More on SF/J in a post on Idolator today, where Jess Harvella answers some worried readers.
"People thinking this is me saying that indie rock should somehow be held exempt from its often dodgy racial politics--this wounds me. Forget indie rock, there's not a single aspect of white--and especially white male--culture that doesn't need to be mercilessly picked apart for both the covert and overt, conscious and unconscious racism that it perpetuates every day! This seems self-evident, but you'd be surprised how many white men are content to let their privilege go unchecked. (Wait, no you wouldn't.) And indie rock is a subset of white maledom that's notorious about letting its cultural assumptions go unexamined.
So I understand why Frere-Jones wrote the piece. I just happen to think the piece was bullshit, especially his bizonkers internal inconsistencies and wild generalizations over genre. Indie rock's race issues are more cultural than sonic, and though musical choices are always tied up with a musician's social outlook, someone choosing to emulate Bruce Springsteen rather than Larry Blackmon hardly constitutes a cultural crime. Indie rock's cultural, social, racial, and sexual hangups are not going to be resolved via the forced "miscengenation" Frere-Jones is looking for." (More here).
Agreed, and see my previous post for my comments on the inconsitencies and generalizations of SF/J's article.
Ps.: Gotta love the mocking 1-100 SF/J-score, too. Here's one of the rules: "- Subtract 15 points for slap bass. (That's a red herring.)". Big laugh.
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