CoverSt. Vincent, Builder Of Rock Futures, Takes Shelter In The PastArt & Living / Cover / TrendingThere’s a scene in Torrey Peters’ new novel, Detransition, Baby, where two trans women argue over the enduring legacy of Candy Darling, one of the most memorable stars in Andy Warhol’s orbit in late-’60s and early-’70s New York. One character asserts that she was little more than a muse, a blank canvas onto which men like Warhol and Lou Reed (who wrote about her in “Candy Says” and “Walk on the Wild Side”) could project their fantasies: “just some helpless languid blonde waiting around for a man to save her and make her famous.” In response, the other character lifts her skirt to reveal an enormous, photorealistic portrait of Darling’s face tattooed across her thigh. A person’s image, when separated from the person, can be tectonic in its meaning or appear as a cheap facsimile: It depends on how many times it’s been replicated, the conditions of that replication, and, mostly, whom you ask. Darling died of lymphoma in 1974, during the last months of her 20s. All that’s left of her is the way men documented her life — but those documents persist, and keep tumbling into new generations. In 2013, Reed performed in public for the last time in his life alongside Anohni, the trans singer who picked a famous photo of Darling on her deathbed as the cover of her 2005 album I Am a Bird Now; the song they sang together was “Candy Says.” Today, nearly 50 years after her death, she appears as a character in a St. Vincent album, a mascot of a certain era of New York. The steadfastly retro Daddy’s Home winds down with a song named for Darling, in which Annie Clark professes her devotion in the style of a man down on his luck, trying to win back a great love with a stale gesture: “Candy Darling, I brought bodega roses for your feet.” Fourteen years after her first album as St. Vincent, Clark makes a sharp turn in time with Daddy’s Home, her sixth. Until now, her music had largely tendriled toward the future. The early baroque-pop sound of 2007’s Marry Me and 2009’s Actor, inflected by stints playing guitar for Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree, tautened on 2011’s breakthrough Strange Mercy, an art-rock marvel whose tightly coiled melodies and bold, raucous guitar work earned St. Vincent a sure spot among the burgeoning millennial indie rock canon. She copiloted a suitably offbeat album, Love This Giant, alongside former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in 2012; the fruits of their intergenerational conversation fed into her acclaimed 2014 self-titled LP, where Clark cast herself as a grey-haired cult leader basking in the fawning adoration of her followers. In 2017, she paired with Jack Antonoff — best known for co-producing albums by Lorde and Taylor Swift — for the neon-hued MASSEDUCTION, an exuberant study in the nuances of desire, of wanting and being wanted, seeing and being seen. Throughout her work to date, Clark’s guitar has served as a reliable duet partner, an instrument readily tortured into producing alien sound. There’s the sputtering chainsaw rumble in the solo of the Strange Mercy single “Cruel,” the detuned lead flaying the bridge to Actor‘s “Marrow,” the corroded trumpet call between verses on the self-titled’s “Regret.” Her guitar appears less as accompaniment to her singing than as a second voice, a wordless foil to her vivid, disarming lyrics. On Daddy’s Home, Clark retracts that probing tentacle and retreats deep into her dad’s vinyl cabinet. She’s aimed for period accuracy in the writing and production, furnishing her studio largely with instruments and equipment that were popular circa 1971. Her guitar, formerly a squealing, squalling, animated force, shrinks back down to six strings and a handful of pickups, producing recognizably pearly tones à la George Harrison or Eric Clapton. As a teaser poster promised, the record can even be purchased on obsolete eight-track tape, a collector’s item limited to a run of 500. Clark began work on the album after her father, convicted of a multi-million dollar stock manipulation scheme, was released from a near-decade’s stint in prison. In the music’s browns and oranges, its carefully manicured sleaze, Clark excavates competing desires for love, stability and bad behavior. She looks to her lineage — both her literal parents and the artists she considers her ancestors — in order to stabilize herself, to fix her sprawled longing in a legible sequence. On early single “The Melting of the Sun,” she supplies capsule vignettes of the many women in her personal pantheon, from Joni Mitchell to Tori Amos to Nina Simone, and then turns the lens back on herself: “Who’m I trying to be? / A benzo beauty queen?” In its formal qualities, Daddy’s Home is faithfully cemented in its frequently romanticized era. The press release situates its stories between the years 1971 and 1975 in downtown New York, though it also bears the hallmarks of certain earlier works: the electric sitar of B.J. Thomas’s 1968 hit “Hooked on a Feeling,” the searching psychedelic guitar of George Harrison’s 1970 post-Beatles debut, All Things Must Pass. Musical and vocal gestures plug tightly into the classics: The way Clark drags her voice across the word “pain” on “Pay Your Way in Pain” echoes David Bowie’s treatment of “fame.” The vocal harmonies from her backup singers — including Donny Hathaway’s daughter Kenya Hathaway, whose presence casts another shadow of a dad — recall the tight-knit interplay of The Pointer Sisters. (This marks the first time Clark has made use of backing singers on a solo album rather than overdubbing her own harmonies.) Clark says she spent time picking apart the harmonic complexities of Stevie Wonder’s 1973 song “Golden Lady,” trying to apply the lessons of its satisfying key shift to her own writing. The production is warm and analog and frustratingly minimal, more in line with Antonoff’s recent work in tightly laminated negative space than the lush and vibrant atmospheres of Clark’s professed influences. The funk, soul, R&B and rock that coursed through the early ’70s pop charts tended toward abundance, stacking elements on top of each other to the point where it seemed they might topple but instead locked together in beautiful cohesion. New recording technologies, new genre explorations, and the momentum of concurrent social movements gave much of the period’s music an optimistic fervor, a sense of collective anticipation behind corners not yet turned. There is palpable excitement in the voices of Wonder, Sly Stone, Chaka Khan and other future-minded performers recorded in this stretch of time. By contrast, even though each individual sound on Daddy’s Home is period-accurate, there are rarely enough of them to usher in the same mood. Elements stand cleanly apart, afraid to touch, rather than tangling with each other and getting messy. In this environment, Clark sounds more deadpan than thrilled, set apart from her backup singers rather than rollicking with them. This siloing worked on previous St. Vincent records, where individual instruments had enough personality and grit to take center stage at a pronounced distance from their environments. But here, where each gesture is muffled under a curtain of nostalgia, the space points more to deprivation than sophistication — the colorful, overflowing ’70s filtered through a restrained, minimalist ear. This conundrum at least fits the theme. In reflecting on her “outlaw” dad, Clark professes fears of her own excessiveness, the way her misbehavior alienates her from her hopes for herself. “Somebody Like Me” drapes visions of white weddings over the plaintive echo of slide guitars. On “My Baby Wants a Baby,” she engages in the terrifying exercise of imagining herself a parent: “What in the world would my baby say? / ‘I got your eyes and your mistakes?’ ” Occasionally, Clark seems to address herself in the second person, as on “…At the Holiday Party,” where she sings about someone who pretends to want all the glamour and hedonism in their life “so no one sees you not getting what you need.” In her reanimation of a past just outside her own firsthand memory, Clark collapses the roles of muse and artist, icon and recorder, daddy and baby. She has worked in this volatile spot before, negotiating awareness of the camera on her body in MASSEDUCTION‘s videos while asserting her role as co-creator of the scene. In the lyrics to “The Melting of the Sun,” Clark briefly invokes Marilyn Monroe, the 20th-century icon whose face Warhol famously took as material in his paintings, stamping it out over and over again in surprising colors until its details began to degrade and the overfamiliar image started to look uncanny. Clark casts herself as both Warhol and Monroe in this dynamic: the muse hollowed out through endless replication and the blasé artist doing the replicating. By the time the needle shakes across “Candy Darling,” a smoky, placid ballad sung directly to the late star, Clark is wistful but not broken by the conflicts she’s staged for herself. Her focus settles on a figure who, like Monroe, is easy to romanticize, a woman who was fervently documented and then died young, leaving a vacuum around her meaning. Darling’s subjectivity was short-lived — she had a say in who she was for only a few years. Rather than speculate on that interiority, its challenges and contradictions, Clark calcifies the image: the blonde hair and red lipstick, seen through a window, “waving from the latest uptown train.” She makes one more stamp on the canvas, declares it perfect, and stops at that. Sasha Geffen is the author of the book Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary, a history of boundary-pushing expressions of sex and gender in modern pop. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more... Entertainment GuideLeikeli47 wants you to look and listen deeperEntertainment / Music / TrendingIn an industry that places high premium on aesthetics, Leikeli47 has always challenged her listeners to look and listen deeper than what’s on the surface. Four years — and a whole pandemic — removed from the rapper’s last release, Leikeli47’s Shape Up marks the third and final installment of what 47 has anointed the Beauty Series trilogy. This latest LP builds on the messages of 2017’s Wash & Set and 2018’s Acrylic: beauty as self care, self care as communal work and the genuine, intrinsic growth required for both. Where Wash & Set marked her introduction and Acrylic walked into the safe space of a salon, Shape Up walks out of that metaphorical salon feeling brand new. “Hence, the closure,” she tells NPR. “I’m leaving the shop and I have just what I want.” Sitting in a Brooklyn studio wearing a black Celine tracksuit with matching mask, gold chains and elaborate orange eyeliner, 47 simultaneously looks cozy and coiffed. The MC broke down some essential tracks off the project for this exclusive Listening Party interview on NPR Music’s YouTube channel. “Zoom” makes comedic fodder out of a real life confrontation. “BITM” is a soundtrack to the fiercest of walks, whether at a vogue ball or in aisle 5 at the grocery store. “Hold My Hand” is a letter to God for never leaving her side. “Carry Anne” creeps, then bellows with a desperately needed feminist call for 2022’s misogynistic masses in and outside of the music industry. Together, Shape Up tracks 47’s learning process to embody the confidence she so often preaches onstage to others. “Shape Up came and said, ‘You know that girl that you thought you was? Now you really her now.’ Shape Up is the confidence I’ve been praying for,” 47 says. “Like my mask, it became my best friend. I lived with it for four … We tugged, we pulled, but it was a confident pull. It was a different sort of pull from the Wash & Set and Acrylic eras, I really stood on mines with this.” The way she sees it, this album is for the sure as much as the unsure. “Even if you’re sitting on your hands, you feeling a little lazy about it. It’s not what it looks like,” she declares. “Read those books. Get up. Meditate. Pray. Reverse your thinking. The same way you thought you couldn’t is the same way you know you can.” Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Kendrick Lamar is ready to talk. Is he ready to listen?Entertainment / Music / TrendingNo one does isolation like Kendrick Lamar. More and more in his career, he has shrouded himself in mystery, emerging for the occasional one-off appearance and then vanishing again. As the years following his 2017 Pulitzer-winner, DAMN., came and went without a new album or even a consistent social media presence to speak of, that mystery grew mythic. He wasn’t a rapper any longer, he was some thing — folk tale, hero, beacon for Black America. Even as listeners trapped indoors by a pandemic first began to reemerge, welcomed back to the world by vaccines and milder weather, Lamar seemed content to stay home, reveling in the seclusion. As he proclaims on “Purple Hearts,” a cut from the fabled follow-up album that’s finally arrived, “Whole life been social distant.” Lamar has long used isolation to fuel his creativity, but he knows well the effect it has on his image. On Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, his new double LP, it seems he’s here to tell us he’s not everything we thought. Take him at his lyrical word and you’ll learn he’s spent his time away grappling with sex addiction, reconsidering his relationship with two loved ones who are transgender and railing against what he sees as an era of extreme political correctness. Perhaps most notably, he’s also sought therapy. In structure the album mirrors cycles of recovery, from those awkward early stages of remembering trauma to the breakthrough moments when said trauma reveals its connections to current behavior. As usual, there’s palpable tension between what he’s thinking and what he’s saying, and he peels off just enough of himself to reveal a more complex being. But this time, he seems less concerned with how he looks doing it — pushing boundaries harder than ever, simmering in the aftereffects of the solitude he’s practiced for so long, toeing the border between personal reflection and interpersonal reality. As quickly becomes clear, it’s not only the artist’s past trauma weighing on him, but the act of excavating it. Working on yourself is hard, and risky for someone like Lamar, whose music is dissected and studied in barbershops, on Reddit threads and podcasts, and in schools. Historically, his reputation has been sturdy and sleek, with little room to get much wrong in the eye of the public; that’s how much his music has meant to his fans over the years. But on Mr. Morale, he’s willfully chipping away that veneer. Lamar is going through something — a lot of things — and doesn’t yet seem to know what to make of it. It’s understandable: You don’t shake off being shot at and watching your friends die or go to jail without developing emotional calluses. Left untreated, the skin thickens over the abrasion, and Lamar is one of many Black American men who have been taught since childhood to keep grinding no matter how much it hurts. That lesson goes back to his dad, Kenny, according to the new LP’s “Father Time.” “Hid my emotions, never expressed myself,” Lamar exclaims. “Man should never show feelings, being sensitive never helped.” On his breakthrough 2012 album, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, his father was presented as an optimistic force — a guy who was capable of extremely tough love, but really just wanted his dominoes back. On DAMN., the rapper portrayed Kenny as crafty and comedic: Anthony Tiffith, the would-be CEO of Top Dawg Entertainment, used to stick up the KFC he worked in; Kenny gave him extra chicken and biscuits to get on his good side, in case he robbed the restaurant again. Here, though, the antihero has become the villain — “Father Time” makes the case for Kendrick’s toxicity as the result of Kenny’s generational trauma. To hear him tell it, everything from shaking off scraped knees to rejecting true love connects back to his father’s iron fist. Lamar is on a lonely journey, but he isn’t alone. Self-help author Eckhart Tolle and the rapper’s own partner Whitney Alford serve as narrators on the album, prodding him along a cathartic path. And with production from Duval Timothy, Sounwave and Dahi, hooks from Beth Gibbons and Summer Walker and verses from Kodak Black (whose past sexual assault charge makes him an inflammatory presence here) and Ghostface Killah, Mr. Morale may be his most contemporary-sounding release, far removed from the kaleidoscopic soul of good kid, m.A.A.d city and the avant-jazz of To Pimp a Butterfly. As is his custom, though, even upbeat tracks have a hidden solemnity — like the two-stepping, club-focused “Die Hard” and “Rich Spirit,” which respectively lament the ills of pill-popping and online clout-chasing. When Alford appears, she urges him to seek help to address unprocessed distress and what he refers to as a “lust addiction.” Her voice haunts the margins of “United in Grief,” on which Lamar speaks of a model he met on tour in Chicago and the bond they formed over collective sadness — her mother was absent, her father was in prison and one of her brothers was killed at 21. Elsewhere, the running commentary is non-verbal. At moments when Lamar may be losing his nerve, resisting or evading the unbridled truth, the clicking of tap shoes tells the story he won’t. Over time, he grows more honest — uncomfortably so. “We Cry Together” is Malcolm & Marie reborn in song, a cringe-worthy Jody and Yvette screamfest that illustrates a relationship at its most emotionally raw. The premise is clear — sometimes passion can take you there — but the landing is awkward and feels like a misstep. The same goes for “Auntie Diaries” on the album’s back half, where he wrestles with the gender transitions of an uncle and cousin, peppering in homophobic F-bombs that anchor sharply on the ear. He repeats the word for emphasis, offering that his past use of it came from a child who didn’t know any better, yet still saying it, as a grown adult who should know better. That he would take a shock jock’s approach to a term that isn’t his to reclaim speaks to a bigger, more wearying theme of this album — a grudge with, in Lamar’s words, “cancel culture,” a volatile term whose precise meaning depends on who speaks it. His disdain first manifested visually in the video for the non-album track “The Heart Part 5,” through deepfake technology that morphed his face into those of, among others, O.J. Simpson, Kanye West, Will Smith and Jussie Smollett, figures for whom scrutiny of their lives and choices loom as large as their original claims to fame. In a quip on “Worldwide Steppers,” he hammers his thesis a little harder: “Ni***s killed freedom of speech, everyone sensitive.” Then, on “Savior“: Bite they tongues in rap lyrics Scared to be crucified about a song, but they won’t admit it Politically correct is how you keep an opinion Ni***s is tight-lipped, f*** who dare to be different Seen a Christian say the vaccine mark of the beast Then he caught COVID and prayed to Pfizer for relief Then I caught COVID and started to question Kyrie Will I stay organic or hurt in this bed for two weeks? On one end, there’s nothing wrong with encouraging free thought, and since no one can move the needle like Lamar, he may be the only musician working who could make listeners reconsider social practices that drown out nuance. Not every public transgression merits a one-strike policy. But Lamar doesn’t sound nuanced in these moments — he sounds grumpy, longing for bygone days when celebrities could say and do whatever they chose unchecked. He sounds like a famous person with a lot to lose. If Mr. Morale has a manifesto, it’s the penultimate track, “Mother I Sober.” Over faint piano taps and rhythmic bass drums, Lamar yearns for a retreat from the spotlight, time in someone else’s skin. An insecure soul with gifted child syndrome, he’s still wrestling with how to be famous with flaws, how to reconcile Kendrick Lamar’s opinions with those of Kendrick Duckworth. He’s not a lost cause: He knows Alford’s pain, and he understands that counseling isn’t just for him — it’s for his son and daughter and the innocence they still have. The song is the aha moment in therapy, when all those long sessions finally lock into a moment of self-discovery and an opportunity to do better. Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers is the testament of a complicated soul with a lot more work to do, and the result is a mix of expansive ambition and messy incoherence, tumbling down dark roads with no clear exit strategy. In that way, it’s a kitchen-sink record about real life, in all its surprise twists and turns. Self-actualization is a lifelong journey; at least he’s on the path. Marcus J. Moore is the author of the book The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Like The Linda Lindas, this teen girl band in Benin makes you dance — and thinkCulture / Entertainment / Music / TrendingThe first time that Star Feminine Band – a group of 7 girl musicians from the ages of 12 to 19 – played a show in their West African nation of Benin, many in the crowd broke out in both applause and tears. While the country has seen its share of successful female musicians – singer Angélique Kidjo, for example, has won five Grammys – residents of Natitingou, a town in Benin’s conservative north had never seen musical female power in action. “It was the first time saw women play instruments,” says Sandrine Ouei, the group’s 19-year-old drummer, recalling the event in 2016. “We’re showing the world that women have the capacity and the potential, that they can make music.” That’s the ethos of Star Feminine Band. Since the group’s debut, self-titled album in 2020 – which blends rock and roll with traditional Western African and Beninese music – their music has captured listeners’ attention across the globe for pushing boundaries lyrically, linguistically and culturally. They’ve made a splash in their hometown, signed onto an international label and played shows in France and Switzerland — and in June they’re playing at Roskilde, a major music festival in Denmark. “These girls, when they sing, you just feel the power,” says Abbey Wright, founder of the campaign Planet Resolution. Her project aims to get an artist from every country in the world to record a song about climate change. She commissioned the band’s latest single “Resolution Song,” released in April. The lyrics go, “I’m here standing with you, here, standing with me, standing with the world on our shoulders.” Rockin’ out to girls’ rights In fact, many of the band’s songs – available to stream for free online – tackle social problems, especially girls‘ and women’s issues. So they’re kind of like The Linda Lindas, the all-girl teen punk sensation from Los Angeles — only from Benin. The songs are written by André Balaguemon, a professional musician and a father of two of the girls in the band. In “Femme Africaine,” for example, the singers declare: “You can become prime minister of the country. Get up, we have to do something. African women, be independent.” That’s an important message in a country where, as of February 2021, a little over 8% of seats in parliament were held by women, according to U.N. Women. And in the song “L’excision,” they sing about female genital mutilation, which 9.2% of women between the ages of 15 to 49 have undergone in Benin, according to UNICEF. “Africa, my Africa, we must stop destroying our women,” they sing. Star Feminine Band does all this in eight languages – English, French and the local languages Waama, Ditamari, Bariba, Fulfulde, Yoruba and Fon. “It’s to pass on our message to those who don’t understand French,” says 12-year-old drummer Angelique Balaguemon. Although it’s the country’s official language – used in school, politics and the media – not everyone speaks it. “It’s not difficult to because we’re women ourselves,” says Dorcas M’po, a 14-year-old percussion player. And she knows women in town who have experienced these issues, too. A father’s dream Balaguemon started the band in 2016 hoping to inspire change among the treatment of women and girls in Benin. He was inspired by a dark memory from his own childhood. On a walk home from school, he saw a man beating his wife. The visceral image stuck with him. “My goal is to go to the ends of the earth to defend the rights of women and children,” he says. To get the group started, Balaguemon would first need to teach girls how to play instruments. So he moved to Natitingou from the country’s capital Cotonou to offer free music lessons. He specifically chose this town, he says, because it’s a place “where women’s rights are not respected,” he says. To financially support this endeavor, he rented out two houses he built in central Benin. The mayor’s office got on board with the project, provided a practice space and helped advertise the lessons over the radio. Soon, girls started trickling in. And so Star Feminine Band was born. He put his daughters Angélique on the drum kit and 14-year-old Grâce Marina on the keyboards. Anne Sayi, 15, joined as the guitarist; Julienne Sayi, 17, as the bassist; and Urrice Borikapei, 17, Dorcas and Ouei as drummers. A conservative town reacts At first, people in Natitingou “didn’t understand the project,” says Balaguemon. Critics told him that “girls shouldn’t play music.” But after that first concert on the town square, “everyone started liking Star Feminine Band.” Many girls and women in the area love the band’s message – including former child brides, says Dorcas. “They support us .” The music helps them question why child marriage “continues to happen,” she adds. In one song, “The Forced Marriage,” for example, the girls sing: “Why impose a man on your daughter? African parents, think of us and our future.” That the music is resonating among local girls this way “shows that people who are closer to this scourge are better placed to talk about ,” says Beninese journalist and culture writer Eric Azanney. “It grabs attention.” Girls aren’t the only fans. “There are boys who love the subjects” of their music too, says Dorcas – including classmates and members of the school administration and local government. And some guys just like the band because they’re proud the girls are from their hometown, says Balaguemon. Making it into the big time Star Feminine Band’s big break onto the international stage came by chance. Jérémie Verdier, a trumpet player originally from Avignon, France, was taking time off from work to volunteer in Benin in 2018. He overheard the group practicing in what he calls a “a teeny tiny room” in a building behind Natitingou’s local museum. At the mere mention of him being a musician, the girls invited him to play with their band in a concert later that week – before they even knew if he was any good, he jokes. On stage, he quickly fell in love with the band’s music. The girls were still on his mind when he returned to Europe. In 2019, he hooked them up with the Parisian record label Born Bad, known for its off-the-beaten-path artists. It released Star Feminine Band’s first record. Today, Verdier, now based in Germany, serves as the girls’ manager. Since the band’s formation, the girls have played countless shows in Natitingou, made several music videos — and later this year, they’ll release their second album and tour Europe again. For now, practice continues in Natitingou. The girls get together three times a week when school is in session and more during vacations. And every Sunday, they huddle around a computer screen to Zoom with Verdier. He’s teaching them English so they can communicate with fans when they go on international tours. During one Sunday lesson, the girls perform an acapella version of an unreleased, English-language song from their upcoming album. They swing back and forth, swaying in unison. “Women stand up, stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights,” they sing, nearly chanting. “Don’t underestimate her – because she can do what you do, too.” Nick Roll is a freelance journalist based in Dakar. