Midweek Music News Roundup 12.9.09: Walking Slowly Down the Hall of Fame

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 12.09.2009

Little Richard has hip surgery, Stevie Wonder is a messenger for peace, Ron Wood is the not a messenger for peace, the government won't let Steve Albini be Santa Claus, Rivers Cuomo stops partying, Girl Talk talks reissues, Garfunkel and Oates rework some old hits, Kid Cudi works with Vampire Weekend, and I heartily overuse the word canonize while looking at what makes a legend. Find it all and more here in the Midweek Music News Roundup.

Today is Wednesday. Yeah, I got nothing to kick things off. Let's just get to it.



- Little Richard recently had hip surgery. To celebrate a successful surgery, he has announced he will be going on tour. I'm kind of half and half with this right now. The man is a legend and he doesn't get his due respect as one of the creators of rock and roll, not to mention the fact that he was first truly iconic singer the genre had. But on the other hand, he's 77. I hardly imagine he'll be rockin' out full time at this point. But more power to him, like Prince, he appears to never physically age.

- Jay-Z recently admitted regret to not creating Rihanna "Umbrella" umbrellas. This story speaks for itself.

- Still recovering nicely from the cancer that plagued him earlier this year, Beastie Boy MCA has started a film production and distribution company. To start off with a bang, he's allowing a subscription series, giving you the first ten DVDs for $150. And you get them a week early. Well, that's all well and good, but since everyone's fine now, can we release Hot Sauce Committee already?



- Stevie Wonder has been named a UN "Messenger for Peace." Inspired by his blindness and previous forward thinking political campaigns, not to mention absolute musical genius, Wonder achieved the honor in hopes to further make the word accessible to people with disabilities.

- Kid Cudi, rapper to the indie stars. The new indie star Cudi is rapping with will be Vampire Weekend. The track, called "Cudderisback," features Cudi rapping over a sample of VW's "Ottoman." This furthers my theory that indie is dying as a movement, and the lines are being blurred between what is and isn't mainstream. Which is awesome.

- Dinosaur Jr. fans who don't like Murph or Barlow, well, I've got some good news for you. J Mascis has formed his fourth band: Sweet Apple. He joins forces with two members of Cobra Verde. The debut album, Love and Desperation, allegedly comes out March 30 2010. Mascis sings, plays guitar and plays drugs, so I don't know what the others are doing. But it seems cool nonetheless.

- Mick Jagger's wife publicly announced that she caught her husband having sex with David Bowie. Thus it's kind of amazing when you say Ron Wood's girlfriend is going for an even more embarrassing approach. Ronnie's 62 years old, his girlfriend, Ekaterina Ivanova, is 21. This is par for the course for the Stones, but Ekaterina's 76-year-old grandmother isn't having it. Posting on what seems to be Russia's response to youtube (though, of course, they still have youtube so maybe that's a bad metaphor), Liudmila Ivanova claims that she will get even with Wood if he harms her granddaughter. It's amazing that 50 years later, the group can still be controversial and weird, though in incredibly different ways.

- Over the past decade, Steve Albini, legendary guitarist (Big Black, Shellac) and engineer (Nirvana, The Breeders) has been donating hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts to poor families in the Chicago area each holiday season. With the help of the postal service (the actual United States Postal Service, not Ben Gibbard), Albini and his wife search for letters to Santa asking for a miracle, and then provide the miracle, funded by annual charity events at Second City. Unfortunately, new policy states that the post can't give this information out. So. That sucks.


If this man comes to your house and says he has toys for your children, don't worry. He's legit. Seriously.

- Rivers Cuomo was recently in a rather frightening bus accident. He seems okay, nursing only some broken ribs. I wish him well, but I feel like we should take this as a warning. This is what happens when you refuse to stop partying.

- Fans of the mash-up, take note. Girl Talk is heading down the re-issue train. First, released yesterday, Illegal Art has issued the Girl Talk breakthrough Night Ripper on vinyl. There will of course be a standard issue version, but there will also be a pink vinyl version going for $100. But you aren't just paying for the pink: the money will benefit mycharity: water, a charity that builds wells, aiming to provide clean drinking water. So that's nice. But there's more! Girl Talk will also be re-releasing his first two albums, Secret Diary and Unstoppable. The latter is already up on the Illegal Art web site, while the former will show up January 5. Both are being released under the famous pay-what-you-want scheme. Buys beware, though: neither of these albums are nearly up to the par of his more recent two.

- Indie newer wave rockers The Virgins have started working on a follow-up to their self-titled debut. There's really not much else to say, I got this news story from a one line MySpace update.



- Garfunkel and Oates have re-recorded the classic "Present Face" in honor of the holiday season. It's slightly more dense and holiday like. It's still cute and funny and now contains a little bit of wonky synths. It can be found as a download on their web site.

Star Power

As if he needed any more recognition, Bruce Springsteen was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors this week, alongside Mel Brooks, Robert DeNiro, Dave Brubeck and Grace Bumbry. This is hardly surprising, as Springsteen was canonized in the same sentence he was introduced to the world. With a simple sentence ("I have seen the future of Rock and Roll, and it's name is Bruce Springsteen"), Jon Landau instantly etched Bruce into national consciousness, and he's remained amongst the world's most famous rock stars since. However, this isn't about Bruce. This is about the idea of canonization in general, how it happens, and what it means.



