The Telling, Re-telling, and Never-telling

Essay: Contemplating the ethics and responsibilities in music writing and journalism circa the 2021 Capitol Hill coup

In January of 2020, I began teaching a university class about music writing, an already inauspicious time to broach the subject set to get even more bumpy. Because the sophomores required to take it are not budding critics and journalists but aspiring musicians who are engaging with critical writing about their chosen artform for potentially their only time in academia, it is important to give them a broad overview of music journalism’s popular forms (reviews, essays, liner notes, etc.), major bylines and themes, and some of the theoretical foundations. Yet the timing of my inaugural foray into teaching—not just COVID, but the era of fake news, “cancel culture,” race and gender disparities and historical re-evaluations, in a shrinking marketplace—has made it impossible to ignore the broader ethical responsibilities  of the gig. And while the identities of writers, editors and subjects invariably remain central to unpacking the occupation‘s flows, biases and results, it’s been impossible not to notice that the value(s) of music-related storytelling are in need of reconsideration, not only from individual perspectives but institutional ones. 

What kind of stories are being pursued/assigned? From what angle? And what are their merits? The notion of how these questions are answered—or more often, why they’re not asked or debated fiercely enough—came raging into view last week with the news that the indie-electronic-pop artists Ariel Pink and John Maus attended the Tr*mp rally which was a prelude to the insurrection. On social media, both men denied participating in the storming of the Capitol building/white supremacist coup, while admitting to being at the “Stop the Steal” demonstration in support of Tr*mp’s allegation that he won the 2020 election..which have been proven to be ridiculous notions, not simply politically contrary ones. While I’ve not followed Maus’ career close enough to know if he has long-standing right-wing views, no one who’s paid any attention to his old CalArts friend Ariel Rosenberg was the slightest bit surprised at Pink’s participation. A fascination with right-wing characters and symbols, and an authoritarian misogynist streak has long been part of his ornery-contrarian lo-fidelity rich-kid heroin-chic chillwave. (Moreover, when I had the misfortune to meet him in Echo Park in 2004, he seemed a petty asshole — an impression I’d hear repeated for years after.) 

Pink’s predispositions were widely acknowledged in myriad profiles, hidden slightly enough below the surface that a reader or listener’s (or writer and editor’s) blindness to them had plausible deniability. And when acknowledged, his lack of manners and malignant beliefs—the swastikas requested on album covers, the admiration of Rush Limbaugh and anyone in power, the collaborations with pedophilic pop savant Kim Fowley, and on and on—were often excused under the patina of art-school edginess or glib irreverence, part of a typecasting that’s previously allowed white avant-garde artists to flirt with social extremism as a creative perspective. This open secret is what made music-Twitter’s Thursday morning dismay at, and dissociations from, Pink and Maus—surprise from the very people whose column inches, RTs, and album deals fuelled those artists’ rise, the people positioned to pay the closest attention—especially open to questions of responsibility. If who Ariel Pink purported to be and the ideology/subculture Maus flirted with were this easy to gauge, why give them so much attention? And if enablers believed that their music warranted that attention, why weren’t their views worthy of being explored more openly and forthrightly in all that coverage and marketing, keeping their political leanings far enough out of sight to not fully engulf their creative characters? (Though we all know why they did that.)

As someone who covers mostly less-marketable music which I believe deserves far more than the sliver of the coverage that other artists receive by the bale, the question of why mediocrities like Pink and Maus got all the space they did, riles me regularly. But as an editor, and now educator, it is the lack of context and follow-up questions that haunts me more. The idea that topics which are directly related to artists’ personalities, and to the critical point-of-view of their work, are dismissed as off-limits, after-thoughts, or, worst case, unimportant to their media profiles, contributes to the vacuum of knowledge and ahistoricity which pervades cultural critical engagement. Within music journalism or criticism, such omissions are unbelievably common, and speak to a kind of disregard of facts and background that the “cancel culture”’s town-criers can only dream of. It is as if holding both creators and their media reporters to account for their actions and positions, is not regarded as central to the discourse. Until, of course, they get called out on it later, and blame must be applied. 

The pernicious examples of writers and editors determining any day’s music stories— selecting their subjects and angles, combing through viewpoints and sources—come in many shapes and sizes; and all are subject to different rules that dictate what subjects and angles are acceptable, and for which audiences. As has become prevalent throughout society weighed down by economic inequalities, the artistic 1% get more space in more outlets, and are safeguarded by more legal protections (which, considering the litigious nature of one-percenters, works in both directions). The noxiousness of chart-topping pop rapper Tekashi69, a convicted sex offender who plea-bargained and cooperated down to a *mere* racketeering charge, gets described as “inarguably compelling,” receives 3000 words and a soapbox for further trolling activities. And a subject’s non-disclosure agreement is not regarded as evidence of fact-suppression, but standard gatekeeping, money concealing infiormation, whether you are a hit pop producer trying to leave behind sexual assault allegations, or a popular music vlogger burying a history of crass humor on swampy right-wing message boards. And writers/editors’ adherence to them is the cost of access. As one season of Tr*mp reality comes to an end, even as the overall show doubtlessly becomes more and more popular, one wonders if the popular artist most closely historically associated with it, Kanye West, will entitle himself to forget his MAGA entanglements far sooner than lesser known colleagues, and his media interlocutors help erase his MAGA transgressions. (Perhaps only the perceived quality of Kanye’s future music will answer that question.)  