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...The fuzz, feedback and folklore of a mythic Japanese psych-rock bandEntertainment / Music / TrendingWith just fuzz, wah-wah, tape delay and amplifiers of incredible wattage, the sounds Takashi Mizutani wrung from his electric guitar were seismic beyond belief. Never playing five notes when one held to oblivion would do, his guitar mastery was in the feel, texture and pure, earth-shaking volume and vibration of his instrument. Listening to live recordings of Mizutani’s band Les Rallizes Dénudés is a frequently unnerving experience, as there exists an implicit threat that any moment could be overtaken by excruciating, ear-piercing feedback. This was no mistake, but by design: “Our band’s direction was decided the instant my electric guitar fed back,” Mizutani told Music Magazine writer Manabu Yuasa via fax in 1991, one of the only known communiqués from the notoriously interview-allergic recluse. Never completing a studio album and failing to ever register his compositions in any legal way, Mizutani’s sonic art has long lived in the shadowy domain of unofficial live bootlegs, which generated rampant piracy, myth and rumor about his life and work. After delayed news of his death was announced in Oct. 2021 via Les Rallizes Dénudés’ first official website — he died in 2019 — managing entity The Last One Musique promised to finally offer the truth that had been obscured by years of hearsay and legend. Now with a 50-year-old live recording titled The OZ Tapes, Mizutani’s fervent fanbase is at last able to legally acquire the music of this totem of psychedelic rock. The strange tale of Les Rallizes Dénudés begins in 1967 at Doshisha University in Kyoto. It was on Doshisha’s politically and culturally progressive campus where Takashi Mizutani befriended the radical theater troupe Gendai Gekijo and, according to lore about the origin of the band’s name, adopted their slang “valise dénudé” — its direct translation meaning “empty suitcase,” roughly equivalent to “airhead.” Incorporating a play on the Japanese slang “rari,” meaning “under the influence” (which explains a popular alternative translation of the band’s name), he had a name that conveyed the empty vessel his body would have to become to channel titanic currents of audio assailment. Mizutani’s compositions center on hypnotic repetition and rugged simplicity in the rhythm section, which allows ample space for his passionate, echo-laden vocals and maelstrom of free-wailing guitar to fly high atop. A voracious appetite for extreme sounds on the edges of American rock and jazz guided these unique auditory manifestations: the proto-punk of The Stooges, The Seeds and The Velvet Underground; American free-jazz pioneers John Coltrane and Albert Ayler; releases on the boundary-destroying avant-garde label ESP-Disk’; the time-bending, mind-expanding jams of 1960s Haight-Ashbury groups. Each skipped a flat stone over the surface of the Pacific, generating fractal rings that collided and combined in ways only Mizutani could envision and embody. In particular, the Fillmore West scene revolving around the Grateful Dead‘s axis was of unique interest to both Rallizes and the directors of OZ, the café and performance space that acted as a short-lived headquarters for countercultural art in Tokyo’s Kichijoji neighborhood. When the venue approached its inevitable end, the OZ Last Days festival — from which The OZ Tapes‘ performances are drawn — was patterned directly after the Fillmore’s closing fest. Even the original private-press OZ Days Live compilation mirrored the commemorative Fillmore: Last Days vinyl set. But with Les Rallizes Dénudés allowed only a single side of wax to contain their sprawling jams, the original release pales in comparison to the transcendent impact of The OZ Tapes. Thanks to LRD bassist and producer Makoto Kubota’s sensitive remastering of the original tape reels, which remained miraculously undecayed under the care of OZ manager Minoru Tezuka, we are finally gifted the opportunity to be front-and-center to the band’s incandescent performance in a glorious high-fidelity stereo field. Kubota — a lifelong musician, producer and collaborator in many Japanese music projects of note over the past 50 years — connects the late Mizutani to Temporal Drift. “Our relationship with The Last One Musique begins with Makoto Kubota,” writes Temporal Drift co-founder Yosuke Kitazawa. After working with label partner Patrick McCarthy on Light In The Attic’s reissue for Sanchiko Kanenobu’s Misora, a connection was made with Kanenobu’s personal friend Kubota. Kitazawa and McCarthy were both longtime fans of the band, and in the midst of launching their new label, leapt at the opportunity to bring official Les Rallizes Dénudés records into the world. It’s appropriate that The Last One Musique and Temporal Drift have issued a single, unedited live performance as the first above-ground Rallizes release in their campaign. A studio album by Les Rallizes Dénudés never materialized in Mizutani’s lifetime, which has often been attributed to his crippling perfectionism, but OZ‘s unabridged versions of “The Last One” reveal that a studio could hardly hope to contain or capture the colossal sonics he favored. Les Rallizes Dénudés were after a visceral — sometimes violent — impact, borne from unimaginable loudness. Performing with mirror balls, stupefying light shows, fog machines and strobes, the band’s live sets required no drug inducement to naturally achieve the psychedelic state. This precedence of live performance over studio recordings links LRD once again to the Grateful Dead, and the vibrant “taper” scene that cropped up amongst its fanbase to circulate the sound across time and space. A crucial distinction must be made, however: while the Dead graciously welcomed tapers at their shows and even helped facilitate tape-trading networks, Mizutani, according to Kubota, “hated the idea.” But with Rallizes records completely nonexistent in Japanese record shops, many of those lucky enough to catch one of their infrequent concerts began to bring various audio recorders with them, capturing raw and often unbelievably overdriven tapes to take home and listen to religiously. Some dubbed and passed these illicit recordings on to fellow fans, as piracy was the only means for zealots to turn on neophytes. And so an underground community flowered from the dank soil beneath Mizutani’s black-booted feet, a legion bound together as adoring co-conspirators. Thus, word about this superlatively loud music spread in hushed tones of reverence, each cassette, CD-R and white-label vinyl that survived its clandestine birth garnering a whole new clan of converts, eventually materializing as MP3 uploads on music blogs in the 2000s. “There are many times when the consumer has no idea that what they’re buying is a bootleg or that the artist isn’t really getting any royalties from the sale,” says McCarthy. “That was certainly the case for many fans of Les Rallizes, where the rumors were that someone in the band or even Mizutani was behind the releases. We know now that this was not the case.” As each new pressing sold out quickly with zero publicity, the cult of Les Rallizes Dénudés grew, and so did the number of bootleg record labels looking to cash in without having to share a cent with the musicians themselves. Whether driven by sheer economics or a more idealistic drive to spread some of the most extreme music in the psychedelic rock canon, the result for Mizutani was the same: an insatiable international fanbase buying up recordings he never wanted released; his visionary work stripped from his hands without control or compensation. The cycle continued until Mizutani’s death in 2019, at which point his entire catalog of recorded music — including many reels of tape that had never been grasped by bootleggers — transferred into the control of his surviving family. With Kubota and The Last One Musique’s help, the work began to legally register the original compositions and recordings in an official capacity. Now, thanks to their collaboration with Temporal Drift, acquiring the music of Mizutani and his cohorts is finally an above-the-board affair. “It is extremely important to me, as well as Yosuke, that artists are fairly represented and compensated for their work,” says McCarthy. “Near the end of his life, Mizutani talked with Kubota and expressed his frustration with how the music had been bootlegged and presented over the years. They discussed plans to set the story straight and put a stop to all of the illegally released albums, both physical and streaming. The fact that we’re able to help carry out this wish makes us extremely proud.” Next on the docket is a remastered, three-CD set commemorating the 50th anniversary of the OZ Last Days festival (due this summer); The Last One Musique has hinted that this will be followed by the first-ever vinyl editions of the three archival albums Mizutani sanctioned on CD in 1991, originally released by the Rivista label and long out-of-print (and, subsequently, widely bootlegged). Takashi Mizutani departed this world in secret, his existence so shrouded in rumor that even his friends and collaborators believed the obfuscation was deliberate. But as recent interviews, extensive liner notes and official timelines have shown, this was both unintentional and undesired. Rather than dispelling the magic of a dream, being drawn closer to Mizutani’s truth instead awakens a deeper connection to the man behind the ubiquitous dark sunglasses. The OZ Tapes begins the work of casting all inferior, grimy bootlegs into obsolescence, generating a new fleeting moment of communion with one of rock music’s most fascinating and misunderstood auteurs. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Rural singer-songwriter Margo Cilker’s pandemic hustle is paying offEntertainment / Music / TrendingBOISE, Idaho — Margo Cilker’s songs bring listeners to the West’s more forgotten places: from the 99 freeway through California farm country south to Tehachapi Pass to the north and Jordan Valley, Ore. “Took a room at the old Basque hotel, it was like a kind of prayer when her eyelids fell,” go the lyrics from That River, the first track on her first full length LP Pohorylle. The lack of live gigs over the past two years was especially tough on up-and-coming musicians from smaller cities and towns like Cilker. But in the end it may have leveled the playing field some. “I was one of the lucky ones to come out of the pandemic with more of an opportunity in the industry,” Cilker says. Originally from the suburban Bay Area in California, Cilker has spent most of her burgeoning career based in the rural Northwest from remote eastern Oregon to eastern Washington, where her husband works as a ranch hand. During the lockdowns, Cilker did odd jobs around the ranch and sometimes played live for the cowboys and the veterinarians. And she wrote, a lot. Everyone was remote and virtual and her rural life figured heavily into her music. It appears to have given her career an early boost. “So many people are out there concentrated in big cities, and it shows in their writing,” Cilker says. “It becomes in itself homogenous. I’ve never felt like I could move to Nashville or L.A., or New York. Nothing about it would feed my art.” And even though she doesn’t live in those traditional music hotbeds, she’s still getting noticed. Seattle indie rocker Sera Cahoone is helping produce her second LP. This summer, Cilker also landed a lucrative gig touring with Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll. The country rocker Cilker appears to be part of a small but growing trend of musicians who are realizing they can stay where they are and still be successful coming out of the pandemic. And in some cases, some are even leaving the cities in favor of smaller towns, according to Sean Lynch, who manages two indie rock bands and a club in Billings, Mont. “The consumer at this point in time has anything available to them that they want,” Lynch told NPR. “If it’s good, it’s good. It doesn’t matter if it’s from Billings, Montana, or it’s from New York City. If it’s good, people are going to listen to it.” Touring and live shows are key to making money right now for any band or singer, and this has especially been the case coming out of the pandemic. Lynch advises his just-starting-out artists that it’s a lot tougher to make money and afford to go out on tour today if they do live in a Nashville or Los Angeles due to high rents. While on her tour — her schedule has lately picked back up in earnest — Margo Cilker has been thinking a lot about how her art can dispel stereotypes about rural life. Interviewed on stage at the Treefort Music Festival in Boise in March, she said she often sees more women working on cattle branding crews than on the booking lineup at music festivals. Cilker sees herself and her music as straddling the line, moving through both worlds of a divided America. “I will see something and I’ll tell myself this is why people hate liberals,” she says, laughing. “And then I’ll see something ridiculous on the other end of the spectrum, and it’s like, of course, this is why everyone flocks to the major cities.” Among the crowd favorites at the Boise festival was a song inspired by the work of Oregon’s poet laureate called Barbed Wire (Belly Crawl). “There’s a farmer we know, steps into the tavern, where the bright lights ease the mind,” she sings. “The band gets an encore, the farmer a stiff pour, and we’re all getting closer this time.” Even as her career appears to be on the up and up, Cilker hasn’t lost sight of her rural influences, as she tries to bridge the country’s increasing rural-urban divide through song. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit NPR. Transcript : AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: The long absence of live music during the pandemic was especially tough for up-and-coming musicians in smaller cities and towns. In many cases, small-town singers, songwriters and instrumentalists rely on gigs and touring to earn their living – opportunities that dried up when things locked down. But as NPR’s Kirk Siegler finds, one country rocker from the rural Northwest says the break in live music helped level the playing field. Here he is with this profile. (SOUNDBITE OF MARGOT CILKER SONG, “TEHACHAPI”) KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Margo Cilker’s songs bring listeners to the West’s more forgotten places, like the 99 Freeway through California farm country. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEHACHAPI”) MARGO CILKER: (Singing) Will I cross your mind down 99? Will you think of me on your way back to Tehachapi? SIEGLER: A California native, Cilker has since rambled up to eastern Oregon and Washington. Her husband’s a ranch hand. And her first full-length record is full of tales about the Basque sheepherders who once immigrated to this corner of the West. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC VENUE) UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Inaudible). SIEGLER: The songs are a crowd favorite at live shows. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THAT RIVER”) CILKER: (Singing) Took a room at the old Basque Hotel. It was like a kind of a prayer when our eyelids fell. And being in a rural place, it’s an opportunity to see how other people live and meet them where they are and offer this thing to them that they appreciate. SIEGLER: But during the pandemic, Cilker did odd jobs around the ranch and played live for the cowboys and veterinarians. And she wrote a lot. Everyone was remote and virtual, and being where she was may have actually boosted her career. CILKER: So many people are out there concentrated in these big cities, and it shows in their writing. It becomes in itself homogenous. I’ve never felt like I could move to Nashville or LA, New York. Nothing about it would feed my heart. SIEGLER: And she’s still getting noticed. Seattle indie rocker Sera Cahoone is helping produce her second LP. And this summer, she scored a touring gig with Texas singer-songwriter Hays Carll. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BROTHER, TAXMAN, PREACHER”) CILKER: (Singing) And I wish I was a preacher. I could tell you who to love. I could tell you to vote for. SIEGLER: Cilker is part of a small but growing trend of musicians coming out of the pandemic who are deciding to stay where they are. SEAN LYNCH: The consumer, at this point in time, has anything available to them that they want. And if it’s good, it’s good. It doesn’t matter if it’s from Billings, Mont., or if it’s from New York City. If it’s good, people are going to listen to it. SIEGLER: Sean Lynch manages a rock club in Montana. LYNCH: And this is exactly what I talk to my artists about, is if you are actually interested in touring and you’re actually interested in going out doing that, you will never be able to do that if you live in Los Angeles or Nashville or New York because you’re going to be constantly working all the time just to pay your rent. SIEGLER: And touring is make or break right now for artists. On the road, Margo Cilker has been thinking a lot about how her art can dispel stereotypes about rural life. Interviewed at a festival in Boise recently, she said, you might not expect it, but there are lots of women in ranching. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) CILKER: I’ve been out at branding crews that have more women than, like, music festivals book. SIEGLER: One foot in both worlds, Cilker is troubled seeing all the division in America right now, where really people just don’t talk to one another. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BARBED WIRE (BELLY CRAWL)”) CILKER: (Singing) There’s a farmer we know, steps into the tavern, where the bright lights seize the mind. The band gets an encore, the farmer a stiff pour. And we’re all getting closer this time. SIEGLER: Margo Cilker, bridging the urban-rural divide through music. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Boise. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BARBED WIRE (BELLY CRAWL)”) CILKER: (Singing) If you knew what it was like to be on both sides of me. I’m going farther this time. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.... Read more...Zola Jesus finds purpose in the processEntertainment / Music / TrendingFifty miles outside Madison, Wis. sits a humble monastery surrounded by seventeen acres of forest, where practitioners of the Rinzai tradition, a school of Zen Buddhism, travel to find deep clarity of mind. This past January, among them was Nika Roza Danilova, the musician who has produced gothic pop epics as Zola Jesus for over a decade. One evening, during a private meeting known as dokusan, Danilova posed a question to the head monk that had been weighing on her for months: “Is desire bad?” In that moment, Danilova was continuing the emotional excavation that informed her colossal, time-stopping piano ballad, “Desire,” from her upcoming sixth full-length, Arkhon. The song is an impassioned inquiry into the “storm of the heart,” written during a time of intense self-interrogation. Desire felt like a bad thing, the root of human suffering, of greed and lust. But desire was also a lifeforce: it brought her to study meditation, to push in new directions, to stay curious. What was true? That search animates the song, too. And in a world where manufactured desire is big business, it hits: her operatic voice decimating the concept of longing, blowing the word up with the weight of gravity. Even before 2020, Danilova had been going through a period of transformation. “I’m not the same person that I was when Okovi came out,” she explains over Zoom one weekday morning — video off to strengthen the shaky internet connection in her remote home in rural Merrill, Wis. She was referencing her 2017 album Okovi, an earlier breakthrough. Since then, long term relationships have ended, including her marriage, which sent her on a quest for a sense of self outside them. The ensuing years were ones of intense healing, writing and reimagination. In March 2020, she was set to begin recording in a more collaborative process than ever, including with the producer Randall Dunn (Sunn O)))) and sought-after session drummer Matt Chamberlain, who has worked with the likes of Fiona Apple and Bob Dylan. The pandemic put those plans on hold, but the songs — and Danilova herself — continued to grow. “The things that I value changed,” she says. If Arkhon includes stark moments of internal reckoning, they are guided by a bigger purpose, grappling with political and economic structures of power and disconnection — of which, in recent years, Danilova has emerged as an increasingly visible public critic. This is an album of sorrow and catharsis, born from a search for meaning in the music making process. It roots Zola Jesus songs in live rhythms more viscerally than ever, grooving on her industrial and neoclassical influences in new ways. Arkhon deals in matters of isolation and collectivity; the known and the unknown; chaos, control, release; fear, loss, defeat. The name comes from an ancient Greek word for ruler, specifically a Gnostic interpretation evoking flawed gods with corrupting power. She chose it, she says, while considering our technocratic, oligarchic society that refuses to put people over profit. “Nothing in this time can be stripped from that context,” she says. “With the pandemic, with the climate crisis, the world is becoming more and more inhospitable for more and more people. Arkhon is about all of that. It’s about the times we’re in, where there’s so much exploitation and subjugation that is keeping humanity from collaborating and living in a more holistic way.” How could we not want something more? Before seeking inner fortitude at the monastery, Danilova’s spiritual inquiries had already brought her across the world that year, as she oriented herself towards disorientation. In 2021, she made a trip to Turkey to visit Cappadocia, a labyrinth city with 60-million-year-old caves where people have traveled throughout history to get lost. “It feels like time isn’t linear,” she says. “Like histories stacking up on top of each other.” At Cappadocia, Danilova linked with filmmaker Mu Tunç to make the video for album opener “Lost.” On the screen, she navigates sunless underground tunnels by candlelight, embodying the song’s disarmingly astute hook: “Everyone I know is lost.” With an initial beat taken from a clip of heavy breathing, “Lost” is gripping and ominous, one of the first written for Arkhon, and one that provided a north star for what the record would become. Danilova wrote “Lost,” in part, as response to watching her friends struggle to find purpose in a world increasingly hostile to the arts. “It’s about feeling very lost geographically, psychologically, interpersonally, culturally,” she says. “So many of my friends have so much potential and so many gifts. And they want so desperately to contribute something to the world, but their only opportunities are extractive. And so we don’t ever feel like what we’re doing is meaningful. It was really bothering me to see my friends all so driftless.” The song also found Danilova reflecting on her own experiences feeling lost and overwhelmed, and how moving back to the woods of Wisconsin from Seattle in 2016 had given her a profound sense of place — how standing on the forest floor, she could see the trees and trace their roots and where they interconnect. On “Lost,” Danilova sings of nature’s wisdom, of life cycles, and one day dying and recombining with the leaves. “As society’s rewards become more meaningless to me, the divine and sacred aspects of life that are found in nature become more meaningful,” she says. “When I’m in nature, I’m not lost. I know exactly where I am.” Danilova was born in 1989 in Phoenix, Arizona, but as a child her family relocated