PBS Revisited
epicharmus asked me some good questions about my concept "PBS" over on the Ask Frank Kogan thread, if you want to participate. Or, if you're averse to posting at the Other Place, you can comment here.
Here's the interchange:
Dear Frank,
Does making any kind of demand on music inevitably PBSify it?
Isn't "seeking ulterior justification in PBS terms" largely identical/similar/the same as "rock criticism" whether we like it or not?
-- Michael Daddino, November 13th, 2006. (epicharmus)
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Good questions, given that my original "PBS" formulation back in 1987 was VERY incomplete, and I do question how valuable/viable the metaphor is: by a couple of years later I'd pretty much dropped the term from my WMS tracts. I'm not likely to abandon it totally, though - not unless I come up with a good substitute. I'll say this in its favor: it's a lot better than the term "rockism." The problem with the word "rockism" is that it's about what they, the supposed "rockists," do; whereas PBS is about what WE do. [Hope that comes out uppercase, underscored, and in italics. Made UGA do that in my book; took a couple passes at it before they got it right.]
A quick stab at your questions, and if I have a chance to post later maybe I'll do a not-so-quick followup.
(1) I can think of a whole lot of demands that won't lead to PBSification. E.g., I don't think demanding that a singer be "legitimate" (in the way that Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand and Beverly Sills and Cecilia Bartoli are "legitimate singers") leads to "PBS" as I've been using the term.* Nor would the demand that pop music be "escapist." Nor would the demand that gospel music speak to and for God. What these demands lead to might end up just as constricting in their own way, but it won't be PBS.
(2) Rock criticism is hardly a monolith, but I'll say that much of what I like in music is the sort of stuff that can set music on the PBS path. Just read what I say in praise of Ashlee Simpson.* Among the things I like about her is that she's intellectually restless and that she's promised to search for "what this shit means." These are good impulses. They enrich her music and they enrich the world. Also, I don't believe it's inevitable that such impulses lead to PBS, but quite often they do. (What I'm afraid is going to happen with Ashlee is that she'll get shunted aside and ignored, so she/we will never find out where her impulses lead or what this shit means.)
*"PBS as I've been using the term." I meant a couple of things by it, which was part of the confusion:
(i) A metaphor. I was saying that the indie-alternative-fanzine network is playing a role in popular music and youth culture similar to the one that the Public Broadcasting Service plays in the broader culture. (Sinker once told me what the BBC analog to PBS was, but I don't remember it. This is how PBS describes itself: "A trusted community resource, PBS uses the power of noncommercial television, the Internet and other media to enrich the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services that inform, inspire and delight... It features television's best children's, cultural, educational, history, nature, news, public affairs, science and skills programming.") Not that Flipper and GG Allin (for instance) would have been welcome on the real PBS, but that they were our PBS. "I mean a certain PBS head (attitude), which can include a cult taste for shitty horror movies, pro wrestling, African pop, comic books, Hasil Adkins. All this pseudofun is a covering for a mind set that's ruled by PBS. We're making horror movies safe for PBS. We have met PBS, and it is us. I mean an imaginary PBS of the future, with pro wrestling, splatter films, and leftist analyses of the Capitalist Entertainment Industry (scored by a reformed Gang of 4). All rendered lame in the context of our appreciation."
(ii) A process - "PBSification" - that's culture-wide rather than restricted to indie-alternative. Basically (and vaguely) I was thinking of it as a work-ethic impulse that could be anything from Social Improvement to Subversion to an aesthete's Sophisticated Appreciation Of Trash. None of which I have anything against in principle, but I was seeing that when these things become if-you're-not-part-of-the-solution-you're-part-of-the-problem requirements, then the symbol comes to stand in for the event, at the expense of there being an interesting event. "People learn from experience that a lot of medicine tastes bad, and they come to think that 'tasting bad' is the active ingredient in medicine. So, when their medicine isn't working, they think that by subtracting the sweet stuff they're making it more medicinal." So the problem isn't that the "wrong" stuff gets added to pop, but that good stuff gets eliminated.
-- Frank Kogan (edcasual at earthlink dot net), November 14th, 2006.
*EDIT: Well, that link is long dead; I might have been directing you here or here (or just click the first "here," hit Ctrl-F, and type "Ashlee").
