Thanks, Fiona! February 18 is the projected release date. It's a little kicker!

We have been immersing ourselves in chanson, so I found some Chevalier in English. It was all silly novelty songs. (Including, of course, "If the nightingale could sing like you/They'd sing much sweeter than you do/'Cause you brought a new kind of love to me.")

I went out and bought a Chevalier album in French. ("Valentine"). Apparently he sang silly novelty songs in French, too. Chevalier: Silly Novelty Songs guy.

Hayden! Congratulations!!

Did anyone here read the piece in today's NYT about rockism? It was rilliy good I thought.

I'm reading it right now! (AIFG?) [link]

A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher.

Definitely one of the arguments we made in the Bubblegum book. Goes back to the age-old valuation of what's "authentic" - even though time and again that's proven to be a false and indefensible virtue.

Still...

You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is),

I think this overstates Christina's value as a pop creator and/or icon.

And let's stop pretending that serious rock songs will last forever, as if anything could, and that shiny pop songs are inherently disposable, as if that were necessarily a bad thing. Van Morrison's "Into the Music" was released the same year as the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight"; which do you hear more often?

This seems a little specious. Van's Astral Weeks is about 35 years old and it is still a consistent seller. That's eons in pop terms. "Rapper's Delight" was a signal event in pop music - it probably gets played as much for its iconic value as it does for its own "pop" qualities. And Van's "Brown Eyed Girl" was a near-perfect pop song. Right down to the Sha la las.

Ms. Aguilera's work is feminist?

Sanneh seems to paint things into two opposite corners where music is really a continuum.

She makes some good points, but then throws in stupid comments like "There's a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for doo-wop groups and folk singers and disco queens and even rappers - just so long as they, y'know, rock."

Uhh... it's the ROCK AND ROLL hall of fame, not the Music hall of fame.

Fair enough, I look forward to someone started the doo-wop hall of fame!

There is actually now a dance music hall of fame, and no doubt a hip-hop one won't be far behind.

I guess, though, the point is that because rockists treat rock music as the paradigm case of all popular music, rival institutions will inevitably be treated as marginal by the music press and so on. But I'm pretty suspicious of any attempt to institutionalise a popular music canon, so personally I'd bomb the lot of them.

I found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to be scary.