to Wisconsin. A self-described weird kid who was bullied in middle school, she “put up a lot of armor” as a teen. “I hated this place so much,” she says. “I tried to send myself to boarding school. I graduated early so I could leave when I was 16.” She started producing music, drawing equally from her childhood opera training and love of noise, while in college at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her debut, The Spoils, was released by Sacred Bones in 2009, when she was still a student, after which she moved to Los Angeles. After time in the Northwest and the Northeast, and four more albums later, she moved into a house she built with her two uncles, a contractor and an electrical engineer, on the land where she grew up. Coming home was about something deeper, too — about leaving behind a specific idea of the music industry. She was barely 21 when she got to LA, still finding her place in music: “With the industry in a place like LA, everything is a caricature. They need you to commit to a bit, and I wasn’t comfortable doing that. When I left LA, I let go of that a little bit. And then when I moved back to Wisconsin, I really let go. I’m so divorced from any sort of industry here. I’ve felt like an outsider my entire life, and I think I’ll just continue to feel that way forever.” While charting her own path over the past ten years, Danilova has experienced firsthand the various ways in which music has been devalued in the streaming era, monetarily and beyond. Attempting to piece together a more reasonable living for herself, she launched a Patreon in 2018, “a response or reaction to the industry failing me as a musician,” she says. She uses the platform to share recording updates, demos, Q&As and essays. (“Would I need to be eliciting financial support from these very patrons Spotify was working for me?” she wrote in “MUSIC V DANIEL EK.”) Danilova acknowledges that any platform-based solution is a type of Band-Aid to systemic issues, like the growing influence of venture capital and hyper financialization of music, the pressures to flatten oneself into a social media-optimized product or the fact that music remains so tightly controlled by major labels. “I’m lucky that I have enough people that support me,” she says. “But I think if we change the way that music is valued, and what aspects of music are encouraged and supported, culture will deepen and broaden, and that would really change society. It’s a life or death issue for culture to revalue music.” But she also reports that experimenting with how she sustains her practice has allowed her to take new chances: “The record sounds how it does because of these changes that I’ve made to how I relate to the industry, and what my goals, my rewards, my motivations are. It really has nothing to do with who reviews the record, or what festivals I get, or awards. That stuff is all just carrots that they dangle in order to continue to exploit and extract your creativity for brands and corporations.” “I just don’t respect the way the industry is set up at this current moment. It’s extractive and exploitative,” Danilova says. “I think it’s siloing musicians through this auteurism where we’re all supposed to be these individual islands of artistic genius. So we’re not being encouraged to collaborate.” For Arkhon, the direct support of patrons allowed her to do just that — for the first time, she could put her entire Sacred Bones advance into making the record, instead of shaving from it to pay her bills. It also meant she could invite new collaborators into the process, including Dunn as co-producer. Dunn says they “relate on a lot of things” about the state of the music world, like creating a supportive studio environment with other musicians rather than “the Faustian-castle loneliness of making things alone on a computer.” “When we first started working on it, I remember there was one strong feeling I had,” Dunn recalled. “That we should work directly with a drummer, a physical human being for the rhythm.” Dunn felt that on the drum programming of previous Zola Jesus records, there was always an allusion to something “more feral” and “more ephemeral in the groove” that had yet to be fully realized. Danilova agreed, but though she had always wanted to work with a drummer, she previously couldn’t afford it. “I was so used to having everything stuck in that quantized vacuum-sealed world where nothing can swing or move in an organic way.” The two called on Dunn’s longtime collaborator, Matt Chamberlain, whose cinematic playing gives many of the songs on Arkhon a cracked-open feeling. Songs like “Undertow” and “Efemra” engage the body as much as the mind. “Sewn,” co-written by the trio, is a beautiful pulsing racket of distortion and sprawling krautrock beats. The enormity of the rhythms, striking and then shuffling, make the nerves and trials of “Into The Wild” visceral. Arkhon‘s closer “Do That Anymore” captures a morose feeling of mass dejection that Danilova felt all around her after the primary election in 2020. “When I say after the election, I mean after the primaries, when Biden got picked and not Bernie,” Danilova says. “It felt like, no, they’re not looking out for us. They’re not listening, at all.” “There’s a period of disillusionment that happens when you realize change cannot happen from the top down, but change will happen from the bottom up,” she says. “We have to do all of this extra work, but so be it. It’s kind of like beginning the big climb uphill. That’s kind of what this song is, just like, alright, here we go.” Ultimately, for Danilova — someone who has spent years contemplating the spiritual quandaries of what it means to be an artist now — much of making Arkhon was about finding a sense of purpose in the process. “I just don’t think we can forget how important it is to have a collective spirit,” she adds. “Because if we lose that, then we’re truly atomized. And then we’re easier to control, because there’s no solidarity between anybody, and there’s no understanding. And I find that to be scarier than anything.” Letting others into the process more directly meant giving up a degree of control, and yet, her vision has never sounded more clear: “Before, when I was making music, it was like an exam, where every song that I wrote was a test: did I do it right? Was I making the kind of music that people wanted from me? Was I fulfilling the role of Zola Jesus?” “During the pandemic, I was having a lot of writer’s block, and depression and anxiety, and I had this kind of epiphany … The beauty of what it means to be an artist is that you become a conduit for something that is totally unknown to you,” Danilova says. “If I try to micromanage that process, my art will suffer. That’s when I finally let go. Now I can make whatever music I want.” Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Hulu’s ‘The Kardashians’ continues a modern saga: a family famous for being famousEntertainment / Reviews / TrendingI never really understood why viewers showed up to watch the Kardashians until I saw Hulu’s The Kardashians. Picking up with the celebrity clan less than a year after their signature series Keeping Up with The Kardashians left the air — after 20 seasons on the E! channel – Hulu’s show often feels like a better filmed version the show they just stopped doing. Which means it also still showcases the elements of reality TV that irritate me most as a critic. Hate the way they make mundane events look like momentous occasions? See the production treat a family barbecue like a summit at Yalta. Irritated by the way supposedly off-the-cuff moments feel like scenes painfully choreographed for TV cameras? Watch Kim, Khloe and Kourtney gather in a public restaurant – whose front sign is prominently featured in a bit of product placement as the scene ends – to gossip loudly about the size of certain women’s, um, personal equipment. “I hate talking about myself,” says Kim, a woman who has amassed a media empire by talking about herself and her family on camera for more than a decade. In other moments, various family members talk about how refreshing it was to have a break from living life in public, with no words devoted to why they jumped back in front of the cameras again, less than a year after the last series ended. There’s a lot that gets on my nerves about The Kardashians, without a doubt. But it’s also true that this family helped pioneer the modern shape of so-called reality TV, building a franchise that both perpetuates and feeds off their collective celebrity in a way that is compelling to behold. Even now. Kim humanizes and energizes ‘The Kardashians’ At the center of all this is Kim Kardashian, the most famous family member and the person who most embodies this bizarre dynamic. In the two episodes released early to critics — the first of which dropped on Hulu Thursday — it’s Kim whose life elevates The Kardashians into something more compelling than the latest unscripted soap opera wrapped around a C-list celebrity family. That happens minutes into the first episode, when the Kardashian family get-together is disrupted after Kim’s son Saint playfully shows his mother the online game Roblox on his tablet computer, featuring an image of her crying – seemingly unaware that the image also promotes the release of previously unseen footage from the sex tape which made her famous in 2007. The moment shatters the “stars are just like us” vibe of their meal, calling back to the original scandal which Kim and “momager” Kris Jenner eventually leveraged into the first season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It also highlights the devil’s bargain of these shows – trading public embarrassment and shame for an exploitable notoriety – while also leaving you to wonder how a preschool-age kid got hold of a tablet which can access that kind of material in the first place. Filmed sometime last year, Hulu’s episodes might feel like old news to fans – Kylie Jenner refuses to tell her family the sex of her child, for instance, but anyone following press reports knows she had a baby boy in February. Still, Kim’s seemingly effortless glamour appears to offer a backstage peek at stuff we’ve already seen play out publicly. It’s Kim who drops news during the family get together that she has agreed to host Saturday Night Live (which she actually did in October), later casually referencing that “Dave” (Chappelle) and future beau Pete Davidson gave her advice and joke suggestions. And it’s Kim who actually sits down on camera with Oscars co-host Amy Schumer to read over monologue jokes written for her by Michelle Wolf. And just when you’re ready to hate on a woman who admits she can’t sing, dance or act — yet gets a murderer’s row of comics to help her prep for SNL — The Kardashians humanizes Kim. We see her freak out over the legal wrangling regarding this possible new sex tape, while fretting about what she’ll do on SNL, and negotiating new boundaries with the husband she is divorcing, Kanye West. Anyone with access to news headlines over the past six months knows how badly an unstable Ye will eventually handle their breakup. But in Hulu’s first two episodes, Kim is telling others how an unseen, unheard Kanye is vowing to attend her SNL performance in support, connecting her with Chappelle and offering to quit his own career and serve as her fulltime stylist. Stars. Sometimes, they are nothing like us, it turns out. How real is the reality on ‘The Kardashians?’ Through it all, because of the duplicitous nature of so-called reality TV, it is difficult to know how to process any of this. The family once admitted that the exterior shots of homes used in Keeping Up with the Kardashians were not of their own houses – Kim explained the tactic kept fans from figuring out where they lived. But the upshot was that every outside establishing shot with those fake exteriors was a lie to viewers. Are they continuing the lie on Hulu, where the first episode features a stylized drone-style shot that seemingly moves through family members’ homes? Social media is filled with theories from fans about which moments from the E! series were completely contrived but presented to viewers as genuine. (For me, the moment when Rob Kardashian drank a cup of coffee supposedly dosed with Viagra by his mother and intended for her then-spouse didn’t quite pass the smell test.) Are there similar scenes in The Kardashians? It remains to be seen how deeply the show will delve into Kim’s increasingly contentious divorce from Kanye. Or the troubles of Kylie’s partner, rapper Travis Scott, who performed during a mass casualty crowd crush event last year at the Astroworld Festival he founded. Or the story of superstar drummer and reality TV veteran Travis Barker, who held a marriage ceremony with Kourtney Kardashian without a license after the Grammy awards last week. And the number of troubling social trends this family embodies, from accusations of cultural appropriation, to Kendall Jenner’s disastrous 2017 Pepsi commercial (she offered a cop a drink during a protest), and, of course, the decadence of earning wealth and fame largely by shrewdly exploiting their notoriety. Honestly, if you hated this family before now, Hulu’s The Kardashians won’t change your mind. And some fans will likely find this show something of a rehash, centered on incidents that have already been picked apart by TMZ and People magazine months ago. I’m also still trying to figure out why a show distributed on adult-oriented streamer Hulu bleeps out the curse words. But it is also true there is still something quite compelling – and disturbingly of the moment – about watching a family whose business is being famous go about their business on camera. And what is obvious after two episodes of Hulu’s The Kardashians, is that no family on TV does that business quite so well as this clan. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Lil Nas X is the boundary-smashing pop revolutionary of 2021Entertainment / Music / Reviews / TrendingRapper-singer-songwriter visionary Lil Nas X is the MVP of Gen Z. Born between the mid 1990s and early 2010s, so-called “Zoomers” have been maligned by naysayers as navel-gazing narcissists and emotionally weak snowflakes. But Gen Zers deserve props for rejecting millennials’ “bottle-up-your-emotions-and-hustle-til-ya-die” ethos, and for prioritizing self-care and confessional vulnerability. Like no other generation before it, Gen Z has made unprecedented strides toward genuine social equity by holding abusers of power accountable. No pop star better embodies Gen Z’s heady concoction of audacious self-assertion and “oversharing-is-political” confessionalism than Lil Nas X. In 2021, Nas has embraced his identity as a radically-open, unabashedly-proud Black gay pop conceptualist who publicly confesses his demons while putting haters in their place, one meticulously-composed tweet at a time. Born Montero Lamar Hill and raised in Atlanta’s Bankhead Courts housing projects, Lil Nas X made his debut in late 2018 with country-trap viral banger “Old Town Road.” Re-released and endlessly re-mixed the following year, the song went on to become one of the top-selling and streaming singles in history. Lil Nas X subsequently dropped his 7 EP that same year, buoyed by solid, if less remarkable, singles like “Panini” and “Rodeo.” This year, Lil Nas X delivered his debut full-length studio album, Montero, now nominated for multiple Grammy awards including Album of the Year. Two tunes — “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” and “Industry Baby,” which features Jack Harlow — topped Billboard‘s pop singles chart in 2021 and emerged as indispensable songs of the summer. The phantasmagoric video for “Montero,” co-directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino, is a simmering stir-fry of biblical imagery, gay sex and campy Satanism, culminating with the pop star descending a stripper pole to Hell on his way to lap dance a horny Satan, whom he kills before brandishing his horns. “Industry Baby” is no tamer: It’s a riff on Frank Darabont’s 1994 prison flick The Shawshank Redemption. While that film was centered around a safe, platonic narrative of interracial male bonding behind bars, Lil Nas X’s update carries a pro-bail-reform message and centers images of incarcerated black men dancing to choreography with ample full-frontal nudity. Joyfully violating cultural taboos, Lil Nas X’s shock-and-awe pop has become a controversial battleground over POC and LGBTQ+ rights and religious conservatism. Controversy alone isn’t the reason Lil Nas X has emerged as this year’s leading Gen Z figure. It’s also because of the scale of his self-ambition, matched to Beyoncé-inspired levels of creative execution. Nas’ well-financed and smartly-marketed music videos (not to mention his slick live performances on Saturday Night Live and the BET Awards) are, by turns, campy, surreal, absurd, carnivalesque, dreamy, ludic and capricious. He’s a purveyor of what scholar Reynold Anderson once termed “Astro-Blackness:” The worlds Nas envisions are rich with CGI-enhanced, magic realist imagery that brings them closer into aesthetic conversation with the work of provocative visual artist Jacolby Satterwhite and Random Acts of Flyness director Terence Nance. Just as Michael Jackson catapulted himself into 1980s solo superstardom by drawing on then-brand new MTV technology, digital native Lil Nas X uses gaming platforms like Roblox and media platforms like Twitter and TikTok to promote himself, communicate with fans and fend off haters. Nas’ creative output is fully on trend with today’s renaissance in Black LGBT+ pop culture that includes everything from ball culture TV series Pose, risqué HBO teen melodrama Euphoria and the irreverent, sexually-frank, Black gay Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Strange Loop. Lil Nas X has never claimed to be a virtuoso singer or MC; he has room to improve his vocal range (though his timbre is distinct enough). But Nas continues to excel as a songwriter, offering up earworm hooks and inventive lyrics (including “Industry Baby’s” endlessly-parsed “I don’t f*** bitches, I’m queer, hah / But these n***** bitches like Madea”). Montero embraces more than just hip-hop and R&B; it’s also full of hard rock textures and pop-punk rhythms. But Lil Nas X’s strength is unimpeachable club bangers, like “Montero’s” flamenco-dembow-electrotrap, produced by Take a Daytrip, Omer Fedi and Roy Lenzo, and the horn-driven rhythmic strut of “Industry Baby” (produced by Kanye West and Take a Daytrip). Far from a naïf grasping at straws for mainstream acclaim, Lil Nas X is a strategic conceptualist with the digital savvy (and a wisely chosen cadre of musical collaborators) to genetically engineer chart hits. His marketing campaigns — including an advertising campaign with Elton John for Uber, a creative partnership with Durex and his own satirical personal-injury themed billboards and faux Maury Povich clips — are also part of his strategy of global pop domination. Gen Z athletes Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles taught us this year what it means to prioritize therapeutic self-care while also holding down record-breaking achievements. In a similar way, Lil Nas X is giving us a masterclass on how to be more than just your cookie-cutter pop provocateur courting controversy while playing clapback whack-a-mole. Lil Nas X makes interventionist pop that affirms LGBT / BIPOC people’s right to exist in an establishment culture that has long thrived off our abjection and self-hatred. We’re not supposed to believe in ourselves or be confident in a world that wants to invalidate and eradicate us. Young queer, trans and non-binary people, in particular, have much to gain from Lil Nas X’s example of self-sovereignty and standing up for who you are. His Lizzo-esque levels of self-confidence and temerity, the flip side of his admitted insecurities and anxieties, are also part of what makes him heroic and even a little superhuman. That may be one reason he portrays himself on the cover art of “Sun Goes Down” as a mystic, sitting in the clouds manipulating water with his hands like The Last Airbender. Self-aware to epic degrees, Lil Nas X made a decision in 2021 to draw on autobiography to craft his therapeutic, blockbuster pop. “Montero” is a real-life story about a man Lil Nas X met in 2020 during quarantine who parties and takes drugs. On “Dead Right Now,” he confronts his mother and father for their parenting failures. And in personal lyrics to “Call Me” and “Sun Goes Down,” Lil Nas X time travels to the past, where he talks to and communes with his closeted, depressed teenage self, hoping to heal himself, It Gets Better-style. Because he’s spent the year comfortably winning in platform economies that thrive on metrics, impressions, metadata and tentpole branding, some may see him as a marketing wizard rather than a musical or creative genius. But Lil Nas X demonstrates how artists can wield the demands of blockbuster “event” pop into a radical vision of self: In his world, mammoth corporate platforms become delivery vehicles for the stripped-down, introspective lyrical material we typically associate with indie and underground music. Montero‘s great gift to 21st century pop music is that we no longer have to dream of what the confessional, interior artistry of queer indie artists like serpentwithfeet or Perfume Genius would look if it were supported by the major label budgets and colossal entertainment deals once exclusively bestowed upon superstars at the level of Michael Jackson or Beyoncé. Boldly going where few gay men of color have been allowed to go before, Lil Nas X seems to be exploiting media platforms — bending them to his will, even — far more than they’ve been able to exploit him. Nas’ preening fashion choices — including his gold Versace cape and bodysuit-reveal at the 2021 Met Gala, and his decision to portray himself as both Adam and God in “Montero’s” cover art riff on Michaelangelo’s The Creation of Adam — are also about therapy, not simply shock. It’s been phenomenal to witness him claim his right as an uninhibited Black femme queer man to own the terms of his beauty and self-glorification — especially given the way POC / LGBT people have been historically misrepresented, erased and denigrated in popular culture. (On “Dead Right Now,” Nas describes his mother as one source of that denigration: “When she get drunk, she hit me up, man, with a fever, like, whoa / ‘You ain’t even all that pretty, you ain’t even all that, n****.'”) To date, Lil Nas X has mostly resisted using his platform to get involved in establishment politics. But his insistence on his own beauty and fabulousness is a political activism of the self. Lil Nas X often celebrates Kendrick Lamar as one of his primary musical influences. That seems appropriate: Nas’ existential self-revelation brings his music close in conversation to Kendrick Lamar’s inward-gazing and confessional 2017 Damn (it shares more DNA with that album than the Compton rapper’s earlier BLM-inspired, community-oriented 2015 To Pimp a Butterfly.) Though Lil Nas X publicly came out of the closet in 2019 when “Old Town Road” was No. 1 on the charts, he wasn’t initially making explicitly-sexual music and videos. In 2019, some fans found it easy to digest and celebrate Lil Nas X as a racial conciliator, a chosen one capable of bringing together seemingly segregated worlds — Black and white, country and hip-hop. That seemed especially true after white country artist Billy Ray Cyrus hopped on the “Old Town Road” remix. Institutional gatekeepers like Billboard had to reverse course after initially banning Lil Nas X’s post-genre tune from the Hot Country Songs chart. “Old Town Road” exposed an industry structurally constituted by false, unsustainable binaries. For a while, Lil Nas X’s appeal was that he seemed to symbolize a human bridge across cultural differences, during a contentious political era marked by extreme partisanship and polarization. This year, Lil Nas X radically refused to succumb to one hit wonder status (he even sings about it on clapback tune “One of Me,” featuring Elton John). But more importantly, he refused the Kumbaya / “can’t we all just get along” ethos that underwrote “Old Town Road’s” 2019 blockbuster reception. 