Big Media Consolidation and Why You Should Hate It

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL|FCC Update|PBS November 16, 2007
On November 2, 2007, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced that the Commission would hold the sixth and final public hearing on media consolidation November 9, 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein blasted the Chairman’s decision to give the public only five business days notice before the hearing: “With such short notice, many people will be shut out … This is outrageous and not how important media policy should be made.”
The video’s eight and a half minutes, but if you care about American media, it’ll be worth your time.
Then you can watch this 23 minute piece from earlier in the month.
Read FCC (Democratic) commissioner Michael Copps vs. “Big Media”.
While the issue on the FCC is a Republican (3) vs. Democrat (2) issue, the fear of media consolidation runs from the Christian Coalition to MoveOn.

Contact the FCC before December 11. Then, because reaching out to the FCC probably won’t matter, contact your federal legislators.
***
Top 10 Christmas Gifts for Conservatives in 2007 from the Human Events Book Service

The usual suspects (Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck), a Reagan bio, Clarence Thomas’ autobiography. AND The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris:
“Are these the most ‘politically incorrect’ children’s stories ever written?
Perhaps. But they’re also among the most delightful and moral. Now they’re back – with the original artwork
Isn’t it just like liberals to diminish genuine racial and cultural diversity in the name of respecting it?”
That last line was almost enough for a spit take.

ROG

Kill More Of Your Idols

Back in JANUARY, I summarized the first half of the book Kill Your Idols, edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carmel Carrillo, about classic albums that were overpraised. I promised the rest the following month. Well, the book then disappeared in my home office, until my wife tidied up (mostly HER stuff, I might add), and I found it again.

Patti Smith, Horses. Arista, 1975. By Melanie Haupt.
The writer’s point: I really want to like it, but I just can’t get down with it.
My point: Actually, I tend to agree. I bought this, on LP, and listened to it several times, trying to “get” it, but I don’t.

Bob Marley and the Wailers, Exodus. Island, 1977. By Dave Chamberlain
The writer’s point: overly commercial, not his best effort, lacks fire.
My point: I don’t know the other albums well enough to say, but I enjoy it on its own merits.

Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. Reprise, 1977. By Jim Walsh.
The writer’s point: Actually, I don’t know WHAT the point is. Mostly, how he wants to get a gun so he can kill the members of the band, I think.
My point: I own it on vinyl. There are a few songs on here I actually like (Go Your Own Way) – I know people who would disagree – but I am surprised that it became the utter phenomenon it did.

Paul McCartney - Ram
Paul McCartney, Ram. Capitol, 1971. By Tom Phalen.
The writer’s point: bombastic, over-produced weak songs.
My point: OK, it’s definitely a goofy album, and even at the time of its release, it took some heat, so I’m surprised it’s even included in the book. That said, I enjoyed it well enough, and don’t care that Paul swiped stuff from his previous band.

John Lennon/Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy. Geffen, 1980. By Allison Stewart.
The writer’s point: The album is impossible to separate from the events of December 8, 1980. Lennon’s contributions were moving, if slightly cloying. But Ono’s atonality interrupts even that.
My point: Yes, 12/8/80 is all over it. I liked that John was (finally) comfortable in his skin. And I sorta like Kiss Kiss Kiss. But truth to tell, I haven’t listened to it in so long, that except for the Makin’ Whoopie swipe I’m Your Angel, I can’t even REMEMBER the Yoko songs.

The Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks…Here’s the Sex Pistols. Warner Brothers, 1977. By Jim Testa.
The writer’s point: Except for Anarchy in the U.K. and God Save the Queen, he’s got the feeling that he’s been cheated.
My point: Agree. I find the rest all but unlistenable.

Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. Alternative Tentacles, 1980. By Marco Leavitt (of Albany, NY).
The writer’s point: Hard to take because they take themselves so seriously, even when they’re trying to be humorous.
My point: Actually, I’ve never heard of this album.

Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run. Columbia, 1975. By David Sprague.
The writer’s point: The Newsweek/Time hype of this bloated album with characters devolved from his previous releases was muscled by the pre-release of every song to a rock station in Cleveland.
My point: O.K., it isn’t the messianic departure the hype suggested, and maybe is a bit overproduced in that Phil Spector way, but still enjoyable.

Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. Columbia, 1984. By Rob O’Connor.
The writer’s point: Springsteen is corny, mundane, and conventional. He doesn’t recognize rock and roll as the rebellious forbidden fruit, and obviously never had a real job in his life. He intentionally misled people into misreading the title song, ripped off the other songs from other artists, and generally panders to his audience. The album sounds like mud.
My point: I was never hot on Dancing in the Dark, but that aside, I think this is an interesting, diverse piece of Americana.

Various Artists, My Greatest Exes. By Carmel Carrillo.
The writer’s point: Since I’m the co-editor of this book, I can write an indulgent chapter about music my ex-girlfriends like and dis them (the songs, and, by extension, the ex-girlfriends).
My point: Not worthy of comment.


Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Imperial Bedroom. Columbia, 1982, By Michael Corcoran.
The writer’s point: It’s trying to be Sgt. Pepper or at least Pet Sounds. Instead the album is bloated and pretentious.
My point: I was totally distracted by this sentence:
I was there when they unlocked the front door at Strawberry Records in Albany, New York, the day Imperial Bedroom came out. I KNEW this guy! He used to write for a variety of publications, some of which he put out himself, that he would drop off at FantaCo, the comic book store I worked at in that time period. Knew his then-girlfriend, too, who was MUCH younger. AND I used to buy albums at Strawberry’s, and at Just A Song, which was virtually in the same space before that.
As for the album, I just didn’t play it all that often. There were three or four great songs that stood out, but the rest, not so much.

U2, The Joshua Tree. Island, 1987. By Eric Waggoner and Bob Mehr.
The writers’ point: U2 hemorrhaged sincerity to produce “one of the most relentlessly banal albums in the pantheon of the greats.”
My point: As early as 1988, I had this album on my 20 desert albums. When I told that to someone, he thought it was too soon to tell. Fair enough; it’s still on my 20-30 desert albums.

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. Def Jam/Columbia, 1988. By Arsenio Orteza.
The writer’s point: Shrill noise similar to “Chinese water torture” with a 20-year-old message. And racist to boot.
My point: I have never owned this album, so feel unqualified to comment.

Nirvana, Nevermind. Geffen, 1991. By Anders Smith Lindell.
The writer’s point: It “made punk safe for the shopping mall.” The overdone soft/loud schtick wore out its welcome.
My point: This is first album that made me feel old. I thought the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit were laughable or a parody, though I appreciated it musically. Upon more plays, I appreciated it more, though it DOES have too much of that soft/loud schtick.

The Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Virgin, 1995. By Rick Reger.
The writer’s point: It was “designed to create the impression of ‘significance’ where, in fact, none existed. The scope of the album isn’t its strength, it’s its “fatal flaw”.
My point: I’ve never owned it, so can’t speak well enough of it.

Radiohead, OK Computer. Capitol, 1997. By David Menconi.
The writer’s point: Completely boring and unmoving, though marketed well.
My point: I bought it. I listened to it thrice. I don’t get it, either, though the last time, I heard it in 2- or 3-song chunks and it was (surprisingly) better.

Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Nonesuch, 2003. By Allison Augustyn.
The writer’s point: Tranquilizing, with a few catchy songs
My point: This was on my “to buy” list -I have other Wilco, which I like – but I haven’t yet.

That’s it, except for About the Contributors, which is a lot of fun, actually, because at least half of them have one or more albums on their Top Ten albums that someone else has royally panned.

ROG

Book Quiz!

Jaquandor did this quiz around the time a couple months ago when people were shocked, SHOCKED that Americans aren’t reading books like they used to. Actually, I do sympathize. I joined a book club through my [former] church for about a decade (1986-1996), and that forced me to read 10 books a year. Not only that, I was required to read genres that I wouldn’t have necessarily read on my own, such as fantasy or home improvement, instead of my usual non-fiction selections of biographies and books about music, movies, sports and history. Now I read maybe 3 or 4 books a year, and the year Lydia was born, quite possibly only the Bradley method book.

