I guess they don't matter anymore. A more accurate headline would read "The 25 Songs That Mattered Last Sunday." Our house has a Sunday subscription to The New York Times. We were caught up in a sentimental moment, presumably on a day that Bret Stephens was on vacation, or maybe when they announced they were adding Michelle Alexander as an Op-Ed columnist. Anyway, we wanted to support journalism, and on most days we don't regret it.
This Sunday's Magazine was devoted entirely to music, 25 songs written about by 25 music writers. When I saw the cover, I felt this mix of excitement and cynicism. I bet there's at least one song in here that's going to be great that I haven't heard before, but man I bet there's going to be some bullshit too. Something like that. Perusing the list, I saw Weezer (oh my god, fuck no), The 1975 (oh fuck no, and written about by Steven Hyden), Lady Gaga (not my favorite) written about by Wesley Morris (probably my favorite writer about culture today on the planet--he also played a role in our subscription), Tierra Whack (hell yes). And so on. But this is the story of music in 2019, and so like any good story we started at the beginning. Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A. (2018) by Hanif Abdurraqib. Let's being, shall we?
I don't know if Bruce Springsteen thinks about death as much as I think about the inevitability of his dying.
Damn. It sounds like Hanif's not much of a Bruce fan. Neither am I--I defer to R. Meltzer who called him the Fonz of rock and roll in this epic rant--but I can't say I spend a lot of time thinking about his death. I bet Hanif's going to go off some riff about all the different ways he imagines Bruce dying. I'm guessing heart attack on stage as he heads into hour three of his shtick.
I've lived an entire life as a fan of Bruce Springsteen, which means I have already imagined the world without him in it--
Well that went in a completely different direction. And does he really mean his entire life. Like from birth to the present he has always been a fan? 3rd grade, on the playground humming "The Rising" to himself as he plays kickball? If I could remove two things from contemporary journalism, and esp. music journalism, it would be headlines written as questions (Can We Still Listen to Michael Jackson?) and the use of hyperbole. I'm just going to go on the record here and say that there has never been a single artist that I've been a fan of my entire life. I can go years, sometimes a decade, without listening to an artist I love. But, you know, hyperbole just comes with the territory.
--and I have mourned that world.
Oh fuck off.
No comments:
Post a Comment