In 1793, France’s revolutionary government decreed that the Louvre Palace, a much-remodeled Parisian fortress, should serve as a museum to house and exhibit the nation’s 537 greatest available works of art-mainly stuff ripped from the clutches of kings and clergy on their way out of power and up the blood-slicked steps to headlessness. Circa that same year, also in Paris, an aging portrait painter named Joseph Ducreux completed the 18th-century equivalent of a charmingly douchey Facebook profile picture, Portrait de l’artiste sous les traits d’un moqueur. The piece would later become part of the Musée du Louvre’s vaunted collection… and so much more.

Or, well, a highly exploitable image macro onto which one might paste rap lyrics dressed up in antiquated idiom. An immediate pleasure here is the tension of anachronistic pop sentiment couched in a vernacular that struggles with those meanings and destroys the stylized phrasing of the original text. On the other hand, we instantly recognize how neatly the casual sexism and mannered delivery you might find in hip-hop fit into a historical lineage. Ducreux’s foppish accoutrements today reek of pimpage, of course, but the painting communicates with our moment on weirder wavelengths than that.

Sometimes, when approaching a subway turnstile, I take out my apartment keys instead of my MetroCard. With no conscious effort I swap one method of access for another. Then I stop there at the turnstile with my keys in my hand, wondering about what Freud would say about the fact that I seem to subconsciously regard the 53rd St.-7th Ave. subway stop as my place of residence. That the Joseph Ducreux meme works at all is a miracle on par with your keys momentarily functioning as a MetroCard, and in such a way that you never even think about the mechanism by which key and turnstile collaborated. The cultural forces in play gel simply and mysteriously, but just where do they overlap?

Helpfully, the painting breaks rules. In its mischievous artifice it echoes works painted in the wake of the High Renaissance by the likes of Raphael and Parmigianio, often loosely branded as “Mannerist.” The latter artist’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is so emblematic of the first stirrings of what we’d call postmodern tendencies that archaic-postmodern poet John Ashbery borrowed the title; it flaunts its distortion and warp of a sacred medium. Despite evolving out of the classicized naturalism of the Italian Renaissance, Mannerism at its zenith held to a fiercely anti-classical philosophy and began to dissolve the correspondence between visual art and the material world it drew from.

Ducreux was himself resisting a neoclassical vogue brought about by his friend Jacques-Louis David, whose pristine and humorless works became the enduring images of France’s political upheaval. The Death of Marat and The Tennis Court Oath (also a John Ashbery title, coincidentally!) are universally included in textbooks covering European history and physically idealize their revolutionary figures with a fervor that borders on sheer delusion. By breaking the fourth wall in his self-portrait-by pointing at and mocking you for the rude shock you feel when confronted by the facsimile of an ugly guy that is pointing at and mocking you-Ducreux is returning to a basic honesty about art’s deceptions and social function. The thing relishes how a viewer can interact with and construct meaning from carefully arranged pigment, and how the artist can make eye contact with his audience across impossible distances of space and time.

Meanwhile, the acute self-awareness of hip-hop, its callouts of rivals and listeners alike, its predilection for sleight of hand (or tongue?) and richly synthetic instrumentals, its realness or impoliteness, have made it the prevailing confrontational voice in art. Nothing else is at once so subversive and so stubbornly status quo. Ducreux trained as a servant to a doomed aristocracy; he drew the last portrait of Louis XVI; he was interested in physiognomy and sought persona in the shape of a subject’s skull. And yet his outmoded education primed him for a transgressive late period. Perhaps he wanted none of the formal precision and solemnity championed by David, the man who kept him relevant in a post-monarchy state, because they were just more royal constrictions on his freestyle flow. David rarely kept it real, that’s for sure. But listen, I could go on and on. Rappers make us listen hard and untangle their rhymes. The Ducreux meme happily forces some further translation.

RATINGS
(characteristics rated on a negative to positive scale of -10 to 10):


Flexibility: -0.8

Insight: 10.0

Aesthetic: 10.0

Redundancy Potential: -2.2

Confusing To Outsiders: 4.3

Final Meme Score: 21.3

Miles Klee is the planet’s only dedicated meme critic.