(Still don't know how well that actually communicates my "idea"; maybe you all can help me with it.)
Here's the interchange:
Dear Frank,
Does making any kind of demand on music inevitably PBSify it?
Isn't "seeking ulterior justification in PBS terms" largely identical/similar/the same as "rock criticism" whether we like it or not?
-- Michael Daddino, November 13th, 2006. (epicharmus)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good questions, given that my original "PBS" formulation back in 1987 was VERY incomplete, and I do question how valuable/viable the metaphor is: by a couple of years later I'd pretty much dropped the term from my WMS tracts. I'm not likely to abandon it totally, though - not unless I come up with a good substitute. I'll say this in its favor: it's a lot better than the term "rockism." The problem with the word "rockism" is that it's about what they, the supposed "rockists," do; whereas PBS is about what WE do. [Hope that comes out uppercase, underscored, and in italics. Made UGA do that in my book; took a couple passes at it before they got it right.]
A quick stab at your questions, and if I have a chance to post later maybe I'll do a not-so-quick followup.
(1) I can think of a whole lot of demands that won't lead to PBSification. E.g., I don't think demanding that a singer be "legitimate" (in the way that Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand and Beverly Sills and Cecilia Bartoli are "legitimate singers") leads to "PBS" as I've been using the term.* Nor would the demand that pop music be "escapist." Nor would the demand that gospel music speak to and for God. What these demands lead to might end up just as constricting in their own way, but it won't be PBS.
(2) Rock criticism is hardly a monolith, but I'll say that much of what I like in music is the sort of stuff that can set music on the PBS path. Just read what I say in praise of Ashlee Simpson.* Among the things I like about her is that she's intellectually restless and that she's promised to search for "what this shit means." These are good impulses. They enrich her music and they enrich the world. Also, I don't believe it's inevitable that such impulses lead to PBS, but quite often they do. (What I'm afraid is going to happen with Ashlee is that she'll get shunted aside and ignored, so she/we will never find out where her impulses lead or what this shit means.)
*"PBS as I've been using the term." I meant a couple of things by it, which was part of the confusion:
(i) A metaphor. I was saying that the indie-alternative-fanzine network is playing a role in popular music and youth culture similar to the one that the Public Broadcasting Service plays in the broader culture. (Sinker once told me what the BBC analog to PBS was, but I don't remember it. This is how PBS describes itself: "A trusted community resource, PBS uses the power of noncommercial television, the Internet and other media to enrich the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services that inform, inspire and delight... It features television's best children's, cultural, educational, history, nature, news, public affairs, science and skills programming.") Not that Flipper and GG Allin (for instance) would have been welcome on the real PBS, but that they were our PBS. "I mean a certain PBS head (attitude), which can include a cult taste for shitty horror movies, pro wrestling, African pop, comic books, Hasil Adkins. All this pseudofun is a covering for a mind set that's ruled by PBS. We're making horror movies safe for PBS. We have met PBS, and it is us. I mean an imaginary PBS of the future, with pro wrestling, splatter films, and leftist analyses of the Capitalist Entertainment Industry (scored by a reformed Gang of 4). All rendered lame in the context of our appreciation."
(ii) A process - "PBSification" - that's culture-wide rather than restricted to indie-alternative. Basically (and vaguely) I was thinking of it as a work-ethic impulse that could be anything from Social Improvement to Subversion to an aesthete's Sophisticated Appreciation Of Trash. None of which I have anything against in principle, but I was seeing that when these things become if-you're-not-part-of-the-solution-you're-part-of-the-problem requirements, then the symbol comes to stand in for the event, at the expense of there being an interesting event. "People learn from experience that a lot of medicine tastes bad, and they come to think that 'tasting bad' is the active ingredient in medicine. So, when their medicine isn't working, they think that by subtracting the sweet stuff they're making it more medicinal." So the problem isn't that the "wrong" stuff gets added to pop, but that good stuff gets eliminated.
-- Frank Kogan (edcasual at earthlink dot net), November 14th, 2006.
*EDIT: Well, that link is long dead; I might have been directing you here or here (or just click the first "here," hit Ctrl-F, and type "Ashlee").
(Still don't know how well that actually communicates my "idea"; maybe you all can help me with it.)