October 3rd, 2008 5:00am
Interview with Amanda Petrusich, Part Five
Here is the final part of my interview with Amanda Petrusich, author of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music. Thanks again to Amanda for doing this!
Amanda: Well, virtual communities are such a new phenomenon, sociologically speaking — like the last fifteen years, tops. I wonder what kind of long-term ramifications it will have, both for art and just for humanity, in general.
Matthew: I definitely see a huge impact on music. I think online communities totally shifted how people think of musicians.
Amanda: Elaborate!
Matthew: Where things have moved towards appreciating styles, and embracing things that conform to certain expectations for whatever genre, and genius figures have been devalued or discouraged somewhat. I think the 90s was really focused on genius figures, this whole pantheon of larger than life icons.
Amanda: You’re right. I actually had an interesting conversation with David Berman about this — no new heroes, all that.
Matthew: I really think you see the sharp drop right around the time Napster kicks in.
Amanda: Which circles back to the disposability of music and, thus, the decline of the hero figure…
Matthew: This is not to say these people aren’t there. I mean, Kevin Barnes, the Friedbergers, off the top of my head are totally unique figures who do extremely distinct things, but that’s not where the zeitgeist is.
Amanda: The zetigeist feels mushy.
Matthew: I think people keep thinking that the economy will dictate the course of this, but I think it will have more to do with how the internet shifts, and how attitudes about individuality change over the next few years. This is a really conservative, conformist, anti-intellectual decade. But I kinda get the sense people want major changes, one way or another.
Amanda: Wow, I really hope so.
Matthew: I think maybe the thing is, we kinda need leaders.
Amanda: Maybe the lack of leadership is what’s led to this power-grasping — people need to feel like someone’s steering the ship, I guess.
Matthew: Yeah, could be. I mean, if you look back over music in this decade, there does seem to be this odd power vacuum. In hip hop, it often feels like the only guy in his early 20s who really went for it was Lil Wayne. That’s so weird! Hip hop is driven mainly by guys in their 30s and 40s now, which is the opposite of the old conventional wisdom that it was a young man’s game.
Amanda: That’s interesting. What do you think’s happening? Do you think the consolidation of radio, no videos on MTV, etc. etc. have contributed to that?
Matthew: Yeah, I think there’s a conservatism in mainstream hip hop, the radio/tv end of things, where maybe a lot of folks feel like they either have to go with the flow, or they have no other options. But then you have Kanye and Lil Wayne, two really charismatic and somewhat arty figures, and they are most popular.
Amanda: It’s been interesting, for me, to think about America and Americana now, in particular — feeling so disassociated from this country in a lot of ways, culturally and politically.
Matthew: The thing I really connected with on the most recent Lil Wayne album is how exasperated he seems by a lack of competition. He idolizes all these geniuses who are still around, but they’ve been around since he was a kid. “Dr. Carter,” it’s like he’s desperate to have someone throw down a gauntlet.
Amanda: Well, no one gets a chance to be a hero anymore.
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