The supposed e-mail from an angry Wall Street (it speaks with one voice, you know) which New York reports is “allegedly” making the rounds today, seems almost too good to be true. One might even be tempted to suggest that it was made up to inspire further animus toward the financial services sector that took such careless risks with our economy. Still, genuine or not, the entitled tone is pretty accurate. And threatening!

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

If Wall Street scoops up all those sweet unionized jobs, what then? It’s the reference to landscaping that actually has me worried that there might be more to this than some kind of a prank. The market knows that we’re sending all our landscapers back to their country of origins; if it’s willing to pick up the slack in the industries formerly known as Work Americans Refuse To Do For Themselves, just how fucked are the rest of us? Are we going to have to start taking in laundry because some asshole from Merrill is willing to paint his own house? Maybe we should just give these people what they want and not bring it up again!

You know what they hate in Arizona? Mexicans.

Before I begin, let’s get something out of the way before you all start howling “Dixie” in the comments: I’m not Southern. Not even close. But I do love bourbon and wearing fanciful hats designed to match colorful sundresses and sporting events that only take up three minutes of my actual time (three minutes? Is that correct, sporty ladies? Hoof over here and explain to your batty auntie how these horse races happen!) and therefore I go wild for the Kentucky Derby. And every year I get to trot out one of my signature recipes, which I would be tempted to describe as The Best Thing I Make if I didn’t know how good my carrot cake tastes, and whip up a batch of bourbon balls.

Now then, bourbon balls are easy, if a bit messy, and don’t require cooking, which makes them a lovely little thing to know about in the summer time when the idea of turning on the oven is about as appealing as the prospect of waxing Michele Bachmann’s bikini area. I always find it odd how surprised people are to learn that one doesn’t cook bourbon balls because OH HEY, HI, WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BAKE OFF THE BOOZE? but that always seems to throw people.

What I have found somewhat bizarre, but have now gotten used to, is the base of these lil’ pretties: Nilla Wafers. Right? No, no one else ever thinks this is as fascinating a fact as I do.

Let’s begin.

Pour about 2/3 of a box of Nilla Wafers into a Ziploc bag and grab a hammer.

What? Why would I joke about such a thing? Did you miss the time when I told you to stir your punch with a wiffle ball bat? (You did? Please click here!)

Using your hammer, or any other heavy mallet-like object-the blunt side of an extremely large awl, perhaps?-beat the tar out of the cookies. Now listen, I’m not one to advocate violence but sometimes it’s good to imagine that it is a face you are pounding on. Perhaps a specific one! Surely someone on the Internet has made you angry today? So go on, you have my permission to conjure up Foster or Cord or whoever’s visage and get medieval on your Ziploc o’ Nillas.

On second thought, go ahead and double bag those cookies.

You’ll want to end up with 2½ to 3 cups of crushed up Nilla Wafers. Oh and do make sure they’re finely pulverized. No one needs to encounter a lump in their balls.

Once you’re done assaulting the wafers, dump them into a large mixing bowl and measure a half cup of pecans into your Ziploc bag. If it didn’t survive the vicious beating it just took, get another one out. Oh my God, yes FINE you can do this all in your processor but that’s no fun at all and you know what? I’d appreciate it if you left my party.

Beat those nuts until they’re sort of chopped up looking. If you’re feeling knife-y and prefer to actually chop them be my guest-whatever kinky shit you’re into is none of my business. Put the nuts in the bowl with the cookie crushies. Roll your eyes at the fact that I just used the term “cookie crushies.” Get over it. Add in a half cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar. (That’s the powdered stuff.) Stir it all up real good.

Okay now comes the fun part! Actually, the massacring of the cookies and nuts was pretty fun, yes? Whee! (I’ve not been tippling, I swear! I totes have been!) To the dry mixture you’re going to add 3 tablespoons of light corn syrup, which is most commonly found under the brand name Karo. I could write a dissertation on the glory of Karo syrup, except that I’m secretly an incredibly lazy person and would never actually commit to such a thing but trust-my love for Karo syrup runs crazy deep. I might be rubbing some on me right now.

After you’ve got your Karo in there, measure out a half cup of bourbon and pour that in too. You will be tempted to add more than that. Do not-DO NOT-do so. Listen, I’m an alcoholic and I’m telling you that half a cup of hooch is more than enough so please trust me on this. STOP THAT. I SEE YOU TRYING TO ADD MORE BOURBON. Uch. You people are impossible.