2021 singles like “Montero” and “Industry Baby” hold power not because they are universal, but because they insist on the specificity and particularity of Black gay experience. They do so by foregrounding and normalizing same-sex sex pleasure, lust and kink. In one standout line from “Montero,” Lil Nas X sings about ejaculating in a man’s mouth while getting penetrated. On the BET Awards, he controversially kissed a male dancer on the mouth, defending his actions by saying this about the award show: “This is my space now too.” Even out-of-the-closet pop stars have rarely written about queer sex, or engaged with it so viscerally in mainstream circuits, as Lil Nas X. It’s even more shocking when you consider how closeted music stars of the past like George Michael and Luther Vandross could not (or were not allowed to) fully express themselves in a homophobic and conservative culture. Lil Nas X makes post-respectability, “WAP”-era dance pop at a time in which subscription sites like Only Fans have gone mainstream, sex work is slowly becoming normalized and the growing ubiquity of HIV prevention drugs like Prep and Descovy have made queer men who can afford and access them more sexually liberated. Nas seems to have come out as a power bottom (he also sings “I might bottom on the low, but I top s***” in “Holiday”) — he enjoys anal sex, and he knows where his G-spot is and how to use it. By centering his own pleasure politics on steamy dance tracks like “Scoop,” Lil Nas X refuses to be victimized by sex-negative shame or his own past trauma. Instead, he’s offering a vision of how queer men can progressively deploy sex-positivity inside the pop music machine. Nas’s hedonism (and insistence on male nudity in his music videos) feels right on time: Quarantine and social distancing mandates of the COVID-19 pandemic have spurred widespread feelings of loneliness, isolation, unrequited horniness. Lil Nas X’s vision of carnal body-to-body pleasure (and what lesbian writer Audre Lorde called “the erotic as power”) matters even more in the midst of the global health crisis that has asked many of us to forego intimacy for distancing. While Lil Nas X’s oft-cited inspirations include Frank Ocean, Kevin Abstract, Young Thug and Tyler the Creator, his savvy is part of a much longer lineage of Black gay creative genius that includes Little Richard, one of architects of rock and roll and its original wild child. Richard may have spent his career in and out of the closet, but he was queer, flamboyant and Southern, and he wrote and performed lyrically-coded pop songs about anal sex like his 1955 debut, “Tutti Frutti.” Lil Nas X is also part of a genealogy of queer Black musical creatives that includes Esquerita, Billy Wright, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Billy Preston, Sylvester, Carl Bean, Meshell Ndegeocello, Tonex, Shamir, Makonnen, Mykki Blanco and Cakes da Killa — to name just a few. In Lil Nas X’s spectacular videos, I catch echoes of Missy Elliott’s Southern gothic cyberpunk and Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer Afro-futurism. Given that Nas got his start as a Nicki Minaj “Barb” superfan, his career is also a reminder of Minaj’s chronically-underrecognized cultural influence over the past decade and change. In music videos and lyrics that center and prioritize Black-on-Black same-sex desire, Lil Nas X gives us rare mainstream images of black men desiring, holding, kissing and having sex with other black men. Back in 1989, “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act” became a famous (and contentious, for some) line from Tongues Untied, filmmaker Marlon Riggs’ experimental documentary about Black queer experience. In a culture that systematically marginalizes POC same-sex desire, and given the way Black LGBTQ communities have been scarred by intersectional forces of racism, homophobia, transphobia and AIDS, the courage of Black men to love and desire each other openly remains in and of itself a radical act. When Nas sings about wanting “someone to love me” on retro 1990s guitar pop toe-tapper “That’s What I Want,” it’s no less haunting than when Freddie Mercury expressed a similar sentiment on “Somebody to Love” 45 years ago. This time around, however, Nas is specific about the kind of man he’s looking for: “That afro Black boy with the gold teeth / he dark skin, lookin’ at me like he know me.” In October, Nas admitted that he’d been in a relationship with his backup dancer Yai Ariza, but that they’d broken up because he’d chosen to focus on his music and career. Lil Nas X’s vision of utopia is expansive enough to include white people and cultural hallmarks of white queer culture — that may be one reason he put “Call Me By Your Name” in the “Montero” sub-title. Sometimes this inclusion strategy backfires: The video for “Industry Baby” suffers when it tries to parallel Lil Nas X’s liberating Black-on-Black same-sex narrative with a conventional white-on-white hetero romance b-plot featuring Jack Harlow, as if to suggest that the former narrative wasn’t strong enough to stand on its own. Nonetheless, the overall impression is that Nas X isn’t trying to make pop music meant to flatter while people or to center them. In contrast to crossover pop of the past where Black performers had to court and kowtow to whites to secure a place on charts, Lil Nas X doesn’t need to compromise or shrink his Blackness, his Southern-ness, his ratchetness or his gayness to rack up impressions or streaming numbers. Lil Nas X’s capacious understanding that there is more than one way to be a Black man, along with his decentering of the white gaze (and white gays), and his skewering of the religious right’s bogus terms of evil and damnation has earned him the special ire of a strange group of bedfellows that includes prudish liberals, staunch conservatives and zealots of various stripes. We’ve also seen predictable backlash from parts of the hip-hop community, including homophobic tweets from rapper Boosie Badazz. Nas failed to pick up a single nomination at this year’s Soul Train Awards, the annual celebration of achievements in Black music. Part of the issue, I suspect, is that Lil Nas X’s fanbase includes children who follow him after the success of “Old Town Road.” Just as Little Richard got into hot water making so-called “jungle” music in the ’50s, Lil Nas X has become the latest rendition of a Black queer man leading children into eternal damnation through a seductive good beat and horny lyrics. While Republicans this year have tried to lead an insurgent school board ban of race-themed and LGBT-themed books in schools, Lil Nas X has brandished his NSFW pop music to give his young audience a lasting education about queer and POC self-advocacy and self-determination. No need to romanticize Lil Nas X’s resilience and courage: He’s already mentioned the “emotional toll” that it’s taken him to fend off unrelenting (online) hate he receives. He’s no stranger to dejection and desolation, evidenced on the hard rocking track “Life After Salem:” “I think you should take what you want and leave / Why don’t you just take what you want from me?” But it surely helps that Nas has a wicked sense of humor, as seen in his comedic response to the controversy surrounding his pentagram-laced Satan Shoes. His “Who gon’ check me boo?” approach to internet conflict makes him unbought and unbossed and entirely un-trollable. Offering Twitter retorts to parents like, “I am an adult. I am not gonna spend my entire career trying to cater to your children. That is your job,” Lil Nas X comes off Teflon and unscathed, while his opponents get exposed for what they actually are — small, cruel, bigoted and dangerous. “I ain’t lost, since I began,” Lil Nas X ecstatically boasts on “Industry Baby.” Winning at life by battling impossible odds, Nas has done us a solid by flashing us a glimpse of an inclusive world where POC / LGBTQ+ people heal themselves from trauma and damage while fabulously holding the center. We become the complex protagonists in our own narratives, not the stereotypically-sassy best friends in someone else’s. In the hook of that same song he also croons, “I got what they waiting for.” Lil Nas X’s faith and profound self-investment in his own Black gay creativity — and his own happiness — has made him pop music’s contemporary messiah, the only one right now willing to take what he refers to in “Sun Goes Down” as “that jump, that leap of faith.” Who could have expected after the success of “Old Town Road” that Lil Nas X would take such a risk in centering his autobiography as the core of his music? And that by exposing himself fully in that way, he has, in turn, exposed the structural limits of a system that has thrived off the negation of Black gay men, and so many others relegated to the margins, rarely allowing us to bring our full selves to the table? Lil Nas X’s jump, that leap of faith, reminds me of a famous line from The Matrix, the virtual reality film released in 1999, the same Gen Z year Lil Nas X was born. In its thematic focus on dismantling the binary and making people self-aware of the hidden structures that control them, the Matrix film franchise has long been a rich source of subtextual meaning for LGBTQ audiences. (Lana Wachowski’s Matrix Resurrections, the fourth installment in the series, was released last week: It brings that once-suppressed subtext to the surface.) In that original 1999 film, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) marvels how the film’s hero Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) is “beginning to believe” — he’s tapping into his latent power, and emerging as the chosen “one,” because he has mastered the system by stepping out on faith. Lil Nas X has felt unstoppable this year because he is, on his own personal and professional terms, finally beginning to believe: in himself. Montero‘s success this year is proof that the revolution is already here, and that it is indeed being televised — more specifically, it’s being streamed on all digital platforms. But there’s a deeper, more resounding lesson Lil Nas X has driven home this year: Any revolution that hopes to transform the world has to start within each of us, as we stand resolutely in our truth, freeing our minds from fear, doubt and disbelief, guiding others to higher ground by letting our radiant inner light shine brightly. It’s been thrilling to watch Lil Nas X begin to walk the path, as Morpheus might have said — and the world is richer for it. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...The Fellowship of the RockersEntertainment / TrendingInducting the Foo Fighters into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October, Paul McCartney noted the almost eerie parallels between the group’s jovial leader, Dave Grohl, and himself. Both men entered the realm of rock legend as rhythm-section anchors in paradigm-shifting bands: Macca as bassist for The Beatles, for whom he was also a primary songwriter, and Grohl as the drummer who helped take Nirvana worldwide. Both recovered from history-altering group implosions by retreating to the studio and making albums mostly in solitude. Both, McCartney said modestly, started life as “ordinary, goofy kids.” And both “fell into rock and roll, and joined a group.” McCartney’s fond identification with Grohl emanated from the heart of an archetypal band guy, the hero of rock’s 60-year quest to rule popular music. The band guy’s footprints forged the genre’s path from the early 1960s onward, from Liverpool’s grubby Cavern Club to Seattle’s dingy Dutchman rehearsal space, in leather boots and Converse sneakers. Blending Hobbit-like charm with Aragorn-ish glamor, this figure took shape within the dreams of countless men following in the wake of John, Paul, George and Ringo teaming up as the Fab Four. The romance, familial connection and creative exchange that sparked for The Beatles in their Cavern Club days grew mythic as they became the biggest act rock ever produced, pulling rock’s ring from the hands of solo artists and duos and making fellowship the primary energy empowering rock’s quest. Over the decades, band guys traded leather for Spandex for skateboarder shorts, blew up the genre like punks and reassembled it as grunge; but what bore repeating was that story of men growing up together through music, turning into a family and finding glory on the battlefields of rhythm and noise. In 2021 this notion that rock’s essence spews forth from acts of male bonding feels somewhat trite. Yet there’s no way to accurately comprehend the genre’s history without acknowledging its remarkable staying power. “Everything I learned about rock and roll I learned from this man right here,” Grohl exclaimed when McCartney joined the Foo Fighters onstage for “Get Back,” the song that provided a title for Fellowship of the Ring director Peter Jackson’s new Beatles doc-cum-band-guy-disquisition Get Back. McCartney gazed at Grohl as they sang together with a fondness that read as both fatherly and filial. Guys on a stage together, bashing it out. I. What does it mean to be a band guy? A few things, depending on whether you’re an artist or a fan. A musician who’s a band guy is happiest when locked in with his fellow players in the studio or onstage, his ego paradoxically subsumed and enhanced by the creative exchange. And he’s loyal, sticking with one set of collaborators who are also friends instead of changing partners the way a studio musician does. He pursues mutual connection with this small core even when the experience sours, because to him, the core collaborative unit isn’t a means to an end; its no-new-friends essence and ESP vibe represent the end itself. Think of it this way: After Grohl made that album in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death, he quickly recruited mates and released it under the Foo Fighters name, not his own. And in the years after The Beatles broke up, all spent years releasing albums under their own names (John’s read John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band) except McCartney, who tried that briefly but quickly formed another band, Wings. A scene from Get Back illustrates his dedication. “What’s it for? It can’t be the money,” he pleads to his sulking mates. “Why are you here?” He’s like Sam struggling to get Frodo and his ring to the top of Mount Doom in Tolkien’s Return of the King: “I can’t carry it for you! But I can carry you!” Fans who are band guys romanticize such heroic efforts. These fans might also be musicians, because the idea that anybody can become a rock star is central to the music’s appeal. Even if a rocker doesn’t play music himself, the genre’s welcoming spirit has a place for him because its central value is friendship. Unlike pop, where razzle-dazzle professionalism reigns, or the country realm of the consummate craftsman, or hip-hop’s fluid landscape of cypher-jumping and mobile DJs, rock places the act of bonding at its very core. We all know this story: Four kids become The Beatles by meeting as teens and banging it out in basements and cheap clubs until the magic comes as naturally as a group hug. The term “band guy” is problematic, though, isn’t it? In 2021 it’s as common for women, trans and nonbinary people to jump into rock’s timestream as it is for men. Yet something continues to infuse the rock mythos with the sweaty-socks scent of conventional, if boyish, masculinity. Whiteness, too. Though plenty of historic examples exist of collaborations among Black performers as intense as The Beatles or as long-standing as Foo Fighters — The Isley Brothers fulfill both goals, for example — rock’s defining narrative still stands alongside others that reflect the historic segregation of Anglo-American social spheres. Band guys stand alongside other heroes of homosocial, mostly segregated histories: astronauts, high school state champions, foxhole dwellers, a rugby scrum. The primal story of the rock band resonates on so many levels: as a model for sustained give-and-take within collaboration, a dream of deep camaraderie, a formula for plugging in and amplifying human energy. Yet as it became ever more mythical, the rock band ideal also proved exclusionary — even as musicians themselves explored different models and exploded the definitions it imposed. What about the gospel and R&B vocal quartets whose members came and went, the ever-expanding funk ensembles, the fusion groups whose players communicated across boundaries of genre, ethnicity, and nation? Instead of expanding to meet these realities, the definition of the rock band seems to have contracted over time, until, in 2021, it feels frozen, a historical artifact. Yet think beyond The Beatles and Nirvana, or rather think differently about The Beatles, a foursome that could have expanded and contracted with time if not for the enormous pressure to maintain its own myth, and Nirvana, a trio that did augment its original lineup in performances not long before its leader’s death and might have transformed more radically had he survived. Is a rock band still a band if it’s an open system instead of a closed one? This is a question worth applying to rock itself. II. Conflict and competition transforming into communion: It’s a beautiful story, particularly resonant if you can locate yourself within it. As evidenced by the joy that’s greeted Get Back, many people can, across generations and levels of rock fandom. I’ve been a Beatles fan (a Paul girl!) since seventh grade, and comparing notes with far-flung friends about the ambient comic drama unfolding across Jackson’s nearly eight hours made me feel connected across a universe. We laughed at the schoolboy humor, worried about the rifts, and admired the restoration that helped make these scruffy millionaires as beautiful as they’d ever been. But I also couldn’t help notice that most of those indulging in post after Beatles post on social media were a lot like me: white music lovers who’d spent their youths (some still in it) rocking out. The fandom for Get Back is a 21st century update on the original Beatlemania, putting the teen girls who loved the band early on in dialogue, finally, with the grown men who could freely display their enthusiasm only once the band got more “serious.” Viewers’ enthrallment at a rare glimpse deep inside rock’s creative process and at the fabulous winter fashions the foursome and their studio collaborators wore (tangerine cashmere, exotic coats, scarves) has resounded in equal measure. And as in Beatlemania, the response has not been monolithic, but it’s mostly registered that way. Virtuoso Black music generalists like Questlove and the New York magazine critic Craig Jenkins have weighed in, but nearly every review has been by a white critic, and most of the chatter on Twitter and elsewhere has reinforced old divisions. Compare Get Back fever to the wonder and pride that greeted Summer of Soul, the Questlove-directed documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. One release felt like a newly uncovered landmark in the recentered cultural world emerging in step with the Movement for Black Lives. The other, wonderfully intimate and revealing as it is, reasserts familiar hierarchies. For those who do feel that rush of intimacy, the way Jackson tenderly pulls character studies from the well of rehearsal footage is deeply moving. The passion McCartney feels for the idea of a band — for his band, the one that swiped the throne from the Elvises, Everlys, Miracles and Vandellas who dominated rock and roll before it became “rock” — is, many agree, the doc’s most poignant element. Desperately sharing song ideas, nearly begging for responses from a distant, probably smacked-out John Lennon and a seething George Harrison as Ringo Starr hovers nearby with a ready hug, Paul often seems on the verge of tears in the documentary’s early hours. Things improve and so does his mood, only to devolve again as the Beatles’ differences resurface. This struggle to master his emotions makes Paul the stand-in for the viewer. He wants to keep The Beatles going, as any fan wishes they had. All too human, he sinks under the weight of his own mistakes — he won’t sacrifice the alpha role he’s taken on. Often McCartney seems quite a bit like a spouse trying to process the fact that this marriage has ceased to be. At one heartbreaking juncture, he confides to his ever-flexible sounding board, Ringo, that he thinks the band’s playing better than ever. But, he mutters, the “being together” part is the problem. McCartney’s bossiness can be irritating at times, and he’s unforgivably dismissive of Harrison’s creative and spiritual explorations. (“But … that’s like trying to do jazz,” he replies with bemusement when George tries to explain a new guitar style.) He’s the one who can’t see past The Beatles, and especially past his partnership with Lennon, which he wants to click as it once did. Even as his own personal and creative energy is redirecting itself around the family he’s forming with Linda Eastman — at some point, predicting the near future, she tells someone she’d love to live on a farm — he doesn’t really know who he’d be without John. Lennon’s absorption in his relationship with Yoko Ono defines his role in Get Back, and if that’s not a plot point from a male bonding story, what is? A calm presence in Jackson’s edit, Yoko has finally been freed from the villain role in the Beatles myth — and recast as the kind of love interest who helps not just her sweetheart but his best pal see life differently. At one juncture Paul, talking to Linda, admits that the John-and-Yoko bond doesn’t have to be a problem: “It’s not so much of an obstacle, as long as we’re not trying to surmount it,” he says. This rapprochement could have come straight out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Anchorman. Pure bromance. It may seem reductive to use that slang term to refer to a collaboration that wielded classic songs from “Let It Be” to “Something” to “Get Back” itself. Bromance, though, is the band guy’s succor and strength. Get Back reaffirms rock’s mythologies, in part, by offering a portrait of men who can’t really bear to speak candidly about their own hurts and hopes, and instead channel those vulnerabilities into killer music. The creative brotherhood makes its members better by feeling like a safe space. To open up that sibling circle — with new members, through solo ventures that might re-energize and reconnect the core, or by welcoming the input of anyone who doesn’t exactly fit within the original family — seems inconceivable. It would change everything. Yet Get Back also offers glimpses into how the late Beatles did start to make those changes. High points suggest alternate realities that might have transformed the group’s methods and its mythology. When Harrison brings the keyboardist and Apple Records artist Billy Preston into the sessions halfway through, all four lads crackle with new energy — what if, as Lennon suggests in one scene, they’d made Preston a genuine Fifth Beatle? What if Ono had been allowed to take over vocals on one of Let It Be‘s tracks? (This idea may seem like sacrilege to Beatles purists, but she actually does it during a couple of jams in Get Back, and everyone enjoys the fracas.) What if George had made the album he wanted to make — All Things Must Pass, a masterpiece — with his fellows’ blessing and the four had reunited at his Concert for Bangladesh in 1971? Any of these developments might have made for a very interesting and Beatles-filled early 1970s. Yes, The Beatles were a unique foursome, with each member bringing key ingredients to the mix. For those who had forgotten or are too young to have previously witnessed the manic ingenuity of Paul, the left-field energy of John, George’s introverted elegance or Ringo’s radiant goodwill, Get Back is a gift. Yet viewed a certain way, Get Back does suggest that the band-ness of The Beatles — the foursome’s ineffable and impermeable bond — was, at least by 1969, mostly theoretical. As the core dissolves, it also broadens, and that’s what keeps The Beatles together long enough to make two more treasured albums. Like most bands during an era when rock’s sound was expanding, The Beatles weren’t really interested in keeping their collaboration to themselves. The pressures of presenting themselves as such contributed to their mutual estrangement, representing a limiting ideal more than anyone’s reality. III. Before The Beatles invaded America with “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in 1964, only a few ensembles with all-white members who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments — the 1960s-derived definition of a “real rock band” — had an international following, and those were mainly vocal groups like The Beach Boys or one-hit wonders like The Kingsmen. By 1970, after they recorded “The End” at Abbey Road Studios and split for good, rock bands with all or mostly white male members comprised half of the top 100 and sonically dominated the ground where rock ruled and was expanding. The rock band ideal, the coming-together of four or five boyish men who learned together how to make music and become stars, continued to dominate a major corner of popular music for 50 years. And that unit became the engine that carried the genre away from its Black-dominated, intermingling roots in jazz, gospel, doo-wop and rhythm and blues into a separate, informally segregated sphere. “The Beatles made rock’n’roll fun again,” an infamous Time magazine cover story on “The Sound of the Sixties” declared in 1965. “The Beatles also made it all right to be white again.” While the un-bylined piece noted that “the best brown sound is, of course, that sung by Negroes” (namely, Motown), its giddy account of how all kinds of white Americans gave in to the irresistible charm of The Beatles after seeing them on television — “four young chaps having a jolly good bash” — made clear that along with pointy boots and cute accents, The Beatles brought white America a sense of relief, convincing the middle-class consumers that the music industry wanted to reach to accept rock, a once-threatening cultural trend. The New York Times had been on the Beatlemania beat for a year by then. Critic Paul Gardner’s assessment of the group’s effect on American popular culture followed several earlier reports on the international frenzy greeting the quartet. Gardner’s wry description places this viral phenomenon squarely in the picket-fenced neighborhoods far from the inner city: “Beatlemania creeps in slowly. Collarless jackets, usually worn Saturday nights on Forty-second Street, are turning up in the strangest places, like the safe suburbs. Teen-agers who once considered the G.I. crew-cut the height of adolescent fashion are letting their locks curl down their necks and over ears and across foreheads.” This bemused assessment of a mostly symbolic threat differs from one noted in the media eight years earlier, when a mostly-Black muti-artist bill headlined by white rock band Bill Haley & His Comets faced a picket line formed by the North Alabama White Citizens Council. The protestors’ signs compared the Black groups performing that night to wild animals. If the teens behind Beatlemania expressed desire in unruly but still acceptable ways, the ones who faced the racists in Birmingham had a more specific cause: integration. The Chicago Defender‘s report on that show noted an exchange between one sign-holder and a young white music fan whose words are troubling in their own way, and certainly challenging. “One young girl, on entering the theater, turned to a man carrying a placard which read, ‘Jungle Music Promotes Integration’ and said, ‘Bring me my grapevine.'” The threat Black bands may have brought to mind to white observers was that of Black people finding their power