Interview with Rob Sheffield, Part Five

This is the conclusion of my interview with Rob Sheffield, author of the excellent new book Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. In this segment, we discuss the value of famous artists and famous songs, Lady Gaga’s indifference to the straight dude’s gaze, pro-girl songs, and Rob’s eternal love for Stacey Q and Scritti Politti.

Rob Sheffield: Part of the 90s was the extremely fluid boundaries between famous and non-famous. You could go from one to the other pretty easily. That had been tougher in the 80s. Remember how famous Henry Rollins was in the early 90s? He’s always been famous on that Henry Rollins level, for the past 30 years, but there was a weird window of time in the early 90s when he was like Snapple Lady famous. In retrospect that was a wondrous and awesome thing.

Matthew Perpetua: Yeah! And because of that window he endures as this cultural touchstone.

Rob Sheffield: It’s funny, because in a way, pop music teaches us how to talk to each other and listen to each other. On some level, that’s what it’s for. It’s part of what I needed pop stars for, that’s for sure. So I like it when they get famous, megafamous, intergalactifamous. I want my Cyndi Laupers of the world selling 14 zillion records. I like my megastars to be megastellar. I like sharing them with 14 zillion people I don’t know. I like getting to talk about them with other people who like them. I don’t know how I would have learned to talk to other people if I didn’t have Cyndi Lauper to talk about with them.

Matthew Perpetua: Yeah, by that logic, this common language is just devolving into regional dialects. Harder to understand, harder to relate. I came into music culture wanting everything I like to be really big and popular. I never really understood wanting to keep things a secret. When I was 14 I was frustrated because I didn’t understand why Pavement couldn’t be as popular as Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Rob Sheffield: That’s always going to be part of it–rooting for your favorites to get more famous, or feeling mad when they DO get famous. I like how “Don’t Stop Believin'” has become such a famous song. Fame can be very good for a song. It can become part of the song. Of course there are famous songs I hate, so I wish they weren’t famous, and songs I wish were famous, but I like how “Don’t Stop Believin'” has entered a zone where the fame and song are the same thing. The fame and the song are one. The singer and the listener are one. The small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world? She is one with the city boy born and raised in South Detroit. All us streetlight people, poor banished children of Eve, we are all one.

Matthew Perpetua: It’s funny how there’s this whole list of songs I decided I hated as a little kid, and almost nothing can make me like those songs. “Don’t Stop Believin'” is one of those songs, but there have been moments where I’m just in awe of its power. Grudging respect.

Rob Sheffield: On the other hand, Black Flag’s “Loose Nut”? Part of what I love about the song is how it isn’t so famous. it’s still “19-year-old me with bubbling cauldron of guitar noise rage grow” boiling inside my head. I love how “Rise Above” has gotten more famous, and I hope “Rise Above” keeps getting more famous. I mean it’s still “19-year-old me with bubbling cauldron of guitar noise rage growlness boiling inside my head.”

Matthew Perpetua: Have you seen Pavement yet on this tour? It’s exciting because Pavement is so much more famous now than back then.

Rob Sheffield: Haven’t seen the tour yet — can’t wait!

Matthew Perpetua: I’m wondering if the NYC shows will be a little less mind-exploding for me. I was just totally gleeful at the show in Chicago. I expect to be really happy at the others, but I’m curious if that was just an experience I only get once because it was the first time in so long.

Rob Sheffield: ANY show is better when you don’t see it in NYC. That’s just an immutable rule of physics. It’s always been that way, always will.

Matthew Perpetua: I don’t think that has been true for me. NYC audiences have a bad reputation, that people can be cold and indifferent and sometimes that’s true. But I think NYC audiences can also be really, really intense. It just depends on the artist and the fans and the situation.

Rob Sheffield: That’s true.

Matthew Perpetua: Like that Robyn show — I can’t imagine that reaction happening just anywhere. It certainly helps to have a large gay audience. Those guys bring it. Scissor Sisters shows are always crazy too.

Rob Sheffield: Very true — the gayer the audience, the better the NYC show.

Matthew Perpetua: Kelis opened that Robyn show, and she’s very deliberately courting a gay audience. I wonder if that’s the new trend for this decade for a lot of fading acts.

Rob Sheffield: She’d be stupid not to court the gay audience. That’s the most loyal, generous, discerning following anyone could have. That’s why whenever somebody’s career is really in the dumper, they pretend they had a gay audience all along.

Something fascinating about Lady Gaga is how little she cares about straight men. She concedes absolutely nothing to the straight-boy gaze, and that’s part of what makes her so badass. When you see Madonna live, you have this sense that being watched by straight men is somewhere in the Top 20 of things she cares about, if only because she wants that to impress the gay men watching (who might be #1 on that list), but Gaga doesn’t care whether the straight boys in the house come, stay, lay or pray. I’ve never seen an arena show where straight men were more beside the point. And I’ve seen a Debbie Gibson arena show.

Matthew Perpetua: This is true. I think the only time I’ve ever seen an image of Gaga designed to get straight men going is that recent Rolling Stone cover. That’s about it.

