated he picks Eleanor Rigby, a song that was sui generis even for the Beatles eclectic output, and almost completely unrelated to the rest of popular music back then and since?
Like I said. Embarrassing. He gets paid for this?
BTW, while trying to impress us with his musical knowledge, Hemingway gets that completely wrong, too.
"[Eleanor Rigby is] notable for its repeated use of “plagal cadences” where the IV chord resolves to the I, or root chord in the key. Musically, this particular songwriting move is most closely identified with hymnody — it’s also known as the “Amen Cadence” — a remarkable move for a song about church life, and one McCartney probably did instinctually."
Except there isn't really a single IV-I cadence in the entire song (the harmony almost continuously oscillates between Em and C (VI)). Reminds me of when Kevin Williamson strutted his lack of musical knowledge in public to criticize Jimi Hendrix.
Well, I'm a drummer, and... I don't see any spelling mistakes in his analysis
Says a lot that he couldn't just write a straight-up "Here's why I love Eleanor Rigby" and had to stuff that inside a "Here's why I hate ____"
The Conservative Culchah demands nothing less.
"Taylor Swift is not choc-o-mutts ice cream and is therefore pure liquid evil!"
And implying that McCartney could not have reasoned out that musical move, and had to rely on instinct, is one truly pathetic statement.
Poor Mark, writing the words to a rant that (almost) no one will hear.
I can smell fear. . .
Yeah, with this guy, "No one comes near" is an unstated assumption.
I would love to see him take it up with Sir Paul in person.
McCartney: No, actually, I wrote it that way because I liked how it sounded.
Hemingway: No! You were MOVED BY GOD. You are an unwitting instrument of HIS WILL!
McCartney: [calls security]
On this point: I am listening to the audiobook of Steven Van Zandt's autobiography right now, and it is startling to me how he talks about songwriting. Nuts and bolts, conscious decision-making about arrangement and style, about the history of what songs might be considered antecedents to the one you're working on, about genre expectations -- how carefully artists work the craft to get what they want to sound like pure inspiration. It's really a great memoir and I'd recommend it to anyone who has even passing interest in Miami Steve's weirdly varied musician-activist-actor career.
It's almost hard to believe Mark Hemingway and Lester Bangs are the same species.
I guess Molly must be the real Breadwinner in the family and that's why he feels like a dyspeptic Gen X guy with nothing to lose.
Hemingway is incredibly fucked up and Lester was gloriously fucked up. Reading Bangs always made me want to go out and get into some trouble.
Here he is on the Stooges , from a Creem article I'd never seen before.
https://stoogesforum.forumotion.com/t230-of-pop-pies-fun-by-lester-bangs
Some people I know we're heading to Dearborn Michigan to see this band called the Stooges. I had sort of heard about them but I had tickets to a Reds game and decided to go see them.
They got shut out by Montreal three to nothing in the most boring game ever to be played in the major leagues.
If I'd read that Creem article I would probably have gone to the show.
Lester was genius and so was Creem. I loved so many of those late 70s early 80s Creem writers. They had more to do with my jaundiced perspective than anything I ever read in school. And you gotta think Lester and his pals would have had a good laugh when Jann Wenner stepped on his dick a few weeks back.
The only thing more stupid than deliberately stepping on a rake is faulting a group that includes Joni Mitchell for failure to meet Wenner's standard for "articulate."
One thing I can say about Taylor is she’s a phenomenon. My niece, who graduated from Johns Hopkins and is now getting her Masters at JH’s in Medicine Management is a huge Taylor fan: obsessed really.
I’m just wondering whether Taylor has actual fans or just millions of stalkers? I mean $250 tickets selling for $25k? That’s an obsession!....:)
Just when you think, " Christ Almighty, this internet thing has fucked up the entire world" an old dear friend sends you a link to a Lester Bangs article about a Van Morrison live performance
as well as a link to said performance and for awhile one Tuesday morning, for a brief few minutes, all is amazingly good.
https://substack.com/@brawlatthepoetscafe/note/c-40697371?r=insr
I actually read about 3/4 of Henry James while I was in college, entirely on my own, because that's the sort of thing you do in college. For some reason lost in the mists of time, I decided to give James a try, and for some equally forgotten reason I picked up The Wings of the Dove. The first sentence absolutely knocked me on my ass, and I went on from there. Haven't read him since, but I suspect I'd enjoy him just as much, probably for different reasons.
James does a deep dive on human emotional conflicts and ignoble motivations as drivers of the narrative. I like his stuff.
Big Props for the Lester Young reference in a Lester Bangs related article! This truly is the coolest spot on the internet.
Except for Patti Smith's substack.
OOF.
I'll distract the boss whilst you quickly delete this post...
“Sourbro starter.” Applause from Detroit, friend.
Btw, anyone who hasn’t read Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung definitely should. There is a lot of great writing in there.
Props for the title referring to the great Lester Young jam riff rhythm changes tune.