Grab a wooden or plastic spoon and begin to stir. Can I be honest? The stirring? It’s haaaaaard. Shit be sticky. What now? No, she actually did not say that, as a matter of fact. God. If the mixture seems too dry and crumbly add more syrup.

I said syrup, not bourbon.

Once your mixture has come together, get out one or two large cookie sheets and your cookie scoop. What do you mean you don’t have a cookie scoop? Were you raised by wolves? I could write a dissertation on the glory of the cookie scoop, except that I’m secretly etc., etc. If you don’t have a cookie scoop just use a spoon you neanderthal, and begin measuring out the mixture and rolling it into one-inch balls. This task is a mess, by the way. It will look-and truly I apologize for this imagery-like you’ve decided to eschew toilet paper altogether in pursuit of a greener life. Just… be ready for that. Coating your hands in powdered sugar helps things immensely. Usually I dump a whole bunch of it on the cookie sheet so I can keep patting my paws in it as needed, and also to make the last part of the process-rolling the balls in the confectioners’ sugar-super easy.

Once you’ve got all your bourbons a’balled and coated in a dusting of powdered sugar, place them in an air tight container. The bourbon flavor will mellow in a few days, which is why I insist on eating them all straightaway.

Jolie Kerr tried really hard not to make a testicle joke in the course of writing this recipe. She did not succeed.

From a Times piece on the really nice real estate on display in many plays of recent vintage, despite the characters maybe not being of the means to afford said spreads: “Several of the set designers for these productions said that they did not aspire to reflect precise reality in their rendering of Manhattan and Brooklyn homes, but rather achieve exactly the sort of jealous stirring that New Yorkers can feel about the digs of their friends and neighbors.” Weren’t we all supposed to be done with the age of ire-stoking aspirationalism by now?

Wow! You know who is Huge #1 Worldwide Pop Star? Akon. This is sort of a shame, since he bears a lot of responsibility for the radio-ruining plague that is Autotune’s popularity. I liked “Locked Up,” with Styles P, all those years ago. And “Soul Survivor” with Young Jeezy. But since then, Akon has done much more harm than good. Check out his recent cover of Shuggie Otis’ 1975 classic “Strawberry Letter 23,” and compare it the Brothers Johnson hit 1977 version and, even better, the original. Still, it’s always pretty cool to see this kind of Elvis-has-left-the-building, Beatlemania craziness take hold of a crowd of music fans.

by Michael Brendan Dougherty

“Shane Mosley says ‘Floyd Mayweather fights for money.’ You fuckin’ dummy; I’m a prizefighter. That’s what I’m supposed to fight for: a prize. Duh!” — Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather.

People say that Floyd Mayweather is arrogant, that he doesn’t care about “boxing” in the abstract, only himself. This is the opposite of the truth.

Floyd Mayweather is “boxing” in the flesh; undefeated in 40 bouts, 25 by KO. He is not some ideal that animates the (very fun) prose of Joyce Carol Oates. His supposed arrogance is actually a disquieting kind of humility.

The evidence: Mayweather helps run a boxing gym for children. He does under-the radar charity work. His demands for Olympic style drug testing are essential to the survival of the sport, which, unlike the world of mixed martial arts, lacks effective governance. He risked what could easily have been the biggest payday of his career to enforce them on Manny Pacquiao.

For all Mayweather’s boasting before a fight-the kind of boasting he’s done this week before tomorrow’s bout at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand against Shane Mosley-about how much greater he is than his opponent, how he is doing a favor for them by being in the same ring, he has never failed to congratulate his victim almost immediately after being declared the winner. “Ricky Hatton is still a champion in my eyes,” Mayweather said. In the champ’s eyes and no one else’s.

It’s Mayweather’s boasting that has more truth than his sincere gratitude to his opponents. 40–0. Biggest Pay-Per-View numbers ever. And yet the first thing that comes out of his mouth while the gate is still being counted is how great the bum on the floor is.

Mayweather is a rich, stylish, socially-conscious black man. He plays “uppity” on television. It is a lucrative deceit and probably a fun one. But it is a condescension to our prejudices, and a conscious one. An unsettling homage to boxing’s glorious racism, to the popular fascination with and hatred of Jack Johnson.

