Utilitarian Review 12/7/13

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On HU

Featured Archvie Post: Eric Berlatsky on Maus and reality.

Voices from the Archive: Jason Thompson on Orientalism.

Me on abortion and violence.

Mahendra Singh on the limitatons of drafting in Maus.

Me on Maus and Marketing.

Chris Gavaler on an evil Christian comic parenting guide.

Frank Bramlett with the week’s PencilPanelPage post on linguistics and sound effects in Krazy Kat.

Pam Rosenthal on Jo Baker’s Longbourn, Pride and Prejudice through the eyes of servants, and the genre of romance.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Salon I did a list of 19 cross genre covers.

At the Atlantic I wrote:

—about how Ted Rall got tripped up by comics’ history of racist iconography

—that Wonder Woman shouldn’t be a sidekick in Zack Snyder’s stupid new movie.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

—how Andrew Sullivan can’t stop making the Iraq war about himself.

—Joey Baron, Bill Frisell and avant jazz as dead end.

At Slate I told everyone to read Nora Olsen’s wonderful Swans and Klons.

Other Links

Paul Rosenberg on how the GOP knows nothing about food stamps (my cousin, David Simon, is cited!)

Kathryn Funkhouser on how people will pay to see female superheroes.
 

Swans+&+Klons+300+DPI

22 thoughts on “Utilitarian Review 12/7/13”

  4. Richard Thompson seems to have covered that song just to underline what a pompous twit he is. Making fun of Britney in front of an audience of roots fans; I am thoroughly unimpressed (and his version isn’t really as good as hers either, I don’t think.)

  7. Ah Noah, the slayer of sacred cows!

    I actually seriously doubt that Richard Thompson was making fun of the song at all. I think that as an observant musician, he noted that the song’s chord sequence is reminiscent of music from an older tradition and decided to call attention to it. I think he genuinely likes the song, though of course he probably enjoyed the surprise factor of playing it for crowd who might not otherwise give it any consideration. It’s also worth mentioning that he first started doing this song as a part of a series of shows he did under the title “1000 Years of Popular Music” where he played songs from the last 1000 years (duh!), from medieval to modern, and drawing comparisons between them. The choices from the late 20th century rotated between several different songs, so for example when I saw the show, it was “Tempted” by Squeeze but other folks got Britney, which was well-received and took on a life of its own outside of the “1000 Years” shows. Are you actually familiar with Richard Thompson as a performer? He is anything but pompous.

  10. I’m quite familiar with Thompson’s work; I love his classic albums with Linda Thompson. I would say that he is a pretty thoroughly pompous performer though. Authenticity-obsessed and fairly into his own genius. Not that lots of musicians aren’t that, but he is too.

    He likes the song. Did you listen to the intro? He calls Britney crass and says basically that he’s rescuing the song from her. Which seems both pompous and safe to me.

  12. That Nazareth cover of Joni is pretty interesting, almost a rewrite with slightly simplified chords, but still somehow preserving its core.

    Noah, “Pour Down Like Silver” is indeed magnificent, there really aren’t any bad Richard Thompson albums though.

    Thompson’s been covered such as this one by the Pointer Sisters:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHUajE6MyIk

    Oh, and I also remembered this, The Sisters of Mercy covering Dolly Parton:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdUHxFKCQBs

  13. Low’s cover of “Open Arms” was amazing and it made me buy that Journey album. But although they are very different bands, the cover was not necessarily done in a different genre.

    Mark Kozelek is well known for doing covers of very different bands.

    Cocteau Twins and Lycia doing christmas songs is very odd but I dont think any of them were especially great.

    I’ve never heard the originals but I love Celtic Frost’s versions of “Mexican Radio” (Wall Of Voodoo) and “In The Chapel, In The Moonlight” (Billy Hill, performed by various pop singers).

    One of my pet hates recently is hearing lots of buskers on the streets doing novelty “sensitive” versions of rock songs. I dont think quieting down and making rock songs more reflective is a bad thing in itself but most people play it as if the idea is good enough that the new versions can be lazy and not very good. You hear this in adverts too.

  14. I dont know about America but in the UK there are adverts with traditional Mexican musicians and gospel choirs doing pop hits; I think the novelty is supposed to be mindblowing. My fault for watching tv.

  18. Noah, I’m probably not fast enough for this to be news, but in an interview on All Things Considered regarding the Wonder Woman movie appearance, Glen Weldon mentioned your “very interesting article over at The Atlantic.” Weldon wrote The Unauthorized Biography of Superman.

    Also on NPR (promise they’re not paying me), I heard segments of several tracks from Bad Religion’s new album Christmas Songs — all traditional churchy Christmas carols done in their own punk style. Bad Religion may be a bunch of skeptics, but it sounded pretty awesome to this irony-deficient believer. It’ll be on my Christmas list. Carols always had the best hooks of any old time hymns anyway, so it totally works.

  20. ‘Sallright. Different strokes. I’m biased, anyway. I’ve wanted to speed up some of those songs and add drums and electric guitars for years. Now I get to hear my dream realized.

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