Beat

I've never liked the Magnetic Fields. A few years ago, when "69 Love Songs" came out, a friend made me a mixtape (how old-skool is that?) and I found it unlistenable junk. I find Stephin Merritt's voice extremely grating and the whole Cole Porter/showtunes vibe left me cold. Now, Merritt is openly gay, but I'm fairly certain the fact I can't stand his music doesn't make me a homophobe. But according to music critic/pretentious wanker Sasha Frere-Jones, the fact that Merritt doesn't seem to like black music makes him a racist cracker. The article does a good job skewering the big fat balloon of illogic that the gasbag SFJ and somebody named Jessica Hopper send up. But what goes unexplored is the very basic notion of why certain type so music appeals to certain demographics.

The fact that I, as a middle-class white male, gravitate towards music made by middle-class white males for middle class white males does not make me racist or sexist. It simply means I gravitate towards music that I can relate to. Take a band I'm currently enjoying the shit out of: The Rakes. Now, despite the fact they are British and I Canadian, it nonetheless goes without saying that I have more in common with some sweater wearing white boys in an indie band singing about working a shitty white-collar jobs and going down to the pub than I would a lesbian folk-singer or gangster rapper. Music tastes can be aspirational, too, but I think individual tastes are determined in part by how closely the content mirrors the experiences of the individual (to say nothing of things like melody, beat, lyrical content etc.) Race is barely on the radar.

That's not to say race (or for that matter, sexism-I wonder if SFJ has more men or women among his favorites?) don't matter. Questions of race will inevitably cross over into art, but the course of action SFJ seems to advocate (which is, essentially, affirmative action for your CD collection) is flat-out ridiculous. Individual tastes are tricky things to pin down and, unless someone is talking about their love of Prussian Blue or RAHOWA, inferring racism by omission is irresponsible at best.

(This post is clearly not as insightful as I hoped: there's a disconnect between my brain and fingers right now. I blame the Oilers for making me stay up till 1 a.m. the other night, something I still haven't recovered from).