The editors of HBO’s “24/7” have (wittingly or not) played along. A few years ago in preparation for the (embarrassing) De La Hoya-Mayweather fight, the crew captured The Golden Boy quietly watching the Masters with his father-and then cut quickly to the motor-mouthing Mayweather getting primped in his home salon. He’s tossing around cash and insults the way old men drop seeds from a park bench.

Then the exquisite detail: 50 Cent enters the scene on a Segway. This is followed by more insults and the glittering of obscene wealth squandered on what we are supposed to think are obscene black men. Mayweather goes out of his way justify the unjustifiable suspicions of white fans. And he embodies revenge on them for black fans.

The racial component is essential, of course. I watched the Mayweather-Hatton fight in a bar outside of North Charleston. When Mayweather finally unleashed on Hatton, the black patrons beat their chests at the noticeably quieter whites. “Your boy is down!” one guy said. He held onto my shoulder as if the amazingness of Mayweather made his knees weak. “That white boy is down!” I was actually rooting for Mayweather, the American in the fight.

In the entertainment business-and before it is a metaphor, boxing is entertainment-only Floyd Mayweather has the balls to script such a great black villain. He has the sense to cast himself. And only he has the talent to pull it off. Mayweather’s classiness is in allowing his opponents to be the good guys. He extends this kindness even when they are painfully grasping social climbers like the “legacy-conscious” Shane Mosley.

I refuse to condemn Mayweather as a kind of “minstrel” pugilist. That’s just the flip side of the same “blacks don’t deserve money” attitude he is exploiting. Mayweather is not just subverting racism to his own ends, he is turning it into a kind of personal grace.

“I’m better than Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson. I would never say there is another fighter better than me. Absolutely not,” he said on last week’s episode. I don’t know if he believes it. But with his 40–0 record, his business acumen, his marketing guile and his obvious if overshadowed concern for the sport itself-he’s not just the better fighter, but the better man.

“Baby I’m a bank robber,” he says. That too, if he wants.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a contributing editor to The American Conservative. He writes from Mount Kisco, New York.

Awwww! Look at the adorable puppy! So, so cute! Why, I just want to-OH MY GOD! (Those of you who are unmoved by puppies can find a kitty version here.) Maybe I should rethink this whole smoking thing. (UPDATE: Nah, I’m still gonna stick with it.)

The bottom half of the United States is about to be eaten by a giant clump of oil, the third horrific attack against schoolchildren in three days was committed in China earlier today, and a suicidal college student was discovered wandering around a subway tunnel under the East River with a backpack full of cyanide this morning. Still, it’s going to be warm and sunny tomorrow, so, you know, there’s that.

The Best New Thing You Haven’t Heard Of This Week: Seth Colter Walls and Maura Johnston On The New Newness, Strange Jazz, And The Semi-Return Of Hole

by Seth Colter Walls

Seth Colter Walls: Maura, has it been a good first third of 2010, music-wise? What were the highlights? And what depressed the shit out of you?
Maura Johnston: 2010 has actually been a great year for music. So far! And there’s more to come!!
Seth: Really? Because I’ve felt slightly… underwhelmed. (Though I’m glad you are confirming that the rest of calendar year 2010 is still to come.)
Maura: Well, I know the whole existence of the future has been a cause for worry recently. But I am optimistic!

Seth: Make me excited about all the stuff that came out recently. I probably missed a lot of great things? That Tracey Thorn record is a killer, I’ll admit.
Maura: Yes and that’s actually a future record! It comes out in May. As does the LCD Soundsystem.
Seth: LCD = also good. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. What’s been top-notch great that’s also legal to own already? For me, the list is sort of small:
Seth: Joanna Newsom was superb. Ditto Badu.
Maura: I have to dive into the Newsom. But I am with you on the Badu!
Seth: The new Ted Leo album, The Brutalist Bricks, really impressed me. Tighter than recent efforts, but with just as many hooks spilling out everywhere.

