I had one of those moments when I suddenly realized, in one small area, at least, how incredibly parochial I can be. It came while watching this clip of Eric Clapton playing Big Bill Broonzy's Key to the Highway:
Did you notice the Japanese subtitles? I realized that although the words could explain approximately what he was singing, they could never get close to the style. Little slurs, bends in the language itself, regional deliveries, accents - there's no way you can get any of that from letters scrolled at the bottom of the screen. And then I realized how little I get from performances by foreign musicians. Beyond the words, you get into delivery, idiom, and a host of other things that fall into a context when you're from that culture. For example, I'll have different associations for delta blues and Chicago electric. I know how something about how they're related and how they differ. But unless you've learned about this one way or the other, the resonance of experience, like overtones from your own life, simply don't exist.
Case in point: the “review” of Warpaint--the new album by THE BLACK CROWES--in the March issue of Maxim magazine. The writer--who has not heard the album since advance CDs were not made available--wrote what appears to be a disparaging assessment anyway, citing “it hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth.”
Incredulously, the magazine gave the album a two and a half star rating--although neither the writer nor the editor could have heard more than one song (the single “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution”).
When approached for an explanation, the magazine described the review as “an educated guess preview.” Huh?
If this is accurate, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, then "Huh?" is fairly mild. Dylan Stableford eventually got a comment from Maxim:
An apology from Maxim editorial director Jim Kaminsky: "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers."
Heard in their entirety? So, now I'm wondering if they heard anything at all. Granted, rating a CD without hearing the whole thing seems ridiculous, but are the magazine's comments completely unwarranted if they had a few sample songs from the group, particularly as you'd think performers would put their best crow's foot forward, so to speak, in a case like this.
I was driving down to Manhattan yesterday to give a talk and meet with a few editors. After the three plus hours in the car, I was on the Henry Hudson and tuned into Fordham's station, which provided a surreal experience: David Bowie singing a cover version of Paul Simon's America and sounding for all the world like Anthony Newley every time he came around to the chorus. And it just dawned on me that Newley must have been the English male's answer to Ethel Merman, with that cross between vibrato and waver.
I make it sound worse than it was. Actually, there orchestration sounded like something out of a circus or carnival, and Bowie had a great cross between naive hope and utter dissolution borne of experience. But I had to tip my hat to the announcer, who managed to sound perfectly bland when explaining that the program was underwritten by Kaopectate. How do you say that with a straight face?
A blog about images and words, photography and plays, art and articles, and any other combination or alliteration that takes my fancy. I'm a writer, photographer, and guy trying to learn to draw and paint.
About Me
Name: Erik Sherman
Location: Massachusetts, United States
I'm an independent writer and photographer who covers business, food, technology, books, media, general features, and pretty much anything appealing that results in a signed check. My work has appeared in such places as the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Newsweek Japan, Fortune, Inc, Fortune Small Business, the Financial Times, Advertising Age, Saveur, US News & World Report, and Continental
