Thursday, February 24, 2005

This has been bugging me

I tried just to leave a little skidmark of snark in the comments section, and yet I am still unsatisfied. I'm going to refrain from talking about Matt Yglesias's post on Le Tigre itself, mostly because the one-off comment he leaves makes it clear he was probably joking. But egads, the comments! Of course, this is pretty typical of the comments in the bigger blogs when the subject of music comes up--yep, it's time for the dick-swinging contest. Me, I prefer the bald bragging of the Friday Random 10. A sample of some pissy comments left on this post:

Le Tigre is no Bikini Kill.

(Besides, I don't especially like the last band Matthew posted about (Arcade Fire), and they are mostly boys. And I DO like Bikini Kill (although my taste in girl music is more Missy Elliot and Alicia Keys).)

Quite true... though Bikini Kill is no Sleater Kinney.

Sleater-Kinney is no L7.

Frankly, I say the Foo Fighters are no Nirvana and Nirvana is no Mission of Burma.

Okay, well that last comment was mine. But what exactly was the point of this little comment exercise that went on there? I mean, besides the commenters demonstrating that they know that Le Tigre was started by the same woman who started Bikini Kill, something that you would know anyway if you even know who Le Tigre is. Or that you know that liking Sleater Kinney is the thing to do. Really guys, it's scientifically proven that owning 2 or more Sleater Kinney albums makes girls who wear 501s drop those 501s in your presence.

Mostly I'm just annoyed at the premise of this thread, the premise being that all these bands are jostling for the slot of the Offical Girl Band. To quote a famous man in the best documentary of all time, "In the end, there can only be one." This is the unspoken answer to the infamous women bloggers question. Why do women bloggers go unnoticed? Not because we are unworthy, not because we don't self-promote, not because we're too busy cradling babies to type, not because we're scared to the big mean men with their ability to spell scathing words, but because of the overriding belief that there's only a limited number of slots for the girls, and if one is to get in, then another woman has got to go.

Edited to add: Of course, I could be looking at all this from a perspective of ungodly nerdiness that might be skewing my opinions just a little bit. As soon as I published this, a friend popped up in a messenger window with this greeting: "So, I've been thinking about the resurgence of post-punk." And it occured to me that I really may just be angrier at people who think that knowing the Le Tigre has a member in common with Bikini Kill makes them a bunch of smarty-pants than anything else.

But then again, maybe everyone has a well-formed opinion on the resurgence of post-punk. I know I don't, except to wonder if this means that I might as well just start my lounge music band now so that all our songs are written and we're completely tight in time for that trend to pick up.

31 comments:

  1. Anonymous2/24/2005

    "Hands on a Hardbody" is no "The Thin Blue Line."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad to be of service, Jake. But that does give me a thought--it would be great to have a "Women in Rock" thing on VH1 that featured a duet between Lynn Breedlove and Britney Spears, don't ya think?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2/24/2005

    I love the guy who likes Bikini Kill but prefers "girl music" from Missy Elliot.IIRC, that was the resident Yglesias troll, "Al." As trolls go, he's even more of a douche than most.

    Who cares who is playing the instruments as far as the music goes?Oh, look, a perfect opening for my other favorite party game -- where are all the female jazz musicians?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, at least Matt Y isn't the taint he normally is.

    Meanwhile, I agree with your post utterly, but I have a dangerous confession to make - I think it would be awesome if the reason that all "girl*" musicians are supposed to compete against each other, regardless of genre, context, or hell, even time period, isn't because of inherent sexism or just plain taintery - It's because they're all immortals, forced to fight to the last band, at which time the winner will recieve "the gift".

    Because, in the words of the second greatest documentary of all time, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/), There Can be Only One. McCleod!!!! I mean, McLeTigre!!!!!!!!

    In other news, what in the holy festering fuck does Al mean by saying something as blisteringly dull as "And I DO like Bikini Kill (although my taste in girl music is more Missy Elliot and Alicia Keys).)"

    Seriously, does he really think that all Vaginas Near Musical Instruments must somehow be compared to each other???