Maura: He’s so great, and underappreciated.
Seth: Like everyone knows he’s “good,” but he gets NO BUZZ.
Maura: You saw that Village Voice interview with him, right? He talks about the economics of being in his situation really honestly. And he’s still going — yesterday on Twitter he gave a little lesson in what way of buying music benefited musicians the most.
Seth: Maybe he should make a video about an army of cigarette-sunglasses who massacre an ocean full of naked ladies! I bet that would make his music better, or at least more appreciated.
Maura: Well the thing is, artists who have been around a while just aren’t appreciated. The craving is for The New — or the Not Around For Long Enough For People To Remember — at all times.
Seth: So let’s talk about the NEW NEWNESS (tm’ing that phrase in music criticism, btw).
Maura: Hurry!
Seth: The NEW paradigm to talk about NEW things all the NEWtime. Newly!
Seth: For example: I sort of can’t believe that anyone thought this Fang Island band was Best New Anything, aside from Best New Thing I Hadn’t Heard of This Week.
Maura: “I Hadn’t Heard of This Week.” That’s part of the problem, right? The pressure is on to take the pulse of the more dynamic indicators. Which is why every blog these days has one of those annoying Tweetmeme badges that shows real-time how many people are Tweeting about each post.
Seth: Oh yeah. (And please Tweet this post, kind readers, while we whine about this.)
Maura: And so like your more mainstream outlets are talking less about what’s good and more about “what’s happening” in music, as anyone who’s covered Biebermania can tell you.
Seth: Aha. I have not covered this.
Maura: That was not what you would call a review-borne phenomenon. Although I do enjoy some of his songs quite a bit.
Seth: Right, because the mass of interest was formulated by 12-year-olds, who don’t need reviews!
Maura: But who act in enough of a mass to be noticeable.
Seth: Here’s my enduring frustration about “act[ing] in enough of a mass to be noticeable.” Let’s think about things to drink. I enjoy a nice shot or two of whiskey every now and again.
Maura: I do as well!
Seth: Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me that the most popular drink, by volume, was Similac. But you know what? I DON’T FUCKING CARE. I don’t need or want to read a story about this “hip new drink that all the twelve month olds are really buzzing up on their baby blogs, because their bodies can’t handle anything else anyway!”
Maura: Oh totally.
Seth: I would just like my adult drink.
Maura: But the problem is one of economics. As in, the economics of content not working, and higher-ups on the editorial and business sides collectively freaking out. In theory, covering the super-popular, pageview-heavy stuff is supposed to float the items that aren’t as much of a click-frenzy.
Seth: Yeah, call me when it’s more than a theory on a whiteboard in a meeting, cuz people are ruthless about bouncing from websites.
Maura: I mean I have been in a fairly morose “the system is broken” mood for, oh, the past 18 months or so.
Seth: Can you tell me what magazine this is? “State Of Rock: 40 reasons to get excited about music, starring: The Black Eyed Peas.”
Maura: Oh, Rolling Stone.
Seth: At first I thought it was the cover of Why Don’t You Commit Suicide? Weekly, but upon closer inspection, you’re correct.
Maura: Which is hilarious given the one-two punch of Rolling Stone’s slavish devotion to “doing it live” and the Peas’ abysmal performance on Idol last week.
Seth: I hesitate to embed, but it really was a spectacle of awful …

Maura: The Peas kind of fascinate me.
Seth: I guess my feelings are, Wow: you have patterned your band’s music after the sound my ATM makes upon any transaction, and your stage aesthetic after the Power Rangers. Also I’m rather weary of profiles of artists that talk about what great marketers and businesspeople they are.
Maura: Totally understood.
Seth: Like when Usher’s new album came out. It’s like, okay, did he write any good R&B; songs? Because I’m not buying his Habits of Seven Highly Annoying People.
Seth: I have a theory about this.
Seth: So in olden times, when wages rose generally, there was a middle class, etc., rock/pop/dance icons were allowed to be “popular” and therefore “great” simply on account of doing good work — or having a good look, or whatever. It wasn’t super-important for them to be annoying cross-platform marketing temples because nobody particularly needed to behave that way in life to be comfortable (broadly speaking). But in an age in which everybody is on 15 social-networking sites, the pop stars have to do it too. Or else they lose the cachet of somehow seeming to model the appropriate kind of “winning” behavior that most people expect from people “at the top.”
Maura: There’s that. But there’s also the idea that at this point, people making money from the old-school, big-conglomerate music business? Are kinda newsworthy, in that fewer people are doing that every day. Think of it as a beaten-down-dog-can-still-bite-man kinda thing.
Seth: Oh, that’s a smart point.

NEXT: Digital Seven-Inches And The Lost Concept Of “Fun.” Plus, It’s Time to Talk About Courtney Love Again.

