The Illiterate

Eugenides’ first response to being asked about whether books by men and women are received differently is to name three women who write well-regarded literary fiction — Zadie Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, and Alice Munro. He’s right, of course, that they’re heavily covered and well-reviewed. But the argument has never been that there are no recognized women writers of literary fiction, so the existence of three isn’t determinative. Both conscious and unconscious bias often don’t lock a door completely as much as make it much harder to open. Those women would exist whether there was bias or not. That’s why you can’t answer a question about racial issues in Hollywood by putting your hands over your ears and yelling “WILL SMITH AND DENZEL WASHINGTON!*

I’ve been thinking something much along these lines myself in regard to country music. Here’s a quiz: Off the top of your head, name as many female solo performers as you can who had their first country top ten in the last five or six years. I’ll give you the first three: Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert. If you can name any others, you’re one up on me (there have been some, but most, such as Sunny Sweeney, have been one-shots who slip quickly from memory). At the same time, there has been a flood of interchangeable male country singers telling us about their trucks, their beer, and their women: Jake Owen, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Billy Currington, Eric Church, Justin Moore, Kip Moore, Greg Bates, Dierks Bentley, Brantley Gilbert, Zac Brown, and on and on. Of all of them (and there are a lot more), only Church comes close to the level of talent of those three women. There’s no doubt that women can be successful in Nashville if they’re supremely talented, or a genius. But if they’re just above average or mediocre? Forget it. Only white males get to be mediocre and still have a career. Which doesn’t mean I want the country charts filled with mediocre women at the same levels as mediocre men. I’d much rather get rid of the men. But looking at the top of the heap is never going to give you an idea of the real state of things. We’ve reached a point where, thank God, the best will generally rise to the top, regardless of gender or race. It’s all that room in the middle that needs to be dealt with. You know, the zone where most people actually live.

*I copied this from Katherine St. Asaph’s Tumbler, and you can find the full piece here.

“Firstly, an apology. 212 by New York producer/MC Azealia Banks isn’t exactly brand new. In fact, the song’s black and white video was posted nearly two weeks ago…”

Two weeks? Damn, that’s not just not brand new, it’s dead.

(HT: @1000TimesYes)

Rihanna—”Man Down”
#101
The producer says this is intended as a tribute to Bob Marley, which is odd since dancehall barely existed when Marley died. Whatever the case, this may be Rihanna’s worst single: cliched, pretentious, badly sung, and misguided in almost every way. Maybe it’s time she took a vacation, if such a thing is even possible these days for a star of her magnitude.

Trey Songz featuring Drake—”Unusual”
#103
Trey’s idea of unusual sex is doing it on the hood of the car, and his idea of unusual music to match is something that grinds with the same old lover man vibe, only with little dynamic hiccups and swoops thrown in. Drake, meanwhile, is bearable, and even makes a medium-funny joke. For him, that is unusual. It’s a crude joke, though, which isn’t unusual at all.

The Airborne Toxic Event—”Changing”
#104
Most likely this won’t be a hit: the band has never had much of a following, their earlier records weren’t very good, and this one sounds so much like The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside”—especially the middle eight—that it’s almost laughable. Except there’s that echo of the Afghan Whigs in the the title and theme, a power-rock hook better than probably anything else we’ll hear this year, and an attitude that’s sounds knowing and self-deprecating even through a wall of guitars and knee-jerk self-defense. In other words: smarter than you might think, even if they are sexist as hell.

Josh Turner—”I Wouldn’t Be A Man”
#110
I like Turner. He picks good material, and he has a good, if not brilliant way around a lyric. He’s too dependent on his voice, though, and in his own quiet way he’s more interested in showing off the lower depths of his range than making an emotional point. Which may explain why his material is good, but not great.

Parachute—”Kiss Me Slowly”
#111
Another mid-tempo love ballad boring in its sincerity and wrongheaded in its Songwriting 101 attention to detail. The 14th floor? Really? Is that supposed to mean something? The fourteenth floor isn’t all that high, it doesn’t sound romantic, and if it’s some personal detail that only she would recognize maybe you should be singing it to her and leave the rest of us alone.