together. It’s not a coincidence that the music industry itself became more segregated during a period when civil rights defined the spirit of protest in America. The Beatles and the other English soul transformers/appropriators that quickly followed in their wake, from The Rolling Stones to Joe Cocker, personally protested the divisions that greeted them on tour and sometimes in the recording studio; yet as they became rock’s norm, they allowed white fans to enjoy what the late great music writer Greg Tate identified as a pasteurized form of Black culture: “everything but the burden.” Women of any race were also pushed out of the band-guy narrative, despite the very real roles they played in the British Invasion, from Tina Turner teaching Mick Jagger how to move to The Shirelles inspiring The Beatles’ harmonies. They often held equal importance within the musical configurations produced within Black milieus, like the girl group and the gospel ensemble. But they just didn’t fit the band guy storyline. One term that feminist music scholars have used to describe the emergent essence of 1960s rock culture is “fraternal individualism” — men pursuing self-realization through the support of other men. The groundbreaking musicologist Sheila Whiteley noted that this framework resurfaced in popular culture mid-century through the influence of the Beats, another group of mostly white artists who absorbed Black culture through an idiosyncratic, rebellious lens. Band guys blended Beat attitude with the spirit of youthful innocence to convince boys that they could find freedom making a racket with each other and girls that they had no place in these garage experiments. Masculinity became the element that made a band rock, and that formulation stuck. In the ’90s, around the time Dave Grohl became famous, a teen guitarist interviewed by the ethnomusicologist Mary Ann Clawson put it succinctly: “If you’re a guy and you have a band, it’s rock and roll. If it’s a band of women it’s a girl group.” That kid didn’t say the boys had to be white, but he didn’t really need to. The origin stories of the British Invasion helped establish the truism that forming a band meant connecting with schoolmates and neighbors — boys who could instantly recognize themselves in each other. This was a shift from the more professionalized ways that many jazz ensembles and R&B groups came together, though it did borrow its energy from the Black doo-wop kids who soon got written out of the official narrative. As rock culture clung to and even magnified a youthful spirit of amateurism, what became obscured were aspects of music-making that didn’t reflect teenage dreams. And teenagers in both the U.S. and England in the early 1960s did not often mingle beyond their race. IV. The definition of “rock” continued to narrow as the 1960s wore on. As late as 1964, girl groups, soul crooners, pop ballad singers and the first wave of the British Invasion all met under the big tent of youth music. “In hindsight, it is striking to watch The T.A.M.I. Show, a concert filmed in Santa Monica in 1964, and see the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Lesley Gore, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, James Brown, and the Rolling Stones all greeted with equally fervent screams by an overwhelmingly white, female audience, then to watch the effort Otis Redding had to make just three years later to connect with the audience of white hippies in Monterey,” writes Elijah Wald in his 2009 account of rock’s effect on pop’s varicolored soul, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll. One thing that changed, Wald and other historians have noted, is that the arbiters of rock taste within the industry and the media made decisions about what kinds of popular music could still be considered rock. These had to be rebellious, nonconformist, self-consciously deep. Post-British Invasion rock, even when it went psychedelic or folkish, became part of a larger constellation of endeavors in opposition to the “square” status quo, which also encompassed the underground press, European art-house movies, weed smoking. Meanwhile, even obviously brilliant Black innovators like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder had to work harder to prove they could be more than entertainers confined to singing love songs in their velvet suits. The emergence of Bob Dylan as a shaggy, poetic voice of his generation was a big part of this shift. But the other factor was the way the British Invasion made bands exciting again by enacting a ruse: the idea that these bonny English boys were doing something new at all. The wave of appreciation that, in 2021, greeted the now-geriatric Rolling Stones on what might be the band’s last tour has proven how generational that perspective was and remains: While fans extolled Mick Jagger’s vigor and the band’s camaraderie, even in the face of drummer Charlie Watts’ recent death, Gen Z music lovers remarked upon what distance has again made obvious. “I’ve never really listened to The Rolling Stones until now and it’s kind of freaking me out how much of this is just… black music LOL,” reads an exemplary tweet from 21-year-old writer Camryn Garrett. Jack Hamilton’s 2016 book Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination traces the way this clear view of the Stones’ foundation became obscured by both circumstance and strategy at the dawn of the British invitation. He quotes critic Lester Bangs, writing in 1976 after the rock band had claimed its central space in the baby-boomer imagination: The British, Bangs contended, resurrected “music we had ignored, forgotten or discarded, recycling it in a shinier, more feckless and yet more raucous form.” But as Hamilton points out, Black artists and audiences never abandoned the styles the Stones and The Beatles employed to jump-start their own efforts. They were still perfecting the nature of rhythm and blues and soul — sometimes even while on tour with the Stones and The Beatles. What Mick Jagger brought, when he strutted on stage after observing Turner do exactly what he’d then emulate, was his own conviction that this music could become his own. Unlike earlier pop idols like Paul Anka, whom Bangs and others derided for being literal pale imitations, the British Invasion stars enacted their privilege to embrace this music so confidently and insistently that their entitlement became an aesthetic force as well as a social one. And that confidence was shared by their fans, especially young girls. Feminist scholars have long celebrated Beatlemania as a seed of women’s liberation — I’ve written my own paeans to those screamers, hotel-room invaders and limousine attackers. Yet just as second-wave feminism often marginalized and excluded BIPOC women, the media and the music industry’s focus on white female Beatles fans as a cultural phenomenon and a market has played a central role in the further segregation of the rock band within metaphorical and real white spaces. It didn’t matter that the Fab Four and their messier siblings, the Stones, consistently celebrated the Black music-makers who inspired them, took them on tour, and insisted on being photographed getting blessings and fashion tips from them. In fan magazines and the infant rock press alike, British Invasion bands were elevated as more important, more alluring, more now. And the fact that white teenage girls loved them so damn hard soon gave them a near-monopoly in the press, on television and on tours that made history. Meanwhile, Black fans were screaming for their own idols, and sometimes for the British bands, too, just as white fans continued to admire Black American musicians. “We all dreamed of being a Supreme and dating a Beatle,” one woman friend of Wald’s reminisced about that era. And there were Black Beatlemaniacs, as Christine Feldman-Barrett documents in her recent book A Women’s Beatles. She notes Chicago-born writer Bonnie Greer’s memoir of her youthful fandom, which years later helped inspire her to move to the U.K.: “Through all their permutations, the Beatles were like Oz or Alice in Wonderland, a passageway to another world.” Instead of being read as threatening, as they were in the 1950s, these fandoms across racial lines were largely ignored. Though The Beatles refused to play segregated venues on their 1964 tour, documentation of their concerts shows seas of white faces anyway, and that identity solidified even as Beatlemania began to include adults. “I’m 37, happily married to a suburban executive, have two-teenage daughters have a college degree, magna cum laude,” wrote a Chicago Tribune reader in 1965. “But I am a far gone Beatlemaniac!” The deftness with which The Beatles and the Stones in particular continued to grow by absorbing all kinds of influences also played a role in making the British Invasion feel like more than just another version of white appropriation of Black music. This is where the bandness of these acts becomes important again. If these bands were sold to white teen girls as safely diverse — besides the cute one, there was a quiet one, a smart one, a funny one, but none who crossed acceptable lines of dateability — they sustained older listeners’ interest by building their sounds in ways that could be explained by the shifting dynamic of the group. Brian Jones traveled to North Africa and The Rolling Stones tried out drones. Ray Davies overheard some fisherman making music on the shores of the Ganges while on tour and, via The Kinks’ “See My Friends,” Indian raga sounds entered the Western pop lexicon. Meanwhile, in the U.S., groups started forming that brought together men with different musical backgrounds but mostly similar social ones. The Byrds had members rooted in both folk and country music. The Grateful Dead brought together garage rockers and bluegrassers. Unlike the image adjustment necessary when, say, Bob Dylan decided to make a country album, a band could absorb new source materials and retain its established identity. It’s important to note that as the 1960s wore on and rock’s influence ballooned, non-white musicians were always present on the scene. The Chambers Brothers and Love blended folk and psychedelia alongside the singer-songwriters of Laurel Canyon. All-woman garage groups like Fanny toured up and down the West Coast and throughout the Northeast. A huge Chicano rock-and-soul scene flourished in Texas. And by the 1970s funk arose as a kind of separate sphere for Black bands, though its founders never accepted segregation — as George Clinton’s Funkadelic asked in a 1978 single, “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” V. By the end of the 1960s The Beatles were dissolving in a flurry of lawsuits and the Stones, ensconced as the “Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,” were augmenting their studio sound with up to a dozen session players – including, as Maureen Mahon documents in Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll, Black women background singers like Merry Clayton, who became indispensable to many British Invasion bands. The Beach Boys, long considered the American rival to The Beatles, had mostly become Brian Wilson’s studio project, declining along with his mental health. Yet the fetishization of the band as something bigger than itself — a cult, a family, a superhero squad — only intensified. Arena tours allowed new superstars like Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk to enact their group dynamics on bigger and bigger stages. Meanwhile, in the underground, a bohemian version of band magic emerged, gaining an arty and even mystical hue. It happened in San Francisco via psychedelic noisemakers like Moby Grape, and it happened in Andy Warhol’s New York. Call it, as Jonathan Richman does in Todd Haynes’ 2021 documentary The Velvet Underground, about that primordial New York art-punk band, “the group sound.” The group sound is a vibration arising not from any one instrument but within the space shared by members of a band, an ethereal vibration that somehow becomes sonic. It’s generated by the collaboration itself, and as former Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon trenchantly noted in her 1988 tour diary “Boys Are Smelly,” within rock it’s almost always read as an aspect of boy energy: “The swirl of Sonic Youth music makes me forget about being a girl,” she writes. The Velvets also had a woman member, drummer Moe Tucker, whose style and stance behind the kit made her gender unremarkable if not incomprehensible. The John and Paul of that band, in Haynes’ view, were Lou Reed and John Cale, a Brill Building-inspired would-be street tough and a Welsh artiste. The sonic overflow of their early collaborations had a specific musical source — the microtones created through feedback, within the lineage of drones borrowed from African and South Asian music. In this way, the Velvets story veers away from band-guy boilerplate. Free jazz pioneers, including groups like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, explored this same territory in vital ways during the same time period. But Reed’s songs married the group sound to lyrics that were not only deeply informed by his love for rock’s lineage but intentional in their amplification of its mythical aspects — songs like “I’m Waiting for the Man” and, well, “Rock & Roll” amplified the rock and roll lifestyle so that it became more transgressive, more perverse, vibrating with the precious energy of what Reed identified as “white light/white heat.” (He later wrote a song called “I Wanna Be Black” that both made fun of and fell prey to the worst stereotypes white America has propagated about Black culture.) As the critic Joshua Clover writes in his fantastic 2021 book on Richman and The Modern Lovers’ Velvets-inspired song “Roadrunner,” The Velvet Underground revitalized rock by being meta- about it. They were “rock & roll in italics.” Haynes’ dazzling documentary reinforces this idea by turning “the group sound” visual, through an overload of images taken from contemporary avant-garde films juxtaposed with shots of band members and associates telling the story of this most extra of all rock endeavors. The group sound doesn’t always feed the myth of the band guy, but as water tends to find its own level, it’s become intertwined with it. It’s not imaginary, this sense that musicians making music together over time produce something that both enhances and exceeds each participant especially when they are composing together. This is one way to understand jazz, for example. But in rock the fascination with “the group sound” melded with a romantic view of masculine freedom and prowess that made the band not just a conduit for artistry, but a way of life. Even as the multiracial revolution disco wrought overtook it in the 1970s and, simultaneously, punk’s antics knocked it down a peg, the band lived on as the most potent signifier of rock’s ability, in the words of its post-1970s high priest Bruce Springsteen, to “bust this city in half.” From The Clash to Metallica and Nirvana, from Green Day to The Strokes and Radiohead, guys in bands lived out the saga and became bigger, better — and richer, and more famous — men. Rock itself continued to be challenged by more fluid and inclusive musical styles, from the blockbuster pop of the 1980s to electronic music and, most of all, hip-hop, which eventually became the ground for all of popular music as rock and roll had been a half-century before. A funny thing happened as hip-hop took over: The notion that the band is a sacred space intensified. Male stars spoke openly of the role the band’s brotherly fellowship played in defining, even saving, their lives. They could lose and find themselves within their bands. “There’s such a commitment within the group that ninety-eight per cent of Bono’s lyrics could have been written as if they were for the band,” U2’s guitarist, the Edge, said in a 1985 Musician magazine interview. Three decades later, Bono wrote in the liner notes to U2’s 14th album, Songs of Experience, “The history of this band is precious and we realize we mustn’t break up, mustn’t die and the legacy of what we do should continue.” A near-death experience, he revealed, had only reinforced his convictions. Few bands last as long as U2, or are as religious in their devotion to the band guy bond. But those who remain definitive in mainstream rock fans’ view — not only U2 but Springsteen’s E Street Band, Metallica, Green Day, and, yes, Foo Fighters — connect with their fans through this mythos of longstanding mutual devotion to the brotherly ideal. In the 21st century, the band has changed, despite the symbolic machinery surrounding it. Women and people of color now rule rock’s critically acclaimed vanguard, and the music’s strongest innovations connect it to more collaborative and fluid styles of music-making, especially hip-hop. The same dynamics that thrilled John and Paul when they first worked together still arise among collaborators, and there’s certainly plenty of thorny drama as collaborations and loyalties mutate and dissolve. But the language has changed and so has the ruling narrative. Women and nonbinary artists like Michelle Zauner or Heloise Letissier take on band names like Japanese Breakfast or Christine and the Queens as multiform personae that leave room for all kinds of collaborators. Brandi Carlile, right now owning the arenas where classic rockers once stomped, considers her partnership with brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth to be a classic band formation, but they’ve chosen to continue operating under a solo name that puts a fortysomething lesbian in the spotlight. Young solo artists form aptly named supergroups like boygenius and Bachelor with no concerns over whether they’ll feel diminished if they walk away from them for a while. Meanwhile, as rappers like Young Thug and Lil Nas X incorporate rock sounds just as the Beatles and the Stones appropriated rhythm and blues, the category of rock itself seems to be reconstituting itself. Band guys are still around, many making great music. But they’re sharing space and the culture is better for it. Rock has been reborn even as the rock era has entered its afterlife. New story arcs are taking over. To return to the band guys who stood together at the beginning of this journey, two men welcoming this transformation are Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney. Grohl got slightly roasted this year when he declared Billie Eilish, who collaborates with her brother Finneas on music whose sound borrows from both jazz and Beatlesque rock, the genre’s future. He doubled down on his assessment. McCartney, for his part, continues to tour as part of his own band, but as his playful experimentations in Get Back show, he’s always been awake to new sounds and new ways of executing them. It feels like something his old friend John would have said – imagine there’s no limit to what a rock band can be. That’s the key to the music’s future, as it actually was all along. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.... Read more...Author John Green Explores How To Live In Uncertainty In ‘The Anthropocene Reviewed’Entertainment / Reviews / TrendingFor most of human existence, things didn’t change much within a single lifetime. If you lived a thousand years ago, the tools you used were probably the same ones as your great grandparents. And other than big events like a volcano, the physical world didn’t change much either. Not anymore. Now we live in the Great Acceleration, also known as the Anthropocene, where even the Earth gets updates to its apps. Change (like global warming and pandemics) is the hallmark of this new era. How to live in the midst its uncertainty without falling into despair is the open question. In his new book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green uses humor, wisdom and a keen sense of connections to offer us something like an answer. Green is a long time book reviewer and author of the best-seller The Fault In Our Stars. Like many of us, Green looks at the changes we face with a mix of dread, bewilderment and the need to find hope. Early on in this book, he notes the contradiction of human power at the heart of living in the Anthropocene. “We are at once far too powerful and not powerful enough,” he writes, being able “to radically reshape the Earth’s climate and biodiversity but not powerful enough to choose how we reshape it.” But to live in this hyperconnected, hyper-accelerated world also means there can be no escape. As his wife tells him “in the Anthropocene, there are no disinterested observers, there are only participants.” That’s why Green makes the act of reviewing the central conceit of the book. Green begins by pointing out a unique feature of our cultural moment. “In the years since I’d been a book reviewer,” he writes, “everyone had become a reviewer and everything a subject of review.” Driving with his brother through Badlands National Park, he checks its Google reviews to find “Not enough mountain.” Later he discovers a review of a bench in Amsterdam, made famous via a scene in the movie version of The Fault In Our Stars. “It’s a bench,” says the reviewer. Green takes the absurdist quality of these judgments to heart by building a book made of more than 40 short essays, each acting as a “review” of some aspect of our lives in the Anthropocene. Each essay is a web of salient and unexpected connections. The first, for example, focuses on the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” tracking its global, wandering history. From an origin in the musical Carousel to a chant for British soccer fans, to being sung by British paramedics praising fellow health care workers during the pandemic, Green sees something profoundly necessary in the sappy song. Recalling the line “At the end of the storm there’s a golden sky and the sweet song of a lark,” Green goes on to note: “But in reality, at the end of a storm there are tree branches everywhere, and downed power lines and flooded rivers.” And yet, that pandemic image of paramedics using the song to cheer on their spent colleagues gives Green hope that storms and the courage to face them must go together. He gives the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” 4.5 stars out 5. In the essay “Human Temporal Range” Green uses the idea of species longevity (i.e., their temporal range) to muse on Anthropocene dread and the fear of our own extinction. He notes that species have always been coming and going. We humans haven’t even been around very long. We’re are younger than coyotes, blue whales and turtles, so would the Earth really miss us that much if we go? While this gives him some helpful perspective, Green does, of course, want us to go on. “What scares me about the end of humanity is the end of all those memories…” Greene laments, “if no one is around to play Billie Holiday records those songs won’t make a sound anymore. We’ve caused a lot of suffering, but we’ve also caused much else.” So, by way of hope, Greene gives “human temporal range” 4 stars out 5. And so it goes. Jurassic Park‘s computer generated velociraptors get just 3 stars because while Green loves them, the real ones were much shorter and probably not very scary. CNN, and all of cable news, get just 2 stars for hindering our chances of dealing with the complex issues of the Anthropocene. The Internet gets 3 stars for being, well, the Internet. “Plague” unsurprisingly gets 1 star (though the essay is an easy 5). And Googling strangers, deservedly, gets 4. What Green is really telling us with these unexpected stories about Sycamore Trees, Canada Geese and Dr. Pepper is how much there is to love in the world and why that love is worth the effort. As he writes, “To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering both human and otherwise …. We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love anyway, to let it crack me open.” The point, says Green — giving us Maurice Sendak’s final words — is simple even in, and perhaps especially because of, these challenging times: “Live your life, live your life, live your life.” Adam Frank is an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester and author of Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth. You can find more from Adam here: @adamfrank4. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more... Arts & Living GuideLike The Linda Lindas, this teen girl band in Benin makes you dance — and thinkJuly 15, 2022Culture / Entertainment / Music / TrendingThe first time that Star Feminine Band – a group of 7 girl musicians from the ages of 12 to 19 – played a show in their West African nation of Benin, many in the crowd broke out in both applause and tears. While the country has seen its share of successful female musicians – singer Angélique Kidjo, for example, has won five Grammys – residents of Natitingou, a town in Benin’s conservative north had never seen musical female power in action. “It was the first time saw women play instruments,” says Sandrine Ouei, the group’s 19-year-old drummer, recalling the event in 2016. “We’re showing the world that women have the capacity and the potential, that they can make music.” That’s the ethos of Star Feminine Band. Since the group’s debut, self-titled album in 2020 – which blends rock and roll with traditional Western African and Beninese music – their music has captured listeners’ attention across the globe for pushing boundaries lyrically, linguistically and culturally. They’ve made a splash in their hometown, signed onto an international label and played shows in France and Switzerland — and in June they’re playing at Roskilde, a major music festival in Denmark. “These girls, when they sing, you just feel the power,” says Abbey Wright, founder of the campaign Planet Resolution. Her project aims to get an artist from every country in the world to record a song about climate change. She commissioned the band’s latest single “Resolution Song,” released in April. The lyrics go, “I’m here standing with you, here, standing with me, standing with the world on our shoulders.” Rockin’ out to girls’ rights In fact, many of the band’s songs – available to stream for free online – tackle social problems, especially girls‘ and women’s issues. So they’re kind of like The Linda Lindas, the all-girl teen punk sensation from Los Angeles — only from Benin. The songs are written by André Balaguemon, a professional musician and a father of two of the girls in the band. In “Femme Africaine,” for example, the singers declare: “You can become prime minister of the country. Get up, we have to do something. African women, be independent.” That’s an important message in a country where, as of February 2021, a little over 8% of seats in parliament were held by women, according to U.N. Women. And in the song “L’excision,” they sing about female genital mutilation, which 9.2% of women between the ages of 15 to 49 have undergone in Benin, according to UNICEF. “Africa, my Africa, we must stop destroying our women,” they sing. Star Feminine Band does all this in eight languages – English, French and the local languages Waama, Ditamari, Bariba, Fulfulde, Yoruba and Fon. “It’s to pass on our message to those who don’t understand French,” says 12-year-old drummer Angelique Balaguemon. Although it’s the country’s official language – used in school, politics and the media – not everyone speaks it. “It’s not difficult to because we’re women ourselves,” says Dorcas M’po, a 14-year-old percussion player. And she knows women in town who have experienced these issues, too. A father’s dream Balaguemon started the band in 2016 hoping to inspire change among the treatment of women and girls in Benin. He was inspired by a dark memory from his own childhood. On a walk home from school, he saw a man beating his wife. The visceral image stuck with him. “My goal is to go to the ends of the earth to defend the rights of women and children,” he says. To get the group started, Balaguemon would first need to teach girls how to play instruments. So he moved to Natitingou from the country’s capital Cotonou to offer free music lessons. He specifically chose this town, he says, because it’s a place “where women’s rights are not respected,” he says. To financially support this endeavor, he rented out two houses he built in central Benin. The mayor’s office got on board with the project, provided a practice space and helped advertise the lessons over the radio. Soon, girls started trickling in. And so Star Feminine Band was born. He put his daughters Angélique on the drum kit and 14-year-old Grâce Marina on the keyboards. Anne Sayi, 15, joined as the guitarist; Julienne Sayi, 17, as the bassist; and Urrice Borikapei, 17, Dorcas and Ouei as drummers. A conservative town reacts At first, people in Natitingou “didn’t understand the project,” says Balaguemon. Critics told him that “girls shouldn’t play music.” But after that first concert on the town square, “everyone started liking Star Feminine Band.” Many girls and women in the area love the band’s message – including former child brides, says Dorcas. “They support us .” The music helps them question why child marriage “continues to happen,” she adds. In one song, “The Forced Marriage,” for example, the girls sing: “Why impose a man on your daughter? African parents, think of us and our future.” That the music is resonating among local girls this way “shows that people who are closer to this scourge are better placed to talk about ,” says Beninese journalist and culture writer Eric Azanney. “It grabs attention.” Girls aren’t the only fans. “There are boys who love the subjects” of their music too, says Dorcas – including classmates and members of the school administration and local government. And some guys just like the band because they’re proud the girls are from their hometown, says Balaguemon. Making it into the big time Star Feminine Band’s big break onto the international stage came by chance. Jérémie Verdier, a trumpet player originally from Avignon, France, was taking time off from work to volunteer in Benin in 2018. He overheard the group practicing in what he calls a “a teeny tiny room” in a building behind Natitingou’s local museum. At the mere mention of him being a musician, the girls invited him to play with their band in a concert later that week – before they even knew if he was any good, he jokes. On stage, he quickly fell in love with the band’s music. The girls were still on his mind when he returned to Europe. In 2019, he hooked them up with the Parisian record label Born Bad, known for its off-the-beaten-path artists. It released Star Feminine Band’s first record. Today, Verdier, now based in Germany, serves as the girls’ manager. Since the band’s formation, the girls have played countless shows in Natitingou, made several music videos — and later this year, they’ll release their second album and tour Europe again. For now, practice continues in Natitingou. The girls get together three times a week when school is in session and more during vacations. And every Sunday, they huddle around a computer screen to Zoom with Verdier. He’s teaching them English so they can communicate with fans when they go on international tours. During one Sunday lesson, the girls perform an acapella version of an unreleased, English-language song from their upcoming album. They swing back and forth, swaying in unison. “Women stand up, stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights,” they sing, nearly chanting. “Don’t underestimate her – because she can do what you do, too.” Nick Roll is a freelance journalist based in Dakar. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...Must-see art from Senegal’s Biennale: Sculptures of sugar, paintings of old postcardsJuly 1, 2022Art & Living / Culture / TrendingOutside, the afternoon heat has given way to the cool evening air. Bats swirl among the towering palm and baobab trees on the lawn of the Douta Seck cultural center in the bustling Medina neighborhood, just north of downtown Dakar. Inside, in the exhibition rooms, it’s humans flitting about, waltzing from one piece of art to the next – lingering at a painting here, a tapestry there. They’re here for the Dakar Biennale, West Africa’s top contemporary international arts festival, which takes over the Senegalese capital every two years. Concerts, gallery openings, lectures, dance performances, and films are premiering across the city almost every day, from mid-May to mid-June. Your sculptures are made out of … what? Upon reaching the beige sculptures of Hilary Balu, patron after patron at the center pauses to ponder the intricate, ancient-looking works of art – a replica of a sword and a helmet, sculptures of a lion and a monkey – all carved out of … out of what, exactly? “What’s it made out of?” multiple people wonder aloud. “Sucre!” interjects Balu, who’s mingling with the crowd. Sugar. Most of the statues represent goods made by or traded by the Portuguese during their expeditions in the 15th and 16th centuries to the Kingdom of Kongo, located in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, prior to Africa’s colonization. Kongo was quick to adopt Christianity during this period. Balu’s replica of a tomb for the Kongolese king, adorned with crosses, shows how the two cultures mixed as they engaged in commerce and diplomacy. But the arrival of Europeans proved disastrous for Kongo. Their quest in that era for trade, slaves, and ultimately colonial domination led to the demise of the Kingdom of Kongo. And why make statues out of something that could be destroyed by an errant cup of tea? Balu, a visual artist from Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, chose the medium carefully. He explains that the enslaved people were sent to labor on sugar plantations in Portuguese colonies and beyond and helped build the grandiose wealth of European empires. The legacy of this era lives on in the economic inequality between the global north and south today, he points out. The objects he sculpted “represent the trajectories that these people took to end up being slaves in Brazil,” Balu says. ” were used like tools, like an instrument, for sugar exploitation.” When buying sugar at the supermarket in Kinshasa to make the statues, he bought local sugar, but also found imported sugar from Brazil. When forming the sculptures – using a secret method he will not divulge – he mixed the two products together, just like “the history of the two countries.” Balu is one of hundreds of artists from around the world presenting at the biennale, which is expected to draw some 250,000 visitors. Originally set for 2020 but sidelined by the pandemic, this year’s festival marks the 14th edition of the fair, which traces its roots to a literary festival launched in Dakar in 1990. “For this Biennale, it’s an invitation to create new forms, new models, new relations,” said Elhadji Malick Ndiaye, the artistic director. The theme of this year’s festival is “Ĩ Ndaffa,” a word in the local Serer language that means “to forge,” or “out of the fire.” It’s the artist’s job, Ndiaye said, to propose “new ways to see the world.” Documenting how we hunt for fish For Belgian artist Pierre Vanneste, who splits his time between Brussels and Dakar, the Biennale offered a chance to show his photography and video exhibit documenting the commercial fishing industry, a project that stretched from Brittany in northwestern France to Senegal. His intimate black and white photos show Senegalese men fishing the Atlantic in the country’s famous, often brightly-painted wooden pirogues. Vanneste also snapped photos aboard massive commercial fishing boats – the kind favored by European and Asian firms often accused of overfishing which, along with climate change, is causing West African fish stocks to plummet. “Fish is the last wild resource that man hunts industrially, in order to be sold afterward industrially,” says Vanneste, whose photographic work concentrates on people’s relationship to nature. He’s hoping viewers start to question the environmental toll of mass-scale fishing and fish consumption, and the role that European and Asian trawlers – but also the Senegalese fishing industry, which itself is starting to expand and modernize – plays in it. Reviving classic village homes and colonial era postcards A few blocks away, at the Grand Théâtre National, a wall of dried millet stalks greets visitors coming to see Senegalese painter Alioune Diagne’s show entitled “Ëttu Ker—Inner Courtyard.” Stepping through the wall’s open threshold, onto the sand covering the floors, they’re transported from the ornate, chandelier-adorned theater into a space resembling a typical Senegalese compound in the countryside. The stalks fence in a sandy, open courtyard, a type of home design that still dominates in rural areas today. “My heart is cold,” says Baye Gora Mbaye, using a phrase in the local Wolof language to express happiness. He works in Dakar as an art talent manager but grew up in a small village a few hours away, and is passing through the exhibition on a way to a conference for his profession. “I’m back in the village,” he tells Diagne. Inside Diagne’s carefully constructed replica compound – with cooking utensils, mats, and traditional wooden bowls filled with millet and corn to add an authentic touch – hang bright paintings inspired by a trove of colonial-era postcards depicting life in Senegal in the 1800s and 1900s he found while visiting France. “In Senegal, history was done in an oral fashion,” Diagne says. “We don’t have a lot of images – so I said to myself, I wanted to try to do this collection about the memory of Senegal, and bring it back to the source.” His paintings recreate those postcards, transforming them from small pieces of paper to large, pastel-colored canvases. The country’s full history, Diagne says, is important for young Senegalese to know – including how people ate, dressed and lived in the past. “If we try to think back to this history, it can give us an idea today of how we can live again in solidarity and how we can also keep our values,” he says, noting that as the country urbanizes, communal courtyards are being replaced with private homes and apartments. “Because values start to disappear over time, people become more and more selfish, people become more and more individualistic.” And in its own way, the biennale itself is a way of capturing a sense of intimate community: Inside the galleries, the massive city of 3 million-plus suddenly shrinks away as strangers come together over art. Back at Douta Seck, an international crowd mixes among the paintings, sculptures and photos. A performance from Nigerian rapper Teni bleeds into the night, leaving patrons with only a brief respite before they pick back up tomorrow with more gallery openings to go to than can possibly be attended. Nick Roll is a freelance journalist based in Dakar. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...What is MerMay and why are people so into drawing mermaids this month?June 10, 2022Culture / TrendingWhat started out as a pun has become a worldwide art challenge beloved by countless illustrators. This is MerMay, the monthlong art challenge in which artists are invited to create a work depicting a mermaid every day and then post it online with the hashtag #mermay. In 2016, Tom Bancroft, a former Disney animator, drew two lounging mermaids looking at their “shell phones,” a scene inspired by his own daughters. When he posted the image on social media, it went viral, he told NPR. “And I realized that ‘Oh, wow, people really like mermaids.’ And there’s nobody kind of tapping that area of fantasy,” he said. The image’s popularity inspired Bancroft. He came up with the idea to try posting a mermaid drawing every day – with weekends being optional – for the entire month of May 2016. Bancroft invited fellow creators to join him. He already had a significant online following thanks to his work with Disney, so it caught on quickly. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in the first year of MerMay, Bancroft said. To help inspire artists every year since, he comes up with a list of daily prompts to incorporate into their works. Bancroft said a lot of people enjoy this aspect of the challenge, especially since they can check the day’s hashtag, where they can see how other artists approached the prompt. People can now also tag their works to be entered into the MerMay 2022 art contest, which offers prizes like a Wacom Cintiq drawing tablet. Part of MerMay’s success might be on account of its subject matter. Disney’s The Little Mermaid was a commercial hit when it was released in 1989. Some of the kids who saw it in theaters grew up to be artists who now participate in MerMay. “I’ve drawn mermaids since I was a very little girl, probably since I was four years old, because that’s when Little Mermaid came out for me,” character designer and illustrator Liana Hee told NPR. “I just fell in love with their design.” Hee, who is based in Los Angeles, has done MerMay every year since it started. This year, she was brought on to help judge the contest. She doesn’t follow MerMay’s daily prompts, but she finds other ways to challenge herself. Sometimes Hee draws mermaids based on real types of fish or the pattern of her clothing. This year, she’s doing all of her works as mini gouache paintings; each piece is just 2 ½ by 3 inches. “It’s really neat to be able to bond with strangers over the internet like this,” Hee said. “It really is artists supporting artists. And I think for us to have such a small community – it’s really special.” For artists like Felix d’Eon, MerMay is a chance to show that mermaids don’t look a certain way. The Mexico City-based artist celebrates queer, trans and fat bodies in his work. “I think that when people usually look at mermaids, there’s a lot of the same thing, which is like sexy white ladies. And mine are not,” d’Eon told NPR. It’s not uncommon to see mermaid art with partial nudity during MerMay. Usually, the mermaid is thin and based on Western beauty standards. D’Eon said he had his Instagram account deactivated after posting a painting of a fat mermaid. He said he still hasn’t recovered as his income has dropped by 60%. He sees this as censorship of bodies that aren’t accepted by society. He considers it a double standard that his piece was reported when so many others aren’t. He said its great that others can post their mermaids, but “when I post queer mermaids, when I post mermaids who are kissing … when I post fat mermaids, trans mermaids — I get in trouble.” Mythological beings like mermaids hold significance for queer people who feel they don’t fit within the culture in which they live, d’Eon said. “You kind of see yourself reflected there, you know,” he said. “As these people who are, you know, both and neither at the same time … they encapsulate these really beautiful fantasies of being people who are in between.” For the last two years, MerMay has had a mascot. Artist and toy designer Whitney Pollett, who is helping Bancroft run the challenge this year, designed both. Pollett incorporated elements of toy design in her concept for the mermaid mascot: fun, fashion, friendship. She drew the mermaid wearing starfish friends all over her body, each with different personalities. “This one’s like a tough guy. And this one’s an explorer. And this one’s really sweet and quiet,” Pollett said. “The more I started drawing new starfish, the more I was kind of giggling to myself, like having a lot of fun.” This year, the mermaid’s name is Harmony. “Because we felt like the world needed a little more harmony, right now,” Bancroft said. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Read more...PHOTOS: Congolese artists channel ‘Mad Max’ and Chewbacca with costumes made of trashMay 30, 2022Art & Living / TrendingThere’s a man wearing a suit of rubbery old car parts, like he’s an extra in the film “Mad Max.” A woman covered in a jumble of colorful wires from head to toe. And someone posing in a magnificent, Chewbacca-looking getup made out of … hundreds upon hundreds of unrolled condoms. These fantastical costumes – fashioned out of trash, found objects and other materials — were created by artists in the Democratic Republic of Congo to highlight the capital city’s problems, including pollution, poverty, lack of health care and overconsumption. But they also highlight the resilience and beauty of its people, captured in a set of striking portraits by Belgian-based photojournalist Colin Delfosse in 2019. He took them after the KinAct Festival, an annual event that brings African and European art to the streets of Kinshasa. “What inspired me” to take the photos, he says, “was the creativity.” During the festival, the Congolese artists walked and danced around the city in their elaborate costumes. The idea behind this performance, wrote Delfosse on his website, was to “initiate a dialogue with the city’s inhabitants.” Congolese artist Florian Sinanduku, for example, wore an outfit made out of hundreds of packets of pills. The goal was to raise awareness around counterfeit medicines. “Finding medicine is a big issue” in the DRC, he said. “You never know where it comes from and what it is made out of.” Indeed, a 2017 report from the World Health Organization found that a majority of the world’s fake or substandard drugs come from Africa. Artist Junior Mungongu donned an ensemble constructed out of plastic bottles and lids to condemn the city’s use of single-use plastics. When he walked around the city in his costume, he asked people to screw their used bottles onto the lids. The city struggles with waste management, including plastic waste. These photos will be on display at a group exhibition for the Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography in Tel Aviv, Israel in November. Delfosse shares any profits from these shows with the artists. “If I sell a photo in an exhibition,” he says, “the artists get 50%.” Here’s a selection of images, taken in Kinshasa, from Delfosse’s series “Fulu Act.” Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer based in Atlanta. His writing has appeared recently on BBC Travel, Discover Magazine, and Earth Island Journal. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.... Read more...Metropolitan Museum of Art Sends Three Benin Bronzes Home To NigeriaJune 11, 2021Art & Living / TrendingBeautiful bronze sculptures and castings from West Africa have long been exhibited in some of the world’s most august institutions, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Wednesday it’s returning three of these artworks to Nigeria. They include two 16th-century brass plaques created at the Court of Benin, and a brass head produced in Ife around the 14th century. “The … plaques produced at the Court of Benin, Warrior Chief and Junior Court Official, were among the works removed from the Royal Palace in 1897 during the British military occupation of Benin,” the Met explained in a statement. (Borders have shifted over the years and the erstwhile Kingdom of Benin, from whence these artworks originated, is in what’s now southern Nigeria.) “Following that military campaign, they entered the collection of the British Museum, London, from 1898 to 1950,” the statement continues. “In 1950–51, the British Museum transferred these two plaques (and 24 others) to the National Museum in Lagos. Although they were never deaccessioned by the National Museum, the two plaques entered the international art market at an unknown date and under unclear circumstances and were eventually acquired by a New York collector.” The mysterious collector donated the works — and his other Benin bronzes — to the Met in 1991. Over the past year, the Met said it’s researched their provenance, in collaboration with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments. It decided to return the works to Nigeria. The Ife Head, originally from Nigeria’s Wunmonije Compound, was offered to the Met for sale, and the museum brokered its return. “The Met is not saying these objects were stolen, so morally, legally we’ve decided to give them back,” noted journalist Barnaby Phillips, author of the recently released book LOOT: Britain and the Benin Bronzes. ” They want to be seen as willing and helpful and good partners to Nigeria. And it was noticeable in the statement they’re also offering their support for the the proposed Edo Museum of West African art, a museum that does not yet exist.” One day, Phillips explains, backers hope the Edo Museum of West African Art will be built in Benin City to house a world-class collection of Benin bronzes, including ones that were taken illegally and displayed in the West for generations. “We welcome the rapprochement developing in the museum world, and appreciate the sense of justice displayed by The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” said Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s minister of Minister of Information and Culture as part of the Met’s statement. “Nigeria enjoins other museums to take a cue from this. The art world can be a better place if every possessor of cultural artifacts considers the rights and feelings of the dispossessed.” Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine... Read more...A Pandemic ‘Romeo & Juliet’ Finds A New Language Of Love And LossMay 19, 2021Art & Living / TrendingWhy do people still perform Romeo & Juliet? That, to mangle a reference, is the question. It’s not the question because there’s anything wrong with the play or with producing the play or with updating the play; it’s just, genuinely, a question. What makes things last? What makes people want to revisit them over and over? (And please don’t say “quality.” It is sometimes quality, but it is certainly not always quality, and even within the Shakespeare world but certainly outside of it, attempts to correlate greatness of work with cultural penetration and permanence will turn you into a human shruggie emoji.) Perhaps it’s because a story of love and hate — and the awful work of trying to beat the latter with the former — always feels timely. And so it does now, as Great Performances on PBS presents a new take on the play. This version was intended as a theatrical run produced by London’s National Theatre for the summer of 2020; we know how that turned out. But rather than letting the planned production die on the vine, they decided to rethink it as a film for television. The fundamentals, as they say, are sound: Josh O’Connor (recently seen playing a miserable Charles on The Crown) and Jessie Buckley (recently seen in, among other things, the Charlie Kaufman film I’m Thinking Of Ending Things) play Romeo and Juliet, not as starry-eyed teenagers but as lustful and trapped young adults. The rest of the cast includes Tamsin Grieg as Juliet’s icy mother, Lucian Msamati as the Friar who meant well, Fisayo Akinade as Mercutio, and Shubham Saraf as Benvolio. Director Simon Godwin had never directed a film, but he has a great theater pedigree — in fact, he’s currently the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company right here in D.C. This is an interesting and fresh production of the play that steers away particularly hard from any ingenue notion of Juliet; Buckley performs Juliet as a woman who’s trapped and bound by obligation, and her instant draw to O’Connor’s Romeo feels, for both of them, less like a twinkly starlight blush and more like the way grown and unhappy people can pull in the direction of each other for the simple reason that they have seen in someone else a glimmer of hope. But what makes this film more than a fine addition to the tellings and retellings of Shakespeare is a timeliness that has little to do with Romeo & Juliet‘s foundational love and hate. Instead, because of the way it’s produced and shot, it serves as one of the most poignant and touching love stories about theater itself that could possibly come out of the devastation the pandemic has brought to live performance. The cast and crew filmed in the Lyttelton Theatre in London, and when the play begins, it looks like a rehearsal: actors sitting in a circle, no sets or costumes or props to speak of, everyone looking like they just came in off the street. In the early going, skeletal structures stand in for real sets: an actor walks through a freestanding door with no wall around it or sits in an ornate chair in a huge empty and unadorned space. But little by little, as the story goes on, the theater becomes their Verona, their clothes evolve into minimalist but meaningful costumes, and what’s been imagined starts to become real. It is my personal bias, I admit, that theaters are the closest things we have to magical places. Not just when they’re full of people, noisy with music and drama, but even when they’re not. Empty theaters seem to have memories, as if each performance that’s ever happened inside them left a few dust motes that are still floating around. People who work in live theater will break your heart when they try to explain what it has meant not to enter theaters at all for a year — partly because theater shutdowns represent economic devastation particularly for the most vulnerable among them, but also because if you want to see a romance that is passionate and beautiful and always seems on the verge of ending in disaster, spend some time with people who are reliant on the future of live performance spaces in 2021. This is an effective and gripping production that pushes you, as the best R&Js do, in the direction of thinking, “Don’t do it! Don’t take the poison!” even when you know he will take it, because he must, because that’s the play. But it’s also a moving document that shows the cavernous spaces and folding tables and impossibly high walls and ceilings that make theaters haunting and beautiful. May we all be together in their thrall very soon. Romeo & Juliet premieres on Great Performances on PBS on April 23. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more...St. Vincent, Builder Of Rock Futures, Takes Shelter In The PastMay 19, 2021Art & Living / Cover / TrendingThere’s a scene in Torrey Peters’ new novel, Detransition, Baby, where two trans women argue over the enduring legacy of Candy Darling, one of the most memorable stars in Andy Warhol’s orbit in late-’60s and early-’70s New York. One character asserts that she was little more than a muse, a blank canvas onto which men like Warhol and Lou Reed (who wrote about her in “Candy Says” and “Walk on the Wild Side”) could project their fantasies: “just some helpless languid blonde waiting around for a man to save her and make her famous.” In response, the other character lifts her skirt to reveal an enormous, photorealistic portrait of Darling’s face tattooed across her thigh. A person’s image, when separated from the person, can be tectonic in its meaning or appear as a cheap facsimile: It depends on how many times it’s been replicated, the conditions of that replication, and, mostly, whom you ask. Darling died of lymphoma in 1974, during the last months of her 20s. All that’s left of her is the way men documented her life — but those documents persist, and keep tumbling into new generations. In 2013, Reed performed in public for the last time in his life alongside Anohni, the trans singer who picked a famous photo of Darling on her deathbed as the cover of her 2005 album I Am a Bird Now; the song they sang together was “Candy Says.” Today, nearly 50 years after her death, she appears as a character in a St. Vincent album, a mascot of a certain era of New York. The steadfastly retro Daddy’s Home winds down with a song named for Darling, in which Annie Clark professes her devotion in the style of a man down on his luck, trying to win back a great love with a stale gesture: “Candy Darling, I brought bodega roses for your feet.” Fourteen years after her first album as St. Vincent, Clark makes a sharp turn in time with Daddy’s Home, her sixth. Until now, her music had largely tendriled toward the future. The early baroque-pop sound of 2007’s Marry Me and 2009’s Actor, inflected by stints playing guitar for Sufjan Stevens and The Polyphonic Spree, tautened on 2011’s breakthrough Strange Mercy, an art-rock marvel whose tightly coiled melodies and bold, raucous guitar work earned St. Vincent a sure spot among the burgeoning millennial indie rock canon. She copiloted a suitably offbeat album, Love This Giant, alongside former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in 2012; the fruits of their intergenerational conversation fed into her acclaimed 2014 self-titled LP, where Clark cast herself as a grey-haired cult leader basking in the fawning adoration of her followers. In 2017, she paired with Jack Antonoff — best known for co-producing albums by Lorde and Taylor Swift — for the neon-hued MASSEDUCTION, an exuberant study in the nuances of desire, of wanting and being wanted, seeing and being seen. Throughout her work to date, Clark’s guitar has served as a reliable duet partner, an instrument readily tortured into producing alien sound. There’s the sputtering chainsaw rumble in the solo of the Strange Mercy single “Cruel,” the detuned lead flaying the bridge to Actor‘s “Marrow,” the corroded trumpet call between verses on the self-titled’s “Regret.” Her guitar appears less as accompaniment to her singing than as a second voice, a wordless foil to her vivid, disarming lyrics. On Daddy’s Home, Clark retracts that probing tentacle and retreats deep into her dad’s vinyl cabinet. She’s aimed for period accuracy in the writing and production, furnishing her studio largely with instruments and equipment that were popular circa 1971. Her guitar, formerly a squealing, squalling, animated force, shrinks back down to six strings and a handful of pickups, producing recognizably pearly tones à la George Harrison or Eric Clapton. As a teaser poster promised, the record can even be purchased on obsolete eight-track tape, a collector’s item limited to a run of 500. Clark began work on the album after her father, convicted of a multi-million dollar stock manipulation scheme, was released from a near-decade’s stint in prison. In the music’s browns and oranges, its carefully manicured sleaze, Clark excavates competing desires for love, stability and bad behavior. She looks to her lineage — both her literal parents and the artists she considers her ancestors — in order to stabilize herself, to fix her sprawled longing in a legible sequence. On early single “The Melting of the Sun,” she supplies capsule vignettes of the many women in her personal pantheon, from Joni Mitchell to Tori Amos to Nina Simone, and then turns the lens back on herself: “Who’m I trying to be? / A benzo beauty queen?” In its formal qualities, Daddy’s Home is faithfully cemented in its frequently romanticized era. The press release situates its stories between the years 1971 and 1975 in downtown New York, though it also bears the hallmarks of certain earlier works: the electric sitar of B.J. Thomas’s 1968 hit “Hooked on a Feeling,” the searching psychedelic guitar of George Harrison’s 1970 post-Beatles debut, All Things Must Pass. Musical and vocal gestures plug tightly into the classics: The way Clark drags her voice across the word “pain” on “Pay Your Way in Pain” echoes David Bowie’s treatment of “fame.” The vocal harmonies from her backup singers — including Donny Hathaway’s daughter Kenya Hathaway, whose presence casts another shadow of a dad — recall the tight-knit interplay of The Pointer Sisters. (This marks the first time Clark has made use of backing singers on a solo album rather than overdubbing her own harmonies.) Clark says she spent time picking apart the harmonic complexities of Stevie Wonder’s 1973 song “Golden Lady,” trying to apply the lessons of its satisfying key shift to her own writing. The production is warm and analog and frustratingly minimal, more in line with Antonoff’s recent work in tightly laminated negative space than the lush and vibrant atmospheres of Clark’s professed influences. The funk, soul, R&B and rock that coursed through the early ’70s pop charts tended toward abundance, stacking elements on top of each other to the point where it seemed they might topple but instead locked together in beautiful cohesion. New recording technologies, new genre explorations, and the momentum of concurrent social movements gave much of the period’s music an optimistic fervor, a sense of collective anticipation behind corners not yet turned. There is palpable excitement in the voices of Wonder, Sly Stone, Chaka Khan and other future-minded performers recorded in this stretch of time. By contrast, even though each individual sound on Daddy’s Home is period-accurate, there are rarely enough of them to usher in the same mood. Elements stand cleanly apart, afraid to touch, rather than tangling with each other and getting messy. In this environment, Clark sounds more deadpan than thrilled, set apart from her backup singers rather than rollicking with them. This siloing worked on previous St. Vincent records, where individual instruments had enough personality and grit to take center stage at a pronounced distance from their environments. But here, where each gesture is muffled under a curtain of nostalgia, the space points more to deprivation than sophistication — the colorful, overflowing ’70s filtered through a restrained, minimalist ear. This conundrum at least fits the theme. In reflecting on her “outlaw” dad, Clark professes fears of her own excessiveness, the way her misbehavior alienates her from her hopes for herself. “Somebody Like Me” drapes visions of white weddings over the plaintive echo of slide guitars. On “My Baby Wants a Baby,” she engages in the terrifying exercise of imagining herself a parent: “What in the world would my baby say? / ‘I got your eyes and your mistakes?’ ” Occasionally, Clark seems to address herself in the second person, as on “…At the Holiday Party,” where she sings about someone who pretends to want all the glamour and hedonism in their life “so no one sees you not getting what you need.” In her reanimation of a past just outside her own firsthand memory, Clark collapses the roles of muse and artist, icon and recorder, daddy and baby. She has worked in this volatile spot before, negotiating awareness of the camera on her body in MASSEDUCTION‘s videos while asserting her role as co-creator of the scene. In the lyrics to “The Melting of the Sun,” Clark briefly invokes Marilyn Monroe, the 20th-century icon whose face Warhol famously took as material in his paintings, stamping it out over and over again in surprising colors until its details began to degrade and the overfamiliar image started to look uncanny. Clark casts herself as both Warhol and Monroe in this dynamic: the muse hollowed out through endless replication and the blasé artist doing the replicating. By the time the needle shakes across “Candy Darling,” a smoky, placid ballad sung directly to the late star, Clark is wistful but not broken by the conflicts she’s staged for herself. Her focus settles on a figure who, like Monroe, is easy to romanticize, a woman who was fervently documented and then died young, leaving a vacuum around her meaning. Darling’s subjectivity was short-lived — she had a say in who she was for only a few years. Rather than speculate on that interiority, its challenges and contradictions, Clark calcifies the image: the blonde hair and red lipstick, seen through a window, “waving from the latest uptown train.” She makes one more stamp on the canvas, declares it perfect, and stops at that. Sasha Geffen is the author of the book Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary, a history of boundary-pushing expressions of sex and gender in modern pop. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more...Brood X Is Back — But Cicadas Have Been In Chinese Art For MillenniaMay 19, 2021Art & Living / TrendingOur new cicada overlords have officially arrived. You might be using Cicada Safari to track Brood X, which appears to be slowly emerging from the earth in the U.S. all the way from Florida to Michigan. But cicadas are global citizens. In China, the critters have long been symbolically significant. “Cicadas are actually quite prominent in Chinese literature, art and culture,” says Haiyan Lee, a professor of east Asian languages and cultures and of comparative literature at Stanford University. They’re even part of military strategy, she adds. Among the legendary Thirty-Six Strategems, a collection of essays a little like The Art of War, is a maneuver called “Slough off the Cicada’s Golden Shell.” It refers to creating a decoy to escape from a stronger enemy. Cicadas pop up in Chinese folktales, too, like this animated one on YouTube about a friendship between a cicada and a bird. And they’re in classical poetry, like the great Tang Dynasty poem “Ode to the Cicada,” written from the point of view of a political prisoner. The insects’ appearances stretch back 4,000 years, to a time when ancient settlers carved cicadas from jade and placed them on the tongues of the dead before burial, evoking transcendence and eternal life. “The earliest examples we have date to the Neolithic period,” says Sarah Laursen, a curator of Chinese art at the Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, Mass. “There’s one Han Dynasty cicada in our collection that’s my favorite. This jade cicada is smooth and flat and fits in the palm of your hand. The carving’s very simple, just a few lines. The wings are tucked in close to the body. Now, real cicadas have clear wings covered with delicate veins — but most jade cicadas are just plain. This one is special. It has tiny triangles of gold foils showing just how precious it was.” Cicadas were associated with nobility, adds Smithsonian curator Jan Stuart, who wrote about cicadas in Chinese art in an essay for the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. “They have huge eyes,” she says, evoking visionary leadership. “And they eat only they purest of pure things, tree sap.” That suggests cicadas have a sort of incorruptible nature. “But they’re in this sort of muddied earth,” Stuart continues. “And then they emerge but they emerge unsullied, and they fly to the highest branches of a tree.” Lofty and transformative, cicadas could be easily read, she suggests, as intermediaries between earth and heaven. Some people find cicadas scary-looking, with their red, bulging eyes, veiny wings and creepy, fragile shells they leave behind. “My advice is just look at them in Chinese art,” Stuart laughs. “They’re beautiful.” And especially today, she adds, a potent and enduring symbol of transformation and regeneration. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more...National Gallery Of Art Rebrands To Emphasize The ‘National’ In Its NameMay 19, 2021Art & Living / TrendingThe National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is rebranding itself, a move that the museum’s director says “really emphasizes the ‘National’ in our name.” The revamped brand announcement comes one day before the National Gallery reopens to the public after being closed since November 2020. Director Kaywin Feldman says the new vision and strategic plan have been two years in the making. Some of the goals are “practical” with plans to update the museum’s website and add more signage in and around the National Gallery’s campus which includes the East and West Buildings and the outdoor Sculpture Garden. “There are people who don’t even know the National Gallery is here,” laments Feldman. Still, the federally funded National Gallery is the second most visited art museum in the U.S., according to The Art Newspaper’s annual attendance survey. The museum’s collection of European and American art includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, Vincent van Gogh, Mary Cassatt, Romare Bearden, Alexander Calder, Lorna Simpson and Diane Arbus. The new brand’s mission statement is a lot shorter than the old one and less about the traditional practices of a major museum. New: “The National Gallery of Art serves the nation by welcoming all people to explore and experience art, creativity, and our shared humanity.” Old: “The mission of the National Gallery of Art is to serve the United States of America in a national role by preserving, collecting, exhibiting, and fostering the understanding of works of art, at the highest possible museum and scholarly standards.” This rebranding comes at a time when the National Gallery has faced criticism of “institutional misconduct.” Last October, an open letter, signed anonymously, claimed that the National Gallery’s own employees refer to it as the “last plantation on the National Mall.” The National Gallery was one of four institutions to postpone “Philip Guston Now” over the artist’s images of hooded Klansmen, leading to another open letter and petition signed by more than 2,000 people including such artists of color as Adrian Piper and Lorna Simpson. The Guston exhibition is now scheduled for 2022. In 2018, The Washington Post reported security guards and other employees faced a hostile work environment that included sexual harassment, racism and fears of retaliation. While Feldman says the rebranding is not a direct response to those complaints, “We’re doing a lot of work to diversify the institution, our staff and our program.” According to a National Gallery spokesperson, the museum’s executive team has gone from being 100% white since Feldman arrived “to 57% people of color come August when several new hires start.” Feldman herself became the first woman to lead the institution in 77 years when she was hired in 2018. She adds that the words “shared humanity” in the new mission statement are critical right now. “One of the wonders of art is that it really reminds us of our shared humanity.” Copyright 2021 Smack magazine.... Read more...How The Sewing Machine Gave Power — And Fashion Cred — To African WomenMay 19, 2021Culture / TrendingIn the fashion world, a “lookbook” is a collection of photos highlighting, say, a fashion designer’s work or a fashion model. The African Lookbook has a different agenda: images that present a stereotype-busting way to look at African women, their relationship with fashion — and their ability to turn the sewing machine from a tool synonymous with toil, lack of choice and oppression into a means for them to achieve economic power. Indeed, African American author Catherine McKinley bends, stretches and tears the fabric of what mainstream history has been telling us about African women in the clothing industry with a visual history of the 100-year span her book covers. “I have looked at photography over time — and in the colonial lens, there was always a deliberate effort to make African women look ugly,” McKinley told NPR. “Photos such as puberty rites photos: It’s almost like colonialists took the most abject, most degraded girls and put them up for entertainment.” The book also echoes McKinley’s own sense of self as an African American woman. She professes an intimate connection to the photos — as if each person were someone she knew. McKinley spoke with NPR about her book, published in January. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. How did your love for African cloth and women’s fashion come about? I’m a late ’60s, ’70s, child and I think a lot of it is a kind of nostalgia of that era of Pan-Africanism. As a child, I saw these images of African American families and artists like Maya Angelou, Nina Simone, W.E.B Dubois and Shirley Graham DuBois, Bobby Lee and others who lived and traveled in Africa. I always wanted to somehow, which was the beginning of my love for textiles. I lived in an all-white town in Massachusetts that was kind of socially cut off. There was a woman there from Sierra Leone. She was a nurse, and we became very close friends. She gave me a dress once, and the dress was just significant for me. It was the closest I could get to her and what she represented to me as a mother figure. You write about how African women took on the sewing machine as an expression of economic freedom despite the sewing machine being brought in by colonial masters. Can you tell us about that? Sewing machines have troubling history. They arrived on the African continent very close to the time the camera came: around the mid-1800s. They were reserved for the colonialists to use — primarily for making uniforms and clothing for the Empire and to piece together cloth they then used in exchange for slaves in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Unlike the camera, Africans were able to quickly democratize the sewing machine, and you would find it in almost every household of some means, on the streets, in ateliers and as part of dowry lists. This made me think again about all the possibilities for this thing — not only in the sense that you can make something beautiful for yourself and others but that it really is an economic tool. Throughout the book, you speak about cloth as currency and wealth. But you also highlight that West African women in the 1960s were spending between 12-19% of their income on fabric. How can cloth be a source of wealth when people spent so much of their income on it? I think we have to look at that consumption as a kind of banking and an economic system. A lot of that expenditure on cloth would be used as a kind of capital, even if women were using it to sew a dress. Dresses were sewn to still preserve the yard: They would never actually cut the cloth when making a skirt. Rather, they would fold the extra cloth inside so that the skirt could be reopened and there would be two or three yards to recycle or reuse. It was an important source of financial wealth, as women could use the extra cloth to make more clothes for themselves or sell the cloth to other women. Women traders could get store credit from other female traders and then acquire more cloth and more income and insert themselves in the system. It’s a kind of interesting and very complex banking system. Going through your images, I couldn’t help but think of how fashion was used by women in Southern Africa in various liberation struggles. Who was your favorite and why? I go back to South African singer Miriam Makeba all the time. Because she is so stunning — period. Her fashion history told an entire story of Pan-Africanism and liberation on the continent — a more accurate story of the continent than the textbooks. The iconic photo of her in a leopard-print dress from 1966 is the ultimate expression of modernity, dignity, glamour and selfhood. Every woman should have a dress like that. That is defiance and politics at its best, given the context where African people were subjugated and depicted in a negative light [Makeba is remembered as a symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa as well as a fighter against racism worldwide.] Where are African women participating in the textile industry today? I think there are many more possibilities for fashion entrepreneurs. I’ve noticed in Ghana that more high-level sewing schools are coming up, with all kinds of new German and Japanese technology. I mean, the internet has just revolutionized the fashion industry. The textile industry is still lagging, though, and the secondhand clothes imports from Western, high-income countries to Africa are a scourge to the environment, public health and the economy. We need to have conversations about how creatives on the African continent can insert themselves into the fashion economy. We need to shift our discussions from fashion and spectacle to a politicized understanding of both pleasure and the trade and power systems in which it operates. For me, African textiles and fashion are a huge part of my education and a part of my expression of closeness and who I am as a Black woman in the world. The point in investigating the history of textiles in Africa is then to give ourselves the spiritual and sartorial and social freedom imbued in them. Masego Madzwamuse is an African feminist, social justice activist and head designer for Bola Nangabe. She also an Aspen New Voices Senior Fellow, class of 2020. Copyright 2021 Smack Magazine.... Read more... Fashion & StyleThe pandemic has changed workplace fashion. What does that mean for you?July 15, 2022Fashion / TrendingBack in 1999, luxury clothing designer Tom Ford made a prediction about how technology might influence the way people dress in the not-so-near future. “Life is changing. And we’re working more and more at home, more and more from our computer screen, which in the future — I mean, there are several ways this could go,” he said in an interview with Charlie Rose. “A lot of people think fashion might just die because we’re just at home. You can be working in your underwear and a T-shirt. Who cares? Who’s going to see you?” Did his prediction become your reality during the COVID-19 pandemic? If so, you’re not alone. As many people worked from home during the pandemic lockdown, companies’ formal dress codes dissolved and office employees no longer needed to dress up. Slacks were replaced by sweats. People ditched heels. And T-shirts started to dominate. Now that many of those workers are returning to the office, we seem to be entering a new era of work wear. This has sparked the question: What should I wear to work? As part of NPR’s Work Life series, NPR’s Morning Edition spoke with people who are navigating that question. They include 27-year-old Jeremy Gonzalez, who started working on Capitol Hill last November. “When I first started coming in, even on recess days, I would be wearing a suit and a tie or even my three-piece suit,” he said. But after waves of pandemic variants and a fluctuating hybrid schedule, he’s now more inclined to wear jeans and a button-down or a polo shirt. Some others in politics are noticeably dressing down, too. When the leaders of the Group of Seven nations took their group photo in Germany last month, something peculiar happened: They all ditched their ties. It was believed to have been the first time in 40 years that a G-7 portrait was taken without ties and could be seen as yet another signal that formal dress codes are becoming more relaxed. Looser dress codes have found their way into another notoriously formal work culture — Wall Street — where for men, suits have traditionally been the only option. Now, “the operative word is confusion,” says Ken Giddon, whose family runs Rothman’s, a men’s store in Manhattan. “People really don’t know what to do.” With offices opening back up, he has noticed folks are less certain about what to wear. “Do you wear dress slacks to work? Do you wear khakis? Can you wear jeans?” he said. “Nobody really has drawn the line, and nobody really knows what the right answer is.” His advice is to start with a dress trouser and blazer, assess the vibe of the office and go from there. Washington Post senior critic-at-large Robin Givhan agrees — err on the dressier side. “What I’ve noticed is that there’s really a return to sort of fashion with a capital F,” she said. “I think people who loved it before, continue to love it. And there’s something about creating boundaries again. You have the clothes that you wear out into the world and then you have the clothes that are your playtime clothes, your downtime clothes.” Still, Givhan sees one area where comfort will continue to be a priority. “I am not seeing a return to the serious dressy heels or constricting footwear,” Givhan said. “I’m seeing a lot more flats both in offices and on runways.” Of course, not everyone likes dressing up in formal clothes. And, as Givhan puts it, not everyone wants the same sort of breakdown between their personal and professional selves. “I think for some people it is really invigorating to be able to bring the entirety of their personality with them wherever they go,” she said. “And I think there are other people who were frustrated by the fact that their workday never really seemed to end, that it just sort of blurred into one giant mush of constantly being online.” Just as Tom Ford predicted. Jeevika Verma produced the radio version of this story and Rachel Treisman edited and produced the web version. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit NPR. Transcript : RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: This week, we’re looking at how our work lives have changed since the pandemic, and today we are thinking about what we wear. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FASHION”) DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Fashion. Turn to the left. Fashion. Turn to the right. MARTIN: OK, fashion may seem small, but it says something larger about how the pandemic has changed all of us. Now, if you work in certain industries that were aesthetically relaxed before, that probably hasn’t changed, but the pandemic has given some people a chance to loosen up. Our producer, Milton Guevara, went to Capitol Hill and found Jeremy Gonzalez, who has worked there since November. JEREMY GONZALEZ: Yeah, I would say definitely. Like, when I first started coming in, even on recess days, I would be wearing a suit and a tie or even, like, my three-piece suit that I have that I think is, like – you know, I feel good in that outfit. Now, unless it’s, like, a voting day, I usually am not wearing a suit. Otherwise, I would just be wearing jeans and, like, you know, maybe a button-down or a polo. MARTIN: OK, jeans and a polo is not exactly fashion forward, but it is pretty casual for the Hill. We wondered if looser dress codes had found their way into another notoriously formal work culture – Wall Street, where for men suits are really the only option and even then, not a huge range of improvisation. DAVID GURA, BYLINE: You know, in terms of color palette and all that, I mean, it’s blue and black, and the shirts are white or blue. MARTIN: This is David Gura. He covers Wall Street for NPR. And he did a little digging for us on if and how dress codes have changed in the epicenter of American finance. He called up a source David calls his suits guy. He’s named Ken Giddon. His family has run the storied men’s store in Manhattan since the 1920s called Rothman’s. GURA: I called him up, and I asked him sort of what’s changed now that offices are reopened? And this is what he said. KEN GIDDON: In terms of dress code, the one thing that I would say certainly for the Wall Street crowd is the operative word is confusion. MARTIN: (Laughter). GURA: So people are coming back, and they feel like, OK, I can’t wear the sweats that I was wearing. You know, I should be wearing something more formal. But they don’t really know what that is. And I thought what was so fascinating, as I heard Ken talk about this, is, like, it’s across the board. So it’s interns who are saying they’re confused. Kind of first-years right out of college are saying the same thing. MARTIN: Yeah. GURA: But he says executives are coming in, and they have the same complaint. They just don’t know what this dress code’s supposed to be like in this new world. MARTIN: That’s so interesting. They definitely perceive that something has shifted, though. Everything’s just not going back to the way it was. GURA: And I think that, like, before the pandemic, they had a good handle on what the dress code was at banks and law firms… MARTIN: Yeah. GURA: …And across corporate America. And now he’s learning as well. So, like, he’s advising people on what to wear, and then I think he’s kind of counting on them to come back and tell him what they’re seeing because, obviously, yeah, his job is, like, to be an adviser in some respect, to make sure that people are outfitted the way that they want to be or should be for jobs. MARTIN: Young people in particular, for whom they may be walking into their first jobs – and, you know, they just spent two years at home. Maybe they were, you know, at home taking college classes. And they don’t have a clue. GURA: Yeah, he’s done this for years. Like, they’ll come in, and he says they’ll maybe start with a suit, figuring they need one of those. They’ll pick out a sport coat. GIDDON: But then they’re not sure where to go. Do you wear dress slacks to work? Do you wear khakis? Can you wear jeans? And nobody really has drawn the line, and nobody really knows what the right answer is. GURA: So the advice that he’s giving them is just wear dress trousers and a blazer, collared shirt, and very quickly you’ll get a sense if that’s the vibe of the office. And he said, worst case, you just hang that blazer on your coat hook or doorknob, and you don’t wear it the next day. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FASHION”) BOWIE: (Singing) Fa-fa-fa-fa fashion, la-la-la-la-la. MARTIN: You heard the man – err on the dressier side and then figure it out from there. Robin Givhan thinks this is good advice, too. And believe me, you want to listen to Robin because writing about what our outward appearance means was her full-time gig at The Washington Post for most of her career. So, I mean, you used to write exclusively about fashion. Now you write about all kinds of things. But, I mean, I’m looking at you online, all these photos of you, Robin. You’re a very well-heeled woman. You always look totally put together. (LAUGHTER) ROBIN GIVHAN: You’re very kind. MARTIN: So – I mean, it’s just truth. So when you were on lockdown, like the rest of us, I’m assuming that you didn’t dress to the nines? What was your situation? GIVHAN: (Laughter) Well, I certainly had my days when, you know, I worked out in the morning and just sort of stuck with sweatpants or something for the rest of the day. But, honestly, you know, I missed the clothes in my closet, and so I would put them on. MARTIN: (Laughter). GIVHAN: And as I joked to one of my colleagues – you know, I said, a steady diet of yoga pants and sweatpants will lie to you. A pair of jeans will be very honest about what your eating habits have wrought. MARTIN: I feel that in a very real way. GIVHAN: (Laughter). MARTIN: So now here we are. A lot of people have gone back to their offices, to their pre-COVID work routines. What have you noticed in terms of changes since people have returned? Are they keeping some of that caszh (ph) vibe or what? GIVHAN: One of the things that I found to be striking just within the fashion industry is that there was a lot of conversation of trying to create collections that were much more sort of comfort first. But what I’ve noticed is that there’s really a return to sort of fashion with a capital F because I think people who loved it before continue to love it. And there’s something about creating boundaries again – right? – where you have the clothes that you wear out into the world, and then you have the clothes that are sort of your playtime clothes, your downtime clothes. MARTIN: Although, you know, I spoke to one person who talked to me about breaking down that boundary and how that felt liberating to them to not have to bifurcate yourself that way, that there was a certain uniform, a definition of what it meant to be a professional that they didn’t feel was really authentic to them anymore. And now they’re wearing overalls and big flamboyant colors and erasing that boundary. GIVHAN: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s sort of the big existential question, at least (laughter) in the fashion realm, as people return to the office, which is, you know, how much of a breakdown do you want between sort of the personal self and the professional self? And I think for some people, it is really invigorating to be able to bring the entirety of their personality with them wherever they go. And I think there are other people who were frustrated by the fact that their workday never really seemed to end, that everything blurred into one giant mush of constantly being online, constantly being on call. And they sort of longed for more of a delineation between the two. I think that, ultimately, we’ll come to some sort of happy medium. But I will say that one area where the role of comfort seems to have, like, stuck is in footwear. MARTIN: Footwear – did Robin Givhan just give me an excuse to play Run-D.M.C.? I think she did. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MY ADIDAS”) RUN-DMC: (Rapping) I wore my sneakers, but I’m not a sneak. My Adidas touch the sand of a foreign land. With mic in hand, I cold took command. My Adidas… GIVHAN: I am not seeing a return to the serious dressy heels or constricting footwear. MARTIN: I mean… GIVHAN: I’m seeing a lot more flats, both in offices, on runways, in look-books, in magazines (laughter). MARTIN: Yeah. I mean, how did we ever do that? I look at these heels – I have to admit, I was never really a heel person. But right before the lockdowns, I just – I decided I needed some. And now I look at them, and I’m like, there’s just no way. I’m never, ever putting those on. GIVHAN: Yeah. But there had already been a lot of collaborations between high-end fashion brands like Birkenstock and Converse and Adidas, and, you know, there had been sort of sneaker technology put into dress shoes. MARTIN: Yeah. GIVHAN: And this idea that you could still look very professional and polished and dressed-up wearing a pair of flats. MARTIN: But remember how that was so stigmatized back in the day? Like, you know, not to diss on Naturalizer or any of those other older brands, but… GIVHAN: Oh, go ahead. Diss on them. (LAUGHTER) MARTIN: Poor Naturalizer. But that – it was, like, an old-lady shoe, right? If you were looking for, like, a comfortable shoe, that was totally not the hip and cool thing to do. And now I see cool sneakers everywhere. GIVHAN: Yeah. I mean, I freely own up to the fact that one of the earliest stories I wrote when I came to Washington was about all of these women emerging from the Metro and, you know, looking like they were headed into, you know, some law office from the ankles up, but they were wearing the equivalent of, you know, workout sneakers on their feet. MARTIN: Right. Like “Working Girl,” like Melanie Griffith (laughter). GIVHAN: Exactly. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LET THE RIVER RUN”) CARLY SIMON: (Singing) Let the river run. Let all the dreamers wake the nation. GIVHAN: And I thought, oh, my God, this column is going to be the one that, like, leads my obituary or something because people were so outraged. MARTIN: (Laughter) So in your best guidance then – so I’m still working at home. Like, we should – I should just admit this. And I am having a real mental block about going back to work and not wearing my athleisure wear. Your suggestion to me is just try it and see what happens? Maybe it’s not so scary? GIVHAN: (Laughter) I would say ease into it. I mean, I don’t think you have to go… MARTIN: (Laughter) Right. Like a nice pair of yoga pants. GIVHAN: (Laughter) Yoga pants to, you know, the full three-piece suit ensemble. MARTIN: That’s never happening. Right. GIVHAN: But I think you could go from yoga pants to maybe a pair of, you know, up-style track pants… MARTIN: Ooh, that’s cool. GIVHAN: …And maybe a simple pullover… MARTIN: Yes. GIVHAN: …And a pair of high-style Birkenstocks. I think that’s, like, a very gentle shift. MARTIN: We don’t even know each other that well, and you just nailed my look. That was perfect. (LAUGHTER) GIVHAN: I think the key word is pulled-together. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LET THE RIVER RUN”) SIMON: (Singing) We’re coming to the edge, running on the water, coming through the fog, your sons and daughters. MARTIN: (Laughter) Robin Givhan of The Washington Post. She writes about fashion but so much more. We are pleased she talked with us. Thank you so much, Robin. GIVHAN: (Laughter) Thank you. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LET THE RIVER RUN”) SIMON: (Singing) …Desire through the darkening dawn. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.... From Tumblrcore to 2014core, the nostalgia loop is getting smaller and fasterJuly 15, 2022Fashion / TrendingSome recent fashion trends make sense. Take what’s currently being called the Y2K aesthetic of wide-leg jeans, aggressive pink and metallic fabrics — a throwback to style sensibilities of the late 90s and early 2000s. Fashion moves in twenty year cycles, or so conventional wisdom has it, when tastemakers get nostalgic for their childhoods. For example, 1970s pop culture, resurrected the 1950s in the form of TV shows Happy Days and M*A*S*H and the musical Grease. And twenty years after that, the 1990s witnessed a return to 1970s-style singer-songwriters, such as Juliana Hatfield and PJ Harvey, and an era-defining cover of Cat Stevens’ 1971 song “Peace Train.” But the nostalgia loop has sped up. “So much faster than twenty years,” says Rebecca Jennings, a senior correspondent for Vox who covers internet culture . Jennings points to TikTok videos nostalgic for makeup trends dating all the way back to…2016, when makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic was busy breaking the internet by contouring Kim Kardashian’s cheekbones and dramatically boxing her brows. Or look, Jennings says, to last year’s much-hyped vogue for wired headsets, a vintage accessory dating all the way back to before the advent of wireless ear buds — around 2015. “When the kids on the internet are talking about like 2014core or tumblr fashion, what they’re talking about is the stuff that semi-alternative kids were lusting over at that time,” Jennings explains. Stuff like Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys and tiny, Lolita-esque tennis skirts, all of which can be found in abundance on HBO’s hit Euphoria. Watching the show, Alysha Cassis-Shaw wondered, “What year are we in? 2000? 2005?” The owner of the Oakland, Calif.-based vintage brand called Neutral Ground describes Euphoria‘s style as bewitching but disorienting: it borrows from the style of early ’90s Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to the ubiquitous Peter Pan collars of 2009 to the high waisted pants that were in until, well, very recently — and already may be making a comeback. “These are contemporary kids using a hodgepodge of styles,” Cassis-Shaw says. You don’t have to have a lot of money, she notes, to shop from resale outlets like ThredUp, stuffed with two decades of fast fashion cycling in and out of style, all of which can be studied on Instagram. And when you can so easily consume “vintage” clothes from H&M or Delia’s, the ingredients are in place for what writer Allison P. Davis memorably called a “vibe shift” in a recent article for New York magazine. Normal rhythms of trends and style get scrambled by the hectic churn of social media. “TikTok has a weird way of making every single thing in style at once,” notes Rebecca Jennings. “You can go to any corner of the app and something will be considered cool.” Right now, she adds, it’s easy to be nostalgic for the days before COVID. Some young people are even nostalgic for the early days of the pandemic, making TikToks like this one, looking back fondly at Tiger King, Animal Crossing and making sourdough bread. You know, way back before a new set of anxieties about the future. Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit NPR. Transcript : STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: People say fashion moves in 20-year cycles, or at least that it used to. NPR’s Neda Ulaby says the cycles of style and nostalgia are speeding up. NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: When I was a kid in the 1970s, there was a whole pop culture resurgence around the 1950s – movies like “Grease,” TV series like “Happy Days,” nostalgic look-backs at the youthful era of the people who created those shows. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “HAPPY DAYS”) ANSON WILLIAMS: (As Potsie) Hey, Fonzie, you should’ve seen the party we went to last night. ULABY: That cycle remained true for decades, says Rebecca Jennings. She’s younger than me by about 20 years. REBECCA JENNINGS: When I was growing up, it was very much, like, oh, like, the ’70s are back in a very ’90s way. ULABY: With a return, for example, of 1970s-style singer-songwriters and their hits. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PEACE TRAIN”) 10,000 MANIACS: (Singing) This is the peace train. ULABY: Jennings covers internet culture for Vox. She says recently, the nostalgia loop has sped up. JENNINGS: So much faster than 20 years. ULABY: Consider the case of wired headphones. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The day has come that wired headphones are officially considered a vintage accessory. ULABY: A vintage accessory from the olden days – 2016. As per TikTok, another 2016 comeback is heavy, Kim Kardashian-style makeup. JENNINGS: Her makeup artist taught everyone how to contour, essentially, and we had all these beauty YouTubers explaining how to get, like, a cut crease and dramatic winged liner. And people are already like, oh, my God, 2016 makeup actually slapped. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I’m going to contour. I just got the…. ULABY: TikTok is where 15-year-olds teach each other makeup trends that were cool when they were 9. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I’m using a lot of concealer because I’m 15. And I don’t know what dark circles actually look like, but I’m pretty sure I have them. ULABY: After the past two years, we all do. Of course young people feel nostalgic for an era before COVID. And the 20-year cycle is still working with a current rebirth of what’s called Y2K fashion from the early aughts. Still, social media has accelerated and scrambled normal rhythms of trends and style, says Rebecca Jennings. JENNINGS: TikTok has a weird way of making every single thing in style at once. You could go to any corner of the app and something will be considered cool. (SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “EUPHORIA”) ZENDAYA: (As Rue) It’s actually a very narrow window of cool. ULABY: You see that on HBO’s hit show “Euphoria” about the world’s most disaffected teenagers. That’s why “Euphoria” confuses one fashion world professional. ALYSHA CASSIS-SHAW: I had a hard time figuring out – it’s like, what year are we in? Is this 2000? Is this 2005? ULABY: Alysha Cassis-Shaw knows her vintage. She runs a vintage brand called Neutral Ground in Oakland, Calif. “Euphoria,” she says, is a bewitching, disorienting and very contemporary melange of references ranging from just a few years ago to early Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BABY ONE MORE TIME”) BRITNEY SPEARS: (Singing) Hit me, baby, one more time. ULABY: This grab bag of current fashion, she says, evolved from instant online access to decades and decades of style to 20 years of fast fashion from H&M and Delia’s now crowding virtual resale. Given this jumble of references where everything is in style all at once, I asked Cassis-Shaw a question. Do you think that there’s going to be a 2022 look? CASSIS-SHAW: Oh, I – to be honest, I mean, I… ULABY: Cassis-Shaw says it’s too early to tell. But just a few days ago, a young influencer was in her shop wearing super trendy clothes from the early aughts – big chunky shoes, low-rise cargo pants, but also an oversized phone too big to fit in her pockets. CASSIS-SHAW: Phones have been getting so much smaller – small – and I forget what phone she has, but she’s taking pictures all the time, and she watches TV on her phone – and her phone, her phone, her phone. And so it was just this enormous phone. ULABY: All the better for a mediated 2022, she says, that might already be nostalgic for the trends of 2021. Neda Ulaby, NPR News. (SOUNDBITE OF THE ELECTRIC STRING ORCHESTRA’S “TOXIC”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.... Dapper Dan on hip-hop and fashion, Harlem history and constant reinventionJuly 15, 2022Fashion / TrendingThis is adapted from the latest episode of The Limits with Jay Williams. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, or get sponsor-free episodes, weekly bonus content, and more with a subscription to The Limits+. Jay Williams talks to legendary fashion designer, Dapper Dan. For over five decades, “Dap” has revolutionized the way hip-hop and fashion have influenced each other, dressing the likes of Eric B. and Rakim, LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa. He also always makes sure everything goes down in his native Harlem, where Jay met up with him. Once a gambling prodigy, Dap briefly went to prison on drug charges, but he came out with a renewed respect for Black culture and sensibilities. He started dressing gangsters and hustlers, and gained popularity for repurposing the logos of brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Fendi for hip-hop icons. When the brands and the FBI came after his namesake Harlem store, it seemed like Dap would have to shut down for good. But he remained a cultural fixture, and in one of life’s great ironies, built a new chapter in his career in a 2017 partnership with Gucci. At 77, Dap thinks like a historian, relating everything he has made to the musical and cultural movements of the time. He tells Jay how Harlem has evolved, how he’s managed to always look forward, and who he sees as this generation’s successor to his vision. On the music that was his early inspiration During the sixties, there was a lot of revolution. It was a change in the music industry. You had the sound of Philadelphia and all that… Berry Gordy allowed the musicians to change the platform when he had Martin Gaye saying, “What’s going on,” you know what I mean? That shift, that philosophical shift for people of color made a big difference for us young guys… James Brown saying, “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud.” We don’t have that today. We don’t have a strong enough voice for that today. On the FBI raid that shut down the Dapper Dan Boutique They ended up litigating against me, and they took everything. Had I known all I needed to do was go downstairs in City Hall and examine the records, all I had to do commit to, “Okay, I made a mistake. I’m sorry,” and I could have paid the $5,000 fine. As opposed to that, I lost a quarter of a million dollars. On whether he was angry the luxury houses that came after him started referencing his work in the 2000s Your generation is the generation of expectation. My generation is the generation of, “It may not happen because they blocking us.” That’s the difference. Y’all can expect to happen because y’all seen things happen. My generation, we didn’t see nothing happen, not coming from our level. So your generation, and the generation’s expectation, seeing everybody do everything- saw a Black president and all of that- I ain’t see that… So all my creative things, I didn’t think I was gonna get credit for. On building a brand that has lasted decades I never allowed myself to get fixed in a certain identity. Every artist that came to me, and all my clients came to me…I didn’t create solely from myself… I looked at their lyrics. I looked at their lifestyle and the message they wanted to bring, and I created from that. So I became every artist. And throughout time, I kept dealing with different artists and representing what they wanted to say and how they wanted to look… So throughout my whole history of creating, I constantly adapted to the artists…So what I like to tell young people is, Dapper Dan does not dictate fashion. He translates culture because all these cultural icons that come along, I give them the look that goes with what they want to do. For sponsor-free episodes, weekly bonus content, and more, subscribe to The Limits Plus. This week, Dap talks about the wisdom he imparts on Harlem youth today. Follow Jay on Instagram and Twitter. Email us at thelimits@npr.org. The Limits is produced by Devan Schwartz, Mano Sundaresan, and Leena Sanzgiri. Our intern is Danielle Soto. Our Executive Producers are Karen Kinney, Veralyn Williams, and Yolanda Sangweni. Our Senior Vice-President of Programming and Audience Development is Anya Grundmann. Music by Ramtin Arablouei. Special thanks to Christina Hardy, Rhudy Correa, and Charla Riggi. Copyright 2022 Smack Magazine... Travel & Leisure GuideTravel... Read more...
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