Maura: But in less depressing news, I love the new album by hollAnd, the project of this guy Trevor Kampmann.
Seth: Unaware! What’s it like?
Maura: Really groove-heavy electronic indie that is insanely catchy and owes a large debt to Mark Robinson’s later work.
Seth: Oh, I can get behind that.
Maura: hollAnd has been putting out albums since 1997, and they keep getting better. The hollAnd site has the whole album streaming. If you want a starting point that isn’t the first track, I like “Sauvignon Blank” quite a bit. But the whole album is awesome.
Maura: I also really dig this, by a band called the Hanoi Janes:

Seth: Woah.
Maura: Yeah!
Seth: I’m not sure about this … oh, OK, that little guitar figure in the chorus. I’m in. Fuzzed-out noodling that ain’t trying too hard can be a real charmer.
Maura: It’s from… a digital 7-inch! It’s just so much fun, which is what has been missing from so much music for me. Fun. I mean, I am probably a little too old for fun?
Seth: Not true! Someone who has to watch as much Idol as you do is entitled to fun, no matter her age.
Maura: Well, my creaky bones and I thank you.
Seth: So I’m going to put you on the spot: The new “Hole” record. I suspect you’ve had time enough to reach a judgment.
Maura: Oh my.
Seth: Spill it.
Maura: Ugh… I hate to say this.
Seth: [telegraphing the kill] But, make your case, because I disagree.
Maura: It’s just not that good? Too flabby in some places, too wan in others. I admit that I am probably an overly demanding fan!
Seth: Do you just dislike the band and the production? Because I think those are sound arguments to make against Nobody’s Daughter.
Maura: And the songs. There are glimpses of songs there. I mean, maybe with a better band the songs would be more fully realized?
Seth: OK, well I’m going to try and pin you (oooh!) on which songs you think have promise, and then we’re going to talk about the leaked demo from last year.
Maura: “Dirty Girls” is probably the best song. “Pacific Coast Highway” is OK, although there’s something off-putting about Courtney’s vocals and the way her enunciation is recorded.

Seth: Can you talk about what you find bad about the vocals? Lots of folk have hated on the vocals/their production and I don’t quite see it. I GET that it’s different than before.
Maura: I mean, I appreciate the weathered quality of her voice!
Seth: But — and this taps into my bigger complaint about the way Courtney is talked about… When Dylan just goes “WHELP, I guess I’m gonna start croaking from here on out” he gets MAD PROPS for “owning” his sputtering instrument. But HEAVEN FORFEND that a woman go through changes as she ages! It bothers me that this is the automatic response?
Maura: As well it should!!
Seth: I LIKE that Courtney isn’t trying to scrub up her ravaged voice?
Maura: Well. There’s a difference between not trying to scrub and mixing it into the band. Like, the thing about this record is that Courtney is the only notable thing about it.
Seth: Agreed that Courtney is the only thing to come to this record for. And I guess it’s wrapped up with why I don’t follow her on Twitter — that’s not the Courtney I want, and this pretty much is. (And I like the raspy Dylan, the frontal-admission of busted pipes when that’s what you’ve got, and so I like her voice on this one!)
Maura: I appreciate it! I just don’t like the way it all is recorded.
Seth: Did you like last year’s leaked version? The performances on it are more … distinctive, suggesting a … personality. But it’s obvious that Courtney decided she needed to bring both a) the brand back; and b) thus, TEH RAWK. But, “Pacific Coast Highway” is a v. solid song, I think.
Maura: It’s very Fleetwood Mac.
Seth: “Honey” I also like. And “Dirty Girls,” as you said. “Skinny Little Bitch” wins me over, barely. The new video is totally great, as well!

Maura: “Samantha” would be awesome if it were a minute shorter.
Seth: Oh, see I really disagree there — the last minute MAKES it for me. It’s one of those Courtney vocal moments, different now, but still with that power.
Maura: Hmm.
Seth: Well so we disagree here.
Maura: We do.
Seth: You’re taking the tough-love approach.
Maura: I am.
Seth: And I’m like, ‘Aww, welcome back!’
Maura: I just want everyone to perform up to their potential!
Seth: I want people to live up to their potential, as well! But before Nobody’s Daughter, it wasn’t clear that Love had much potential left in the tank, and so I’m choosing to celebrate. Becuz I think you and I can at least agree that she does have potential left in the tank.
Maura: Oh definitely. I just hope she doesn’t waste it on defenses of Perez Hilton, like she did at SXSW, because ugh.
Seth: Word. So moving on!
Maura: My ‘2010 awesomeness’ playlist has the new single by Janelle Monae, “Tightrope,” in it.
Seth: YES.
Maura: I am VERY VERY EXCITED about her forthcoming record.