    He must somehow be aware that his comaprison makes about as much sense as saying "I like Macintosh computers, but to be honest, I prefer Playstation".

    Why can't he just be honest and state that he prefers shitty, over produced hip hop and pop music, to punk rock? That's not so hard, is it? Is it???

    That's why Al replaces Matt Y in this Week's taint of the Week Award.

    My suggestion: Girls need to start comparing all Music Made In the Vicinity of Dicks condescendingly, as though Little John and The Kings of Convenience are somehow even remotely comparable.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous2/24/2005

    Ross, far be it from me to quibble with your choice for Taint of the Week -- I mean, Al is nothing if not a taint (or possibly a smear). But I think it's a mistake to try to ascribe any cognitive content to anything he says, ever. Not only is it incredibly unlikely that he's ever heard anything by Bikini Kill (or was even aware of their existence prior to his, uh, "contribution" to this thread), I very much doubt he's even heard a single Alicia Keys song. Much less anything by Missy Elliott. His little troll brain is just fulfilling its little troll function, which is "Hijack the thread! Hijack the thread!"

    I strongly suspect his taste in music starts and ends with "Imperial March" from The Empire Strikes Back, played on an infinite loop.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous2/24/2005

    "Thad, the Emperor is not pleased with your progress..."

    BTW, there is an 'approved' female jazz musician: Diana Krall (is that her name?)

    Why would you need another one?

    /sarcasm...

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  7. Anonymous2/24/2005

    I get the joke, but there are more happening female jazz musicians than you might think. Violinist Regina Carter and organist Barbara Dehnerlein are on the top of my head.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2/24/2005

    I get the joke, but there are more happening female jazz musicians than you might think. 

    Ruddy, that was kind of the whole point of what I said.

    Anyway, Barbara Dennerlein and Regina Carter don't really ring my cherries, but Ingrid Jensen, Erica Von Kleist, and MaryAnn McSweeny are all fucking awesome musicians and I'm very fortunate to have them play in my big band. I just co-produced Sherisse Rogers's first record, and I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to study with my all-time idol, Maria Schneider. I'm in a NYC composers' collective called Pulse and of the musicians in our ten-piece performing ensemble, four are women. When I was in music school, there were plenty of first-rate female jazz musicians enrolled alongside me.

    Sorry if this is starting to sound like a press bio... it's just that "Where are the women jazz musicians?" is a question that comes up in my circles almost as often as the "Where are the women bloggers?" question comes up in the blogosphere, and I thought it was kind of funny that the typical responses are almost exactly the same in both instances.

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  9. I enjoy listening to music made by people whose mothers were female.

    That said, if someone accosted me at knife-point and asked me, "Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, The Donnas, Sahara Hotnights, or Mary Prankster?" I would have to answer, "yes."

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  10. Anonymous2/25/2005

    To pull back to the greater issue you identify, the problem you describe (Only one slot for women -- if one woman is grated notice as a blogger/musician/anything else all other women must drop out of sight) is technically known as "Smurfette syndrome", after the only female Smurf in a population of dozens.

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  11. Anonymous2/26/2005

    The argument of misogyny in the music trade has been going on since forever. The choices of women in music genres have improved over the years although limitations still exist. How many female classical music conductors are there, or why are so many women in country limited to the ‘girl next door look’, etc. Whatever rationales the music trade has given, it is still a misogynist world (the refrain of James Brown’s “It’s a man’s world” starts echoing in my ears) but it has opened up -somewhat. Back in the early 60’s, one had the choice of the various girl groups-which were mainly male-directed. Later groups like The Joy of Cooking or Fanny or a guitarist such as Alice Stewart (sp) were regularly derided. It was okay for a woman to take lead vocals but that was it. Even punk strived to ignore groups such The Slits & Delta 5. Look at the awe critics & fans had for a women bassist in Talking Heads. I don’t know much about jazz but it seems that most women were limited to vocal parts early on. Toshiko Akiyoshi floored me with her big band of the 70’s but again I did not hear of many female jazz musicians. It is no longer as either/or choice for women in music but there are many male music attitudes that need to still be re-adjusted.

    dave504

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