Rob Sheffield: I don’t think she was trying to be hot there! She’s the only pop star I can think of who brags “I’m not trying to make your dick hard the way other girls are.” That’s got to be the future of pop stardom right there.

Matthew Perpetua: That would be great. It’s interesting to think of a pop landscape where straight men are irrelevant. But then again, pop-as-genre already is that way, isn’t it? It’s a genre that is now mostly intended for women and gay men.

Rob Sheffield: I think you’re right. Pop stardom is going through big changes. But ultimately, people love stars, I don’t think that will or should change. As Chuck Berry said, “way back in history, 3000 years, ever since the world began, been a whole lotta good women shedding tears for that brown eyed handsome man.” The man could be Jesus or Sinatra or Jay-Z or Duran Duran. He could be Madonna or Gaga or Dylan or Beyonce. He could be Elvis or Obama or Cleopatra or Adam Ant. But that starlust will always be there.

Matthew Perpetua: I just keep hoping that mainstream pop can transition out of this phase where most hits are about being angry at your boyfriend or girlfriend. The level of hostility in pop music has been so high in the past decade. I wonder what that does to kids who grow up on it. Everyone just wants to write a Bad Romance now, maybe?

Rob Sheffield: It’s the pro-girl song I miss. I heard Grand Funk’s “Some Kind of Wonderful” the other day and thought, wow, huge hit rock song, and it’s about liking your girlfriend! Not even your NEW girlfriend! It’s about liking the girlfriend you have right now! And then he sings, “Hey, yow, is there anybody got a sweet little woman like mine? There’s got to be somebody, got a sweet little woman like mine! Can I get a witness!” Not even a particularly good song, but I’m like, wow, that used to be something you could make a hit song about.

Matthew Perpetua: Yeah! I really like songs that are sweet like that. One of my favorites of recent years is Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal. His songs are this point evenly split between super appreciative loving songs, and songs about totally hating someone. Kind of a bipolar dude.

Rob Sheffield: But even his disenchanted songs are really funny and self-mocking. “I’ve got a tigress back at home, and besides, you wouldn’t know what to do with me…” I love that one.

Matthew Perpetua: “Bunny!” That is probably the sweetest song to ever use the word “faggy”

Rob Sheffield: Sweet is the word. “I need a lover with SOUL POWER.”

Matthew Perpetua: This is the of Montreal line that kills me most, maybe: “You don’t have to try to steal no nothing from my heart because for you anything you want is always free.”

Rob Sheffield: I love that, I really do. That’s part of why I wrote the Paul McCartney chapter in my book. It amazes me how pro-girl he’s always been in his songs, and apparently in his actual life.

Matthew Perpetua: Yeah, Paul McCartney is a guy who really believes in love and has mostly made it work. A guy who could have anything whenever, which makes it more meaningful I think.

Rob Sheffield: I love that Chris Rock joke: “A man’s about as faithful as his options.” Nobody in the history of the male gender has ever had more options than Paul McCartney, and yet both his music and his life seem to suggest he just likes girls a whole lot.

I love how he just sings about being around girls, whether he’s making out with them or not, and enjoying their presence. I love the way he sings about the nurse in “Penny Lane,” the one selling poppies from a tray, and he’s just dreamily imagining what it’s like to be her, and how she feels. He isn’t even trying to get her phone number. I find that amazing. Who the hell else has so many songs like that?

Matthew Perpetua: I think you made a point in your book about Prince being pro-girl, even in his seductive songs. Almost especially in his seductive songs.

Rob Sheffield: Prince definitely! Even his filthiest songs are often incredibly sweet–“Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” or “Sexuality,” or “Raspberry Beret.”

Matthew Perpetua: I think the key is that Prince thinks of women as people.

Rob Sheffield: “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” is actually very McCartney-like in its lyric. He’s interested in the fantasy lives of the girls he meets. He wants to know what they think about, what they dream about, who they see in the mirror. It’s something Prince never really got his due credit for.

Matthew Perpetua: Do you listen to recent Prince stuff? What does he sing about now? It seems like he’s walled himself off from the world so much, I wonder if that spills over in how he writes about this stuff.

Rob Sheffield: His lyrics aren’t so interesting now, but he still writes some great songs. I love that “Guitar” song from a couple years ago — “I love you, baby, but not like I love my guitar.”

Matthew Perpetua: Did Prince ever do a “listing off all the different types of girls I like” songs? You know, like “California Girls” or “Girls Girls Girls” or “Love King”? I don’t think he has. Which says a lot, maybe.

Rob Sheffield: Ha! I guess the 1999 album is like that. Some girls he likes to drive around with (“Delirious”), some girls drive cars (“Lady Cab Driver”), some girls are cars (“Automatic”), some girls wear lingerie to a restaurant (“DMSR”), some girls fly planes (“International Lover”), some girls have sex with cars (“Little Red Corvette”). He’s an open-minded guy.

Matthew Perpetua: Okay, but those are single songs. I think the thing of the other type of song is that you’re just talking about girls as types rather than as individual people. It’s more about appreciation at best, and collection/ego at worst.