Seth: “Tightrope” is very god.
Seth: Good.
Seth: But I’m going to start saying “it’s very god” about things, I think.
Maura: It’s an adjective that could really take off!

NEXT: How Widely Should Critics Be Listening? Plus, A Good Thing From The (Near) Future.

Maura: I wanted to ask you about a topic that came up during a long, involved thread about music writing on I Love Music.
Seth: The one about how people said all critics should try to listen to classical music in order to crit other stuff?
Maura: The very one. I would like to hear your thoughts on that. The “Where do I start?” conundrum would probably be topic No. 1.
Seth: To the extent that I agree, I think the answer is, somewhat secretly: START ANYWHERE. Total knowledge /= possible, after all. So just broaden in some direction. That’s all.
Seth: Also, it’s just not the case that someone like Robert Christgau has been hampered by not talking about canons or ostinati or whatever. While it wouldn’t hurt if everybody got a little bit of ear training, it’s a mistake to think of it in prescriptive terms for pop crit (defined broadly).
Seth: THOUGH one thing that would be cool, is if a leeetle bit more awareness — even historical, as opposed to “theory” stuff — about the classical tradition could be absorbed by indie land, if only to be aware of certain things that certain bands do! Dirty Projectors did not invent the hocket! (The practice of ricocheting notes of a melody between different voices/instruments.)
Maura: Right.
Seth: And that experimental opera that The Knife released earlier this year has a connection to some of the outré stuff by Robert Ashley and some other types. That music — particularly for writers based in NY — is around and able to be heard and experienced all the time.
Maura: Very true, and I admit I have been very lazy about doing so. This is something I want to change.
Seth: Part of it is the same old information overload — Imagine if Brooklyn Vegan also had to keep track of what’s up at Zankel Hall, and Carnegie proper, and etc. etc.
Maura: Think of the comments!
Seth: But not everyone needs to be listening to something and saying, “Oh, that A Minor thing is moving from the tonic to the dominant over a meter that changes every four notes, blah blah.” That’s what Kyle Gann and other hardcore peeps are for — and they do that shit real good. (Also: Kyle Gann’s book about the John Cage piece “4’33,” No Such Thing As Silence? WANT TO HAVE NOW PLS.)
Maura: I think that this speaks to a problem that has cropped up as the online repository of knowledge has expanded: The need to, shall we say, throw one’s arms around the world. There’s so much context out there and knowledge that it’s hard to find a foothold. On the flip side, you have other people who deal with overload by deciding to Know What They Know.
Seth: Right. That’s a safe feeling I guess, but I suppose I’d be bored after a while.
Maura: I would DEFINITELY be bored.
Seth: But so: something I’m looking forward to — well, something I already have, but am looking forward to other people potentially listening to and talking about. — is the new Jason Moran Piano Trio record on Blue Note. This is the jazz pianist who covered Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” after all. And made it legitimately his own. Not a stunt.

Maura: Oh!! Tell me more about him.
Seth: He’s sort of what I imagine Jaki Byard (famous sideman for Mingus and some other cats) might be like today. He crosses a broad range of styles: He’ll reference old boogie-woogie stuff, reference James P. Johnson. He knows his Monk. Speaking of whom, Moran’s take of “Crepuscule with Nellie” on the new one is so so killing… with these great drum fills that kind of work like breakbeats. Maura, it’s sooo good!
Maura: I bet!
Seth: There are no big “look at me covering hip-hop” numbers on this new one. But his voice really is aware of everything that’s out there, and that’s exciting. He also plays a piece by Conlon Nancarrow, who was a gonzo 20th cent composer who wrote crazily contrapuntal studies for player pianos — player pianos doing crazy things in crazy rhythms. Here’s one.