Money and a big legal team certainly seem like a way to harness the fourth estate. And if 2017 MTV News-Chance the Rapper square-off proved anything, it’s that most media companies will not back writers/editors on the principles that stand in the way of them painting fuller pictures. Nor are they a) obligated to, or b) should consider the perception of negative album coverage with the same gravity they do the Pentagon Papers. Yet there’s also a sense that continuing to engage subjects under guidelines that defer to bygone decorums, mirrors the greater media and political crisis of our current epoch, diminishing the breadth and depth of stories told at exactly the time when more and better reporting is the closest thing to a truthiness vaccine that’s been identified. Yet traffic and audience size remain stronger markers of cultural relevance than ethical considerations, insider-trading and product promotion are the currency of a profile, and what passes for standards and principles is often managed by the same patriarchal establishment that set up the whole fucking mess. 

Though anyone who believes the concerns of responsibility are more applicable to the popular culture or the MSM than to non-mainstream artists or underground subcultures, is also fooling themselves. There are numerous examples of smaller tight-knit music communities with their own sites and ‘zines and channels choosing not to self-police local toxic practices, either normalizing questionable activity or not recognizing the deeper effects that such activity may have on the community culture’s meaning and position in society. Here too, the silence embodies a social violence by omission.   

A few years ago, I helped produce an episode of NPR’s Code Switch podcast. ‘Give It Up For DJ Black Face’ investigated the practice of white, mostly male, mostly European dance-music artists and DJs adopting stage names and visual and thematic trappings that made it plausible for them to be mistaken for Black Americans, in a bid for authenticity by connecting their music to its Black American roots. One of the artists featured on the episode, a Brit in Berlin who then identified himself as Marquis Hawkes, gave his EPs titles like Cabrini Green (after a Chicago housing project) and Outta The Hood. In 2020, he changed his performer name back to Mark Hawkins—numerous other artists against whom similar accusations of racialized identity were brought up also refashioned their DJ names in the wake of the #BLM Uprising. I pitched this story after years of frustration that nobody in the dance-music media acknowledged such actions to be problematic, and that the tropes of a culture created by marginalized people were now being slung around as marketing masks.   

Or there’s the case of my old friend and colleague, Dan Chamberlin, a former editor at URB and Arthur, whose Inter-Dimensional Music radio show connects the dots between ambient death metal, new age and classical Indian music, cosmic jazz, and John Oswald’s interpretations of “Dark Star.” He has spent the last few months trying to understand the ties between Dominick Fernow (a power-electronics/techno artist celebrated under the names Prurient, Vatican Shadow, and Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, among others) and right-wing extremist elements of the underground noise and metal scenes. Chamberlin isn’t on some cancel-culture posse ride, but simply doesn’t want his community radio show to be an unwitting supporter of artists or platforms with fascist views, practicing a conscious and conscientious form of broadcasting. 

Is this type of research and fact-checking too much to expect from music-critical culture, even in the disinformation age we’re attempting to escape? Is choosing to engage (or not) a topic based squarely on data or cultural approval matrix numbers still working out well for music culture at large? (Or, for the media in general?) Yet unsurprisingly, even popularity as a primary magnet for coverage is a calculus subject to internal rules. To wit: last semester a colleague and I spent weeks looking for any interesting piece of media (article, mini-doc, podcast, etc.) that provided broader insight into Nigeria’s contemporary Afrobeats music (rather than simply settling for a profile of one of its superstars, Wizkid or Burna Boy or Tiwa Savage). Until Pitchfork broadcast a roundtable podcast on the subject in late November, none could be found; and Afrobeats is probably in competition with trap for the most popular pop music on the planet at the moment. If the story of Afrobeats can’t find a mainstream media outlet, or if mainstream platforms aren’t looking for writers to tell this story, what hope is there for less well-known sounds and points of view? And while it may seem like these are separate situations and far-flung examples, make no mistake, the complex insidiousness and interweave of prejudices form a monothesitic narrative of contemporary music coverage.

Of course, even “contemporary” deserves a caveat. Teaching 19 and 20 year-old students who are confronting for the first time stories that intertwine John Lennon and Miles Davis’ roles as domestic abusers as well as musical deities—watching them unlock open secrets about legends of the fall they feel have been hidden from them—makes reading the media’s post-coup mea culpas doubly infuriating. Especially the “shocked” myopia of people who’ve built careers and reputations as influencers and insiders, and are quick to demean anyone that questions their “expertise.” People have always known these stories, or been willfully blind to them; just as others have always been willing to recount them with nuance and context rather than tabloid thrills. They simply needed to be called upon, provided the space, and, if you wanna really dot your i’s, given a helpful editor and fact-checker to make it shine. Even if the notion that sunlight is the most natural disinfectant remains an untrustworthy idea, the fact that the greatest story ever told is the one you haven’t heard yet still rings true. That’s what I’m telling my students anyway. Forward March!