I mean, in my job, I read all the time, but it’s not whole books. It’s reports, book sections and reference material.

Of course, I’m taking this to mean books I read for myself. I read lots of books to Lydia, at least a couple per day.

What are you reading right now?

The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism by John Nichols.

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

Probably A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians and Muslims find freedom, and joy on the Sabbath by Christopher D. Ringwald, who I know. But I still need to get back to Shrub by Molly Ivins, which I was reading before I read that Stax book, Soulville, U.S.A.

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now?

At any give time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly or Jet, though my wife and my daughter are always bringing them out and giving them to me. when I was growing up, we ALWAYS had magazines in the bathroom, a wicker basket with my mother’s Ladies’ Home Journal; I always used to read “Can this marriage be saved?”

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read?

Don’t know that it was the worst, but Johnny Tremain, a junior high assignment, sticks in my mind. So does Ivanhoe.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

I don’t recommend books.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they?

Well, yeah, but it’s mostly because I bring Lydia to the library to get videos and books. Also, because I’m on the board of The Friends of the Albany Public Library.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all?

You mean, besides the World Almanac, which I find utterly fascinating?

Do you read books while you eat?

No, maybe newspapers or magazines. I don’t want food to get on the book.

While you bathe?

No, but I shower, so it seems impractical.

While you watch movies or TV?

Not movies. TV- rarely; usually periodicals during baseball.

While you listen to music?

Yes.

While you’re on the computer?

Only if engaged in downloading or uploading something that will take a while.

While you’re having sex?

What?

While you’re driving?

No.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits?

Yes, and not just children. My own family who labeled me Mr. Encyclopedia. People used to come visit my parents, so I would dutifully come out of my room, say hello, then go back to my room to read. My sister once insisted that if the house were on fire, I wouldn’t notice because I was so busy reading. This was not true; the power would probably go off, and I would have noticed that.

Whereas the kids in school, some of whom I still know, seemed to have valued the written word.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

It’s been decades; I don’t remember.

BTW, it’s Banned Book Week; here’s what’s happening in Albany on Saturday, October 6, with a link to events nationwide.

ROG

Arts Meme

I no longer know who I stole this meme from!

Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving away copies:

It’s such a cliche: The Prophet by Gibran. It was a Christmas present I gave again this year. Also, The World Almanac. Beyond that, there are some expensive music reference books from Joel Whitburn about the Billboard charts. I never throw away the old copy when I buy the new copy, I just pass it on.

Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music:

Besides “Quintet” from West Side Story, which I’ve previously mentioned – “The Jets are gonna have their way tonight” against, “Tonight, tonight won’t be just any night”? Or the Huntley-Brinkley theme, which I discovered was Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, 2nd movement, thus making classical music accessible? It’d have to be “In the Mood” by Henhouse Five Plus Two, which has led me to the revelation that almost all music can be done as through chickens were squawking. Or maybe the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which is technically all one chord.

Name a film you can watch again and again without fatigue:

There are several. But to name a few; “Field of Dreams”, “Annie Hall”, the first “Back to the Future” movie, the original (Episode 4) “Star Wars”. I saw “Annie Hall” four times in the theater, which is tied for the record.

Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief:

Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Hilary Swank, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Ellen Burstyn. I’m sure there are others.

Name a work of art you’d like to live with:

The Scream. There are several copies, and they seem to get stolen a lot, so that could be interesting.

Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life:

Don’t read that much fiction, but I’ll pick The Handmaid’s Tale; it felt very real.

Name a punch line that always makes you laugh:

Not so much a punchline, as that whole riff in “The Life of Brian” about the ever-lengthening list of what the Romans had done for the Jews, found here:
REG:
They’ve taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers’ fathers.
LORETTA:
And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG:
Yeah.
LORETTA:
And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG:
Yeah. All right, Stan. Don’t labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
XERXES:
The aqueduct?
REG:
What?
XERXES:
The aqueduct.
REG:
Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that’s true. Yeah.
COMMANDO #3:
And the sanitation.
LORETTA:
Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
REG:
Yeah. All right. I’ll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
MATTHIAS:
And the roads.
REG:
Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don’t they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads–
COMMANDO:
Irrigation.
XERXES:
Medicine.
COMMANDOS:
Huh? Heh? Huh…
COMMANDO #2:
Education.
COMMANDOS:
Ohh…
REG:
Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
COMMANDO #1:
And the wine.
COMMANDOS:
Oh, yes. Yeah…
FRANCIS:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s something we’d really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
COMMANDO:
Public baths.
LORETTA:
And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
FRANCIS:
Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let’s face it. They’re the only ones who could in a place like this.
COMMANDOS:
Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh.
REG:
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES:
Brought peace.
REG:
Oh. Peace? Shut up!

