From Google News--still a few bugs in the ol' algorithm there.

Obama's take on last night's debate:

Update: Now it's being suggested that there's a Jay-Z reference in there. But I'm a middle-aged white guy, so I went with the Stones.

The second week in a row with no new songs, though the top ten is bopping around like crazy. With Leona Lewis's album coming out last week, I expected her to retake number one, but who would have expected Mariah Carey not only to drop to number five but to lose her bullet in the process, bested by Lil' Wayne and Jordin Sparks? This is beginning to look like the early days of digital influence on the charts, when records bounced up and down, seemingly on a whim, first within the top ten, and then on the chart as a whole. Which means in another three months or so Billboard will need to change its rules again to keep radio and the major labels happy.

Not yet, though, because the current rules are still strong enough to keep Daughtry's Idol Gives Back performance out of the top ten (it debuts at 18 and will probably drop next week). Compare this to last year, when Carrie Underwood's version of "I'll Stand By You" debuted in the top ten on the strength of nothing but Itunes sales, confirming the overwhelming power that online sales now wield in the marketplace.

Idol Gives Back, by the way, provides half of the debuts in the Hot 100 this week, all uniformly mediocre except for Annie Lennox's version of "Many Rivers to Cross", which is shockingly awful (I'd swear she knew how to sing once). The rest is mid-level country, except for Rihanna's next likely top ten entry, the hilarious "Take A Bow", a Stargate/Ne-Yo penned follow-up to "Irreplaceable". After three albums they've finally discovered some emotions Rihanna can express without sounding like a machine: sarcasm and disgust (choice line: "You're so ugly when you cry"). It's a start, anyway.

Since I mentioned it specifically before the conference, I should throw in my impressions of Robert Christgau's presentation on John Mayer's "Waiting On the World to Change". It was good, it was funny, it was committed, it was, as always, skillfully and wittily written, and it didn't change my mind a bit. Though I'm willing to accept the idea of "Waiting..." being more ambiguous and thoughtful than it first appears, it still strikes me as politically and intellectually lazy. It gives the impression of someone throwing their hands in the air and saying "What can we do?" without taking a closer look at the possibilities open to them. You might make the case that the song is about waiting for someone else to come and point out the right direction for everyone to march, but there's nothing in Mayer's flatfooted lyrics that makes that suggestion.

Still, Christgau might have convinced me if not for one thing: his apparent misreading of the song most people highlight as Mayer's musical inspiration, The Impressions's "People Get Ready". If Mayer did take that song as inspiration, Christgau suggested, it was easy to understand why he appeared to support the idea of political non-action, since Mayfield's original did the same. Christgau must have a blind spot when it comes to Pentecostal religion (nothing to be ashamed of--many people do); otherwise it's hard to see how he could mistake a song that stresses the strength of character and faith required to attain personal salvation as an endorsement of political inaction.

Besides, when I listen to "Waiting On the World to Change" I don't hear "People Get Ready". The chord changes may be the same, but Mayer's tempo is faster, and Mayfield used those changes in a lot of songs. What I hear, instead, is "Keep On Pushing", a song whose message is as far from Mayer's as possible, and a lot closer to "People Get Ready" than Christgau seems to realize.

I'm more than willing to believe that Mayer's heart is in the right place, and certainly Christgau's is, but I think Christgau is too willing to read political opinions into the song that Mayer may very well hold, but doesn't come close to getting across. And he never once addressed how Mayer's fans may be taking the song. Will this expression of political frustration cause them to turn towards Obama (if they lean left) or John McCain (if not)? Or will it serve only as justification for a deeper political apathy? I hope for the former, but I lean toward the latter. And though I don't think Christgau is right about this, wouldn't it be nice if he was?

The EMP Conference wasn't as bad as I feared it would be, but I wouldn't say that it was as good as it might have been, either. Attendance was higher, according to the organizers--500 registrants as opposed to 350 last year--but what those new registrants added to the conference is hard to say. I suspect many of them came from academia rather than journalism, as the academic weight fell heavily on the conference this year. Many of the presentations sounded more like dissertations fueled by a need to publish rather than any true fondness for or interest in the subject, which resulted, on at least one occasion (which I won't be impolite enough to name), in glaring errors of fact and understanding.

Though I was happy to find that those presentations that touched on the trickiest subjects of race and identity resisted the urge to stridency and preachiness, academic distance didn't exactly make them riveting, either. There was a sense, in fact, that almost everybody, both among the presenters and in the audience, was trying to avoid confrontation as much as possible. The one exception was Joshua Clover, who, on his panel, kept encouraging people to engage in some healthy controversy. He was overjoyed when someone badmouthed the Clash's reggae covers, but no one else in the audience rose to the bait.

This hesitancy to embrace the conference's theme in real life didn't seem to be based on a fear of things getting out of hand so much as a sense of politeness. Nobody was going to back off of their positions, but no one was being rude or insulting about it, either. Maybe it's the Obama effect. If his example can keep a bunch of pop music geeks from raising their voices while discussing some of the most divisive issues they ever deal with, he must be even more influential than I thought. Then again, after years of wrangling, maybe it's just a cooling zeitgeist applying its mighty hand.

The oddest moment to result from this aura of polite conciliation came at the end of the panel on "Racial Ambivalence", which focused largely on various forms of "minstrelsy", from Al Jolson (the real thing) to Amy Winehouse (not so sure about that). At the end of the question and answer period, as a kind of signing off, the moderator, Kandia Crazy Horse, said something along the lines of: "Of course, if everything were equal, none of this would matter." I think I understand what she meant, but it begs the question: if we lived in a completely equal society, how would that change her take on minstrelsy? Would she consider it nothing more than a blip in racial history? Would she like the music more, or be more forgiving of those who aped black styles to further their careers? Or would she even care about it at all, despite its obvious historical importance--and if everything was equal, would that importance disappear? Whatever the truth may be, why this odd concession? Could it be she just loves the music, despite her reservations? And am I out of line to doubt it in the first place?

So, despite the urging of the overall theme of conflict, a fairly low key, non-confrontational weekend (especially compared to last year). Maybe a touch too subdued and lacking in adventure, but it's always nice to see so many people in love with the same subject in the same building (in the case of the conference itself), or even the same small, hot room (in the case of Michaelangelo's party). I even got a chance to tell Carl Wilson how great his Celine Dion book is. Not as cool as Obama reading it, I suppose, but he seemed to appreciate it nonetheless.