Rob Sheffield: Well, I tend to like songs where boys and girls talk about the kinds of girls and boys they like.

Matthew Perpetua: I don’t think it’s a bad type of song at all, but it’s just different from writing about a single person. Or even a single fantasy figure! I’m not sure if “Darling Nikki” is based on a true story.

Rob Sheffield: Do you know the Stacey Q song “Favorite Things”? One of my favoritest 80s pop songs ever, and I don’t think it was even close to any kind of radio airplay. “I can’t believe it! You like all the songs I like. You’re too good to be true. You’re not real.”

Stacey Q “Favorite Things”

Matthew Perpetua: I haven’t heard of that! I only know “Two of Hearts.”

Rob Sheffield: She did this album in 1988 called Hard Machine, it’s one of the great 80s disco-pop albums, totally top notch mall disco with great melodies, great lyrics, great beats, really spooky and poignant in all sorts of clever ways, but it never was a hit. It’s totally worth any search you have to make to find it! It’s the 80s synth-pop version of Dusty In Memphis.

Matthew Perpetua: Wow.

Rob Sheffield: Her early synth-pop stuff, which is more new wave — that’s great too. Like “Video Girl” and “Screaming in My Pillow.” It’s funny, “Two of Hearts” is just the tip of the Stacey Q iceberg! You have so much to look forward to! I’m jealous! If you like Robyn, you’ll like Hard Machine.

Matthew Perpetua: It’s pretty cheap used on Amazon! Digging for records, so much easier than the old days.

Rob Sheffield: Ha! Definitely. In terms of the Fairlight CMI synthesizer, Hard Machine is up there with Scritti Politti’s Cupid and Psyche 85. Those two albums are to the Fairlight CMI what “Green Onions” was to the Hammond B-3.

Matthew Perpetua: I was reading about the Fairlight CMI recently, the list of the first people to buy it.

Rob Sheffield: It was the machine that changed everything. Greg Milner’s book Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music has all this mindblowing detail about the different synths in the 80s and how they affected the sound of music. You’ll love it — amazing detail about how they invented those big Bob Clearmountain /Power Station drums that sound so hilarious now. It’s the first book to really talk about the sonic details of music recording in a way that’s both aesthetic-minded and technical-minded, and it ends up turning into a completely compelling secret history of pop music.

Matthew Perpetua: I’m always interested when people point out all this history hidden in plain sight. From the Amazon page: “The big obnoxious ambient drum sound that defined the ’80s under the Phil Collins dictatorship.”

Rob Sheffield: The part about the Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” drum solo is a classic!

Matthew Perpetua: Phil is a major figure. Phil Collins was one of the first pop stars I really liked as a kid.

Rob Sheffield: Poor Phil. I was just reading an interview in Mojo and he seems to think everyone hates him. He said he retired because he got “too annoying!”

Matthew Perpetua: I think he gets a bad rep and sometimes he earned it but mostly it’s just a hangover of snobbishness that is really outdated and dumb. It’s horrible when people just glom on to some other generation’s snobbishness without understanding why those cultural values came to be, or why they might not be relevant anymore.

Rob Sheffield: Well, eventually people started liking Scritti Politti. So anything’s possible. I spent years being the only person I knew who liked Scritti Politti. Then, for about a year and a half, indie kids decided they liked Scritti Politti — but only the early 80s postpunk stuff and then the mid-2000s folkie stuff — and I felt vindicated and then suddenly it was over and I was once again the only Scritti Politti fan I knew. I guess it’s the kind of dilemma that would be in a Scritti Politti song.

A couple years ago I was in London and I needed a scarf and I went to buy one and the sound system in the store was playing Scritti Politti’s “The Word Girl” and I thought, wow, a whole country where people like Scritti Politti! But of course, the next song was All Saints, so I guess not even that moment meant anything. But I’ll always bang the drum for Scritti Politti!

Matthew Perpetua: There’s a bunch of Scritti Politti songs that I like but I can never seem to go all the way with them. I appreciate what Green Gartside was going for. He pioneered the whole “making pop for grad students” thing.

Rob Sheffield: I love Cupid and Psyche 85. It’s one of my personal favorite, most-played, most-cherished albums of all time. and none of my friends or loved ones can bear the sound of it. My powers of Scritti-suasion just suck. “The Word Girl,” that’s the one. And “Boom! There She Was.” And “Hypnotize.”

Matthew Perpetua: My favorite is “The Sweetest Girl.”

Rob Sheffield: I love “Sweetest Girl,” God what a song. I once was moving out of an apartment, on Wertland St in Charlottesville, right next to the house where Georgia O’Keefe grew up, and I had an armful of records and I dropped Songs to Remember onto the patio of a basement apartment, and I spent countless minutes leaning over the railing, plotting how to crawl down and retrieve it, without getting arrested or breaking a bone. It had major sentimental value, plus I paid $2.50 for it at Mystery Train in Boston. It’s been 20 years but I still miss that copy of Songs to Remember.