Tagging:

Not into tagging. Go tag yourself, if you’d like.

BOOK: Kill Your Idols

I’m only adding this banner because I hate to read about Mark Evanier crying.

Anyway, some guy, pretty much out of the blue, sent me a copy of the book Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics, edited by Jim DeRogatis and Carmel Carillo. (Thank you.) I ended up reading it over two or three days on the road to Charlotte aand back.

I don’t think I’ll be reviewing the book per se, except to say that the essays by some three dozen writers are wildly different. A few discuss how they became critics; I don’t care. But some are pretty much on point.

Here’s a list of the chapters.

Forward: Canon? We Don’t Need No Steekin’ Canon by Jim DeRogatis. The premise is lovely: “each writer addresses an allegedly ‘great’ album that he or she despises.” He manages to dis baby boomers as being “prone to safeguarding works whose values they adopted as articles of faith in their youth, even though said youth is now several decades behind them. The writer challenges the inconsistency of the “best album: lists, notoriously generated by Rolling Stone magazine. It’s a good start.

The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Capitol, 1967, by Jim DeRogatis.
The writer’s point: that the album is an archive of the ’60, a “bloated and baroque failed concept albums that takes a generation…back to the best shindig of their lives,” old-fashioned. He eviscerates most of the songs individually, with the notable exception of “A Day In the Life.”
My take: I think the writer is too harsh about With a Little Help, Lucy, and especially Getting Better, but largely agree with his disdain for Within You Without You and especially She’s Leaving Home, which IS “saccharine, strings-drenched melodrama.” DeRogatis’ point that some of these songs are lesser efforts than the songs on songs from earlier albums, especially Revolver, is arguably true.
Sidebar: Gordon asked, a while ago: Here’s a tough question:
Which Beatle album, in your opinion, is stronger and has held up over the course of time: Revolver or Sgt. Pepper?
Easy question, actually: Revolver, by quite a bit. Taxman rocks more than anything on Pepper, Love You To is less annoying (and much shorter) than Within You, For No One is gorgeous, Got To Get You Into My Life IS rubber soul, and the Tomorrow Never Knows is so strong that the backing track works to make the interminable Within You more palatable on the new LOVE album. (A group called the Fab Four, a Beatles cover band, used the Tomorrow Never Knows music to great effect as backing for Jingle Bells. Really. And I like it.)

The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds. Capitol, 1966 by Jeff Nordstedt.
The writer’s point: Aside from the “unassailable” hits, Wouldn’t It Be Nice and God Only Knows, there is an “emotional gap between the [happy] music…and the [depressing] lyrics”. Overproduced, and your parents won’t hate it. And that overproduction “was partially responsible for the invention of the synthesizers”, which lead to the “evil development” of disco.
My take: Maybe it’s not a “rock ‘n’ roll” album, but so what? It’s one of my favorites. The disco argument is just silly; if there was no Pet Sounds, some other album would have inspired synthesizers. And not all “disco sucks”.

The Beach Boys: Smile. Unreleased, 1967, by Dawn Eden.
The writer’s point: It’s mostly inaccessible, and will never be as good as the hype, Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains notwithstanding.
My take: Nothing can ever match the hype. The Brian Wilson album SMiLE, released after the essay, is an intriguing piece of music, but may or may not have changed the course of music 37 years earlier.