First, I'll define what I mean by canonized. To put it simply, to be canonized is to be legend. There are different layers of canonization, namely mainstream and alternative, but let's face it: mainstream is what counts here. It's true that The Replacements have been canonized in alternative circles, but ask the man on the street and he doesn't know who they are. Thus, they are not canonized in the way Bruce or The Beatles are. To be canonized is to ascend from musical pop culture and to become culture, period. You can have canonized songs while resisting canonization yourself; this is how one-hit wonders are born. To truly be canonized legend, you need popular support, critical support and longevity. And that's about it, really. Maybe not even critical support. Hell, Journey are canonized legend, and no one who actually listens to music on the regular likes them.

Anyway, we're on how you get canonized. The fact this thought was spawned by the Kennedy Center Honors may imply that awards have something to do with it. This is not so. In the past I've written about the Grammys insanity when it comes to A Taste of Honey beating Elvis Costello as Best New Artists of 1978- this and many other instances prove the illegitimacy of many awards. It doesn't matter how many awards Supernatural received in 1999, most people I know still hate Santana. Then again, he is indeed canonical, so what does any of that mean?

Speaking of awards, let's look back further. Classical music has its fair share of canonized artists as well. It could be argued that any classical artist whose music is still recorded has reached a level of canonization. Why else would music from two hundred years ago still be recorded on such a regular basis? Before I go further, I want to point out I quite like me some classical. My favorites are modern composers like Arvo Part and Philip Glass, but I would be remiss not to point out that when my radio station is turned to my college numbers, it's on a classical station. Knowing that, I can tell you that every single piece played on a classical station is preceded and followed by the kind of information you would only hear on tributes in any other kind of popular radio. I argue this is because the canon has been built and set for every classical artist we still know.


Bach, being a bad ass.

So, with that, if I name a current artist as canonized, does that mean their music will be recorded and played a hundred years from now? I suppose that's the point, and people argue that The Beatles will be timeless. But while that worked as a sign of canonization in the past, I don't think it still does. Because everything is recorded now and labels have massive vaults, pretty much everything will still exist in the future. It wouldn't be that hard to get your hands on some music recorded in the 1930's that no one has heard or cares about. With the birth of recording, canonization became a harder concept to handle. Everyone can technically leave some level of legacy by buying a computer with a microphone. Record something, throw it on the Internet, you're a legend forever. If recording existed in the 1800's, we'd probably know a hell of a lot more than just Beethoven, Mozart and Bach. And before you classical elitists get on me, I know they come from distinctly different time periods and styles, I'm just picking the three biggest names. Point is, they had the Master P's of their day, too.

So I kind of got lost on that classical tangent. Let's try to regroup ourselves. Ahem. The Beatles. When it comes to types of canonization, no other band has or ever will come close. You can argue Elvis or Sinatra, but the facts don't really compare. However, the astute will note that in 1966, The Monkees outsold the Beatles. I'm not going to say the Monkees were a more popular group, certainly not a better one, but the point is there was strong competition beyond the Stones. Why haven't these artists received that same level of canonization? Any Monkees conversation today is often either related to jokes or white out. How has the elusive legend of canonization escaped them? It's impossible to say definitively, though I would suggest their formation had something to do with it. At the same time though, the Sex Pistols were quite equally manufactured, but they were innovative, sure.

Sales don't mean that much in terms of canonization, though. I just mentioned the Sex Pistols, who did well, but equally canonized are the Clash and Ramones, who weren't exactly commercial giants. Is it innovation and influence there, too? I really question the power of actual influence and importance in canonization. Yes, we have these examples, but we also have the New York Dolls, Kraftwerk, Can and Captain Beefheart - artists of immeasurable influence, not on one genre, but on everything, and they have no likewise legend to the mainstream culture. I may never know why this is.


Captain Beefheart, influencing fear like he did music.

Where does this leave us? Am I asking next year's Kennedy Center Honors to go to Captain Beefheart? Well, it'd be pretty cool making him come out of hiding, and it'd be even cooler seeing who they get to cover him. The obvious would be Tom Waits, but I'm not holding out right now. I think I'm going to end it here since I've thoroughly forgot my point. But keep in mind, canonization is a complicated thing. There's only really one importance piece to all of this, actually, and that's the fact that canonization means nothing. Great artists get canonized as often and as powerfully as mediocre and bad ones. Pay no mind to the words behind the curtain, just listen to the music.

Farewell Song

You know how committed I am to the Farewell Song at this point when every week I need to check back to last week's article to see where I am with things. Apparently we're on 1982. So, you know, it's Thriller. No need holding out on the obvious, especially in 2009. I will say specifically that the song of the year is "Billie Jean," arguably the greatest and best composed song of all time. As past critics have pointed out, absolutely every second of the song is it's own hook. And it's the only song in the world that can make walking backwards the coolest thing ever.



I will point out that it isn't exactly a year without competition, though. Bruce Springsteen released his legendary Nebraska, The Clash gave the competent Combat Rock, Daniel Johnston kept releasing albums (which, though more spotty, still contained some great songs), Elvis Costello gave us the masterfully composed Imperial Bedroom, Laurie Anderson made vocoders cool on Big Science, Marshall Crenshaw introduced his brand of power pop to the world, Mission of Burma were going strong, Philip Glass unveiled his Glassworks, Prince revolutionized dance music before it even existed with 1999 and The Time's What Time Is It?, Richard & Linda Thompson broke up in grand fashion with Shoot Out the Lights and Sonic Youth and R.E.M. made their EP debuts. So while I call it cut and dry Thriller, that incredible run-on sentence proves that maybe it shouldn't have been so simple.

Finally, before anyone asks, it was released in November and some of the singles didn't come until January, which is why certain critics didn't hail it as the best until 1983. But if I can call London Calling for 1979, which I did, I can call Thriller for 1982.

That does it for Week 24. Can you believe I'm still counting? Maybe there's a reason for that...I sure can't remember it. Hope to see you next week for another Midweek Music News Roundup!