Have you been following the brouhaha over New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones’ essay "A Paler Shade of White"? The music blogosphere has been atwitter in response to the article, which uses Arcade Fire (pictured) as an example of how indie rock has become awfully white — not just in the racial makeup of many bands, but in the music’s supposed abandonment of black musical influences (jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, worldbeat, etc.).
Now, the band itself has responded to Frere-Jones, insisting, We are, too, funky! The response takes the form of an MP3 juxtaposing snippets of Arcade Fire’s music with the black music tracks that supposedly inspired them. It’s not the best argument in AF’s favor; it’s often hard to hear a resemblance between the Canadian combo’s tracks and their supposed inspirations; plus, if you’re trying to prove your debt to black musicians, you probably aren’t helping yourself by citing the Beatles and the Beastie Boys. Still, this miscegenation mashup may be my favorite AF track of the year, and that includes the entirety of Neon Bible.
A better argument comes in the form of AF member Will Butler’s letter to Frere-Jones, in which he suggests that most of what falls under the umbrella of popular music — no matter how unsyncopated its rhythms or how white its composers — draws upon a hopelessly complex jumble of influences, black, white, and other. No music today has a racially pure pedigree. To argue otherwise is to oversimplify and to stereotype.
Critics (and I include myself here) like to analyze influences; it’s part of what we do, taking things apart to see how they work. But the search for authenticity is a trap; it leads to purist standards that almost no band can live up to. And it ignores the larger, simpler, ultimately more important question: is the band any good? (Even Frere-Jones admits he likes Arcade Fire.) Ultimately, what do these angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin arguments matter, as long as folks are dancing?
I was most surprised by Frere-Jones’s Arcade Fire example because there’s actually a track on Neon Bible titled “Antichrist Television BLUES” that is so obviously rooted in the blues/rockabilly/Elvis tradition.
That SF/J can’t even get Win Butler’s name right (he’s got it as “Will”) is just the first of many, many problems with his argument.
Hey Jack Fear, there is a guy in Arcade Fire called Will Butler. Happens to be Win’s brother.
Easy, Jack. Will Butler is Win Butler’s brother, and he’s in the band too.
Well, slap *me* up with the ignernt stick… Doesn’t change the fact that SF/J’s work is often riddled with simple factual errors, and that this particular argument is flimsy at best, offensive at worst, based as it is on some pretty retrograde notions of “blackness” and “whiteness.” Like most arguments of its type, it tells us a lot about the person making the claims (in this case, SF/J) and less so about the actual subject at hand.
The New Yorker writer is flat-out naive. The idea that “authentic” black music is more primitive and sexual than “white” music is just a more modern version of the “noble savage” racial stereotype. Even when you dive into other subgenres of rock ‘n’ roll that are mostly white, like punk, you find a good smattering of both white (British Invasion, glam) and black (blues, R&B, reggae) influences. Today’s indie is so all over the place that you’ll find the same sort of diversity. It’s the music media’s own fault that they make indie look homogenous by covering the same handful of acts (The Arcade Fire, Wilco, etc.) ad nauseum.
SF/J has always been the weakest writer for the New Yorker, which I actually think is excellent.
But I don’t understand why this is some dramatized.
I read the article and just said, “Well, that makes no sense,” and that was that.
Why give the guy more publicity than he already stole?
I like white people, not being one.
I think everyone is missing the point of the article. The reason why “authentic” black music is not really heard in indie rock is that this music is not hidden anymore. If you want to hear Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters or Bob Marley, it is at your fingertips. You can see it on TV and hear it on the radio. Before, you grew up without knowing of this music and when you found it, it felt like an amazing discovery. So, bands that were coming up tried to emulate these guys as a sort of badge of authenticity. That is not the case anymore and it is not really a bad thing.
I’ve always found it ridiculous that some black people are thought of as “not black enough.” I don’t know what to think of white people being considered not black enough.
“No music today has a racially pure pedigree.” Isn’t that a good thing? Talk around racial purity in the past has gotten us nowhere good. Seems to me this New Yorker writer is just trying to stir up controversy where none exists.
oh for crying out loud! Did this reviewer even consider where this band is based. Despite the fact that the Butler brothers are American, most of the band is Canadian, and the Canadian–not to mention Montreal–indie rock scene has a completely different trajectory from that of the U.S. scene. Also, with Regine’s Haitian and French Canadian background, the band incorporates a lot of folk influences that have almost nothing to do with the Black American experience. If you’re going to critique indie rock in the U.S., then pick a U.S. act, for chrissake!
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