The Who: Tommy. MCA, 1969. By Steve Knopper.
The writer’s point: It suffers from “glaring conceptual weaknesses, tin-can production, and timeless inability to rock.” Bland, repetitive; the filler songs are terrible. Only Pinball Wizard, I’m Free, Cousin Kevin, and Fiddle About are any good, and the latter is tainted by Pete Townsend’s arrest, even though the charges were dropped. But the greatest sin is that they (especially Townsend) couldn’t leave it alone but had it done again and again.
My take: The filler songs and repeated musical themes never bothered me – Townsend’s working in a largely unfamiliar medium of “rock opera”. Not only did I like the songs cited by Knopper, but also Christmas and Underture. But those other versions with the London Symphony Orchestra, and the movie soundtrack, are NOT improvements.

The MC5: Kick Out the Jams. Elektra, 1969. By Andy Wang
The writer’s point: full of john Sinclair’s nonsensical White Panther Party rubbish, and not very good.
My take: Don’t own; haven’t heard in too long to comment.

The Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Columbia, 1968. By Steven Stolder.
The writer’s point: It was no more the pioneer country-rock album than the Beau Brummel’s Bradley’s Barn. The “notion of country rock as defined by the Byrds…seems unnecessary.
My take: Doing a comparison with an album I’ve never heard of, let alone heard, makes it difficult to comment. On the other hand, country rock always seemed like an artifice to me.

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica. Straight, 1969. By Jason Gross.
The writer’s point: Gives him a throbbing headache.
My take: Never heard.

Led Zeppelin: (Untitled, IV, Runes, or Zoso), Atlantic, 1971. By Adrian Brijbassi.
The writer’s point: Seems to be largely about his sex life, though he does also talk about Zeppelin musical theft on this and other albums.
My take: I like it well enough, though I’ve ODed on Stairway to Heaven decades ago.

Neil Young: Harvest, Reprise, 1972. By Fred Mills.
The writer’s point: “The music world is overrun by simpering singer-songwriters obsessed with the D chord and first-person pronouns”, thanks to its success.
My take: Well, maybe so. Actually, while I like the songs – though Alabama IS a lesser version of Southern Man from the previous album – I never fully bought it as musically coherent statement. I’ll be curious to hear the next Neil album, which the late producer David Briggs tried to convince Neil should have been the logical successor to After the Goldrush.

Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street, Rolling Stones, 1972. By Keith Moerer.
The writer’s point: Lots of great songs, with an “awful lot of genre filler (and worse)…” Not a fan of Sweet Black Angel.
My point: I agree.

The Eagles: Desperado, Asylum, 1973. By Bobby Reed.
The writer’s point: Not the cohesive story it feigns to be. (Spends too much time telling about himself.)
My take: Though I probably own this album, somewhere, I must have got it so late in the vinyl game that I don’t really know what it sounds like well enough to judge.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Pronounced Len-nerd Skin-nerd, MCA, 1973. By Leanne Potts.
The writer’s point: Southern-fried hokum.
My point: Don’t have, though I’ve never been a particular fan of Freebird or Sweet Home Alabama.

Graham Parsons: GP/Grievous Angel, Warner Brothers, 1990. (Original releases 1973, 1974). By Chrissie Dickinson.
The writer’s point: a “critically-correct cult god” who couldn’t sing.
My point: Don’t have. Makes me want to check it out.

The Doors: Best of the Doors, Elektra, 1985. By Lorraine Ali (with Jim DeRogatis).
The writer’s point: Lyrically pretentious, musically lame.
My point: I have another greatest hits, but I have to agree that “Light My Fire” is pretty lame; the single’s much more tolerable than the album cut, because it doesn’t have that cheesy organ solo. But I always live for the “stronger than dirt” part of the creepy “Touch Me”.

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon, Capitol/EMI, 1973. By Burl Gilyard.
The writer’s point: It’s “moody, ponderous, torpid and humorless.”
My point: Well, maybe it is, but I like it atmospherically anyway.

Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks, Columbia, 1975. By Chris Martiniano.
The writer’s point: It’s a “cliched, dull, and at times, a tragically sloppy album.”
My point: Given that this is one of my favorite Dylan albums, I’m not feeling this complaint.

Well, THAT was fun. But time consuming. I’ll do it again for the rest of the book. Later, probably next month, when I’m stuck for a topic. I can’t wait, because I used to know one of the upcoming reviewers.

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