Maura: Whoa.
Seth: And Moran, instead of doing one of the bluesy or boogie-woogie numbers, takes on “Player Piano Study No. 6,” which has this lovely melody that’s suspended across a constantly shifting meter. And… CALLBACK… it’s an A minor thing that moves from the tonic to the dominant. (With thanks to Kyle Gann!)
Maura: Haha.
Seth: But you don’t need to know that to enjoy it when it comes out! Folks: Jason Moran, Ten, from Blue Note, on June 22!

NEXT: Have You Heard of This Band Called The National? Plus, The Sleeper Album Of Super-Indie May Is…

Seth: Do we also wanna say Tracey Thorn’s upcoming record — Love and its Opposite — is the sleeper release of next month? Everyone will be talking National Pornographers Social Steady, but this is the one to not sleep on?
Maura: YES. it is AMAZING. She has a deep, world-weary alto that communicates aching like few other singers can. The songs on Love that she wrote (there are two covers) are full of these novelistic details that can flesh out characters within the space of maybe five words.

Seth: I’ll tell you what I was thinking on first listen: usually things that are this “arranged” in the chamber-pop indie tradition feel a lot more fussy. This has some feeling of open-space-y-ness to it.
Maura: Yes!
Seth: And then when a song takes a surprising turn toward the end, you don’t have this feeling of… oh, here’s some more filigree! It’s like the weather changing in a really pleasant but not-too-intense way.
Maura: Totally!
Seth: You knew who I thought of, also? Not on the level of “their sound worlds are similar” but more on “they are working with craft and form in really smart ways”? Shannon Wright.
Maura: Ooh. I see this parallel!

Maura: On Thorn’s record, all of the arrangements on the songs are barebones. Nothing more than what’s necessary, so all the emotions can breathe. Which is good, because there is a lot of sadness on the record.
Seth: Yeah, though it’s like mid-period Bergman sadness, the sadness you need to feel to exorcise the pain and have a shot at happiness again.
Maura: Right. Hence it ending with this really hopeful song “Swimming.”
Seth: So on that hopeful note, what are you looking forward to most — besides Janelle Monae (which everyone will love) and LCD Soundsystem? (which everyone will love)? (In both cases justly, I expect.)
Maura: Mmm. Big Boi! And Robyn.
Seth: Is Big Boi actually coming out? Like, do we have pre-Cuban Linx II-level confirmation?
Maura: July 6! I guess that means there is still time for it to be pushed back, BUT I BELIEVE.
Seth: So yeah, everybody who hasn’t heard of Big Boi… you’re probably not reading us.
Seth: The Robyn record I’m going to wait and get an advance of, but “Dancing On My Own” was grand as fuck.
Maura: It’s gorgeous, right? Those are my favorite songs of hers, the ones where she is singing about being sad. Not because I want to see her be sad! But she communicates that sort of ambivalence one feels when one is rejected very well.

Seth: About The National, though. There’s this way, if you’re a guy and not totally tone-deaf, that you can very easily make fun of the National brand.
Maura: Oh?
Seth: You just go into your baritone voice, and then pick up something, anything. Like the warning label on a hairdryer. And just sort of sing sentence fragments from that in a lullaby way.
Seth: “Do not use while sleeping or unconscious.”
Seth: And then repeat it twenty times, but steadily building each time.
Maura: Hahaha.
Seth: Imagining a sort of crescendo of shimmering little guitar figures. And then a drum starts beating to let you know that the MEANING is coming.
Maura: Aahahhahaha!

Seth: As with any band or act that has real strengths, there’s also something prototypical about them that’s able to be mocked. It’s the same thing that allows them to be distinct in our insanely over-stuffed culture conveyor belt, or something. And with the National it’s this sense of — well, anything can sound dolorous if you treat it that way. “It’s a terrible love, and I’m walking with spiders?” What are you actually telling me about human experiences here?
Maura: Right.
Seth: So when The National bandwagon started rolling, I recoiled a bit from what I took to be too much of a formula approach. But then long story short, I listened in a more forgiving way with this one, went to their live show at Bell House, and came away rather convinced that they’re onto something. (Critical insight of the year, right there.)
Maura: Ha. (At your parenthetical.)
Seth: Heh.
Seth: So basically, one more white person on board. And uh, let’s see, a couple days ago I thought I had a good joke for the chat that I was gonna try and drop in all casual like, but now I can’t remember it.
Maura: That’s OK. We covered a lot of ground! And we had some good jokes! A good fun!
Maura: Er. *Run*!
Seth: Whew.