Pick a Genre, A-holes!

The following is an excerpt of email sent from Art to Will on 21 January 2015.



I felt most uncomfortable at the following moments:

• When Gino Vannelli was talking to Don Cornelius
• When Elvis Presley approached his black backup singers and made them flinch (what the hell?)
• The whole time during Paul Simon
• The whole time during Justin Timberlake
• The whole time during Eric Burdon
• My favorite, of course, is the Sly and the Family Stone one. Don Cornelius felt the same way.

The Rolling Stones and Duran Duran is just run-of-the-mill exploitation, like Pink Floyd, Steve Winwood, Madonna's "Like a Prayer," etc.

I don't feel comfortable with any of these tropes.

The one I feel most comfortable with is Bowie, who has his "blue-eyed soul" periods as well. First of all, unlike all these other ones, he is the lead singer. He has the most interesting voice of anyone up on stage. The six backup singers know it too. His voicings and phrasings cut through everything. I think the thing with Bowie, too, is that you never think you're listening to blue-eyed soul. It's just too weird. Bowie's inimitable persona is at the center of every song. There's no song that needs any help from a gospel choir. The background singers are complementary elements; they are not making up for some weakness (as they are now in the case of Mick Jagger).

Bowie is just a connoisseur of music. He wants to try making different kinds, running it through his strange interpretive channels and seeing what comes out. At the same time--and, for me, this one of those signs of genius--he is the furthest thing from that most profane of all descriptors, eclectic. À la Current Magazine every single weekend in 90's Ann Arbor: "an eclectic mix of reggae, funk, jazz, etc., etc."

Pick a genre, a-holes!

I don't think we want to pick any of these tropes. I think we just want to do our thing and try to get it as close to what we're hearing in our heads.

Although I've said it at times, I don't think I'm trying to do black music. That's just part of the landscape of things I love.