Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:05 This is the annex sociology podcast. I'm Joe Cohen. I'm Leslie Hinkson and get Rossman today criticizing Lana del Ray. Our guest is Rachel Skaggs from Ohio State University. Our discussion was recorded on Tuesday, September 10 2019
Speaker 2 00:26 so academia forces us to put ourselves out there, you know, and when you put yourself out there, you get negative reactions, right? With writing, it's a reviews, critical commentary in the classroom. We have the student evaluations on social media, you can get blow back for the things you say and when you create and put things out there. It's just part of the business getting negative feedback. And of course it's not exclusive to academia. Recently there's been a stir in the music world related to a negative review of a Lana del Rey's new album, which I really liked. So thank you for that recommendation. And for those of you who don't know, she is an American pop musicians, probably best known for her 2012 song, summertime sadness. And she recently released a new album titled Norman effing Rockwell. This is where I would cue Gabriel in
Speaker 1 01:16 to swear in every speech. The explicit rating for this episode. Rachel. Rachel, do you want to give the bax layer layer? Let it happen organically? You can't force it.
Speaker 3 01:28 Okay.
Speaker 2 01:28 All right.
Speaker 3 01:29 Yeah, sure. So on Twitter this past week, or maybe, maybe it's been a a been awhile now, but yeah, recently on Twitter and powers, who's a music critic for NPR wrote a pretty long feature on Lana del Rey's new album and I thought it was quite nuanced. It was overall, I think the, the tenor was positive, but Lana did not think so and retweeted the review and it said basically you don't know what you're talking about. You're wrong and you don't, you don't get this. Basically. And then following that, all of her fans came to Alana's defense and really kind of flooded Twitter with their responses saying how and doesn't understand that she is not a real fan.
Speaker 2 02:10 Yeah. Yeah. So it was the, the overall, the record got really good reviews, right. It got a terrific review on the La and from the La Times got like an 87% score on Metacritic. Got a really good review from pitchfork pitcher. I won't even pretend to know what that is. And then what happened was, I have the quote here, so she writes to Anne powers, who's a well known music critic. She writes, here's a little side note on your piece. I don't even relate to one observation you made about the music. There's nothing uncooked about me to write about me is nothing like it is to be with me. I've never had a persona, I've never needed one. I never will. And you know the, the Times noted that the, I read the review and it was overall quite numerous. It was quite a good review. But at times I guess there were comments like that the music had, uh, aspects of neediness or disempowered edness she, I think she was implicitly criticized for not promoting female empowerment and her lyrics and things like that. So what's your take on this one?
Speaker 4 03:16 It might take us, I don't want to hear it cause I love the album and I don't want to ruin it with the steady squabble. So I'm just going to spend the rest of this 20 minutes segment going La la, la, and not cut it out later.
Speaker 3 03:27 Well, I think it's a good thing, right? That so Anne powers as a music critic really takes women seriously. That's kind of her position on it, is that she thinks that women haven't been taken seriously for their musical contributions. And I think that by giving a nuanced, and you know, somewhat critical, but also positive review, that that's actually engaging with the music and taking it seriously.
Speaker 5 03:48 And my take on it is, you know, as an artist, I mean, I, I assume that most artists create a thing, right? And then you release it out into the world and people who consume it are allowed to interpret it the way that they want to. And you know, that's just your role as artists. And now you may or may not have a take on your work that you want everyone to have. But I mean, I think that most artists would agree. Well, yeah, I created a thing and this is an interactive process. And I kind of felt as though Lana del Rey's pushback against powers actually in many ways, says, okay, the consumer of my artwork, it doesn't have the power and power to, um, to interpret it the way that they interpret it. And so in some ways that reaction was disappointing to me
Speaker 4 04:44 now. So I did not read the review. I didn't read any of the criticism of it, cause like I said, I just want to be able to like the album, but based on, um, Rachel Synopsis of it, I'm guessing that part of it may be kind of a defensiveness and that earlier she was attacked for artifice, like in with her first album and the idea that she doesn't have a personas. Ridiculous. Uh, I mean it doesn't say a lot of Delray on her birth certificate and she, yeah, she very much has a pretty elaborate artistic persona, but it's something that early on, like in her first album, there were a bunch of pylons of born to die that it was, you know, like artifice and a little bit of Svengali thing and the idea that somebody crafted it for her and everything like that. So I think it may be, my guess would be that it's less her arguing with powers and more her arguing with somebody what power said that reminded her of what somebody else said that, you know, in the same way that like your spouse might get in a fight with you about nothing.
Speaker 4 05:38 And really it's because you just reminded them, you innocently reminded them of something they saw at work, you know?
Speaker 3 05:44 Right. Like they just think it's a really kind of turn, turn the knife a little bit, but the knife isn't there. Right?
Speaker 4 05:49 Yeah. Yeah. Or the knife was there a few hours ago, but you weren't the one holding it.
Speaker 5 05:53 Yeah. But at the same time, I mean it's, there's a difference reacting in real time and then having the time to craft something that you write on Twitter. Right. And then not remove it. So
Speaker 2 06:06 Twitter's not really a crafted medium though. No, I wouldn't know. Well, you know what the though the idea that she has a persona is something, I mean, maybe you guys can comment on it. You're better versed in the sociology of culture than I am, but it doesn't that sort of poke at this notion of authenticity and music and, uh, you know, there's, isn't there a need when you're an artist to emote authenticity or transmit authenticity to imply that there is a persona is to, you know, somewhat solely the, the image or the magic?
Speaker 5 06:39 I think it depends. Right? I think it depends. I think that if you are casting yourself as this like singer songwriter, right? You know, I think that's a sort of like authenticity is this thing. But I mean, there are plenty of artists out there who admit to have readily to having personas. I mean, think about Beyonce, right? I mean, she's like, yeah, you know, I'm Sasha fierce when I'm out there on stage for example. And her fans love her for that.
Speaker 3 07:07 Regardless of authenticity, everyone has a personal brand, right? Like you're putting yourself out there as an artist, you're selling a brand. So regardless of if it's real or not, if it's a persona or some sort of unfiltered reality, there is a brand there and you have to kind of match up the brand with the art. Right?
Speaker 2 07:25 But the exposition of some persona can be brand consistent, right? Like for Beyonce to say, Oh, I'm not like this tiger when I go there, I'm really, you know, somebody else, she can still do it. It's still like brand consistent, this type of thing. Calling Lana del Rey, you know, calling her sort of professional image of persona is like pointing out that kid rock is really like a rich kid from Georgia and not some, you know, working for Michigan or Michigan or whatever, you know? Yeah. He's rich. Yeah. You know, and there's a difference between the, you know, sort of pulling back the curtain on 1% of versus another.
Speaker 5 08:05 I also wondered how much of it may have been, this might be this playing out of a kind of generational squabble, right? Like I, I don't recall how old the critic is, but she is older than Lana del Rey is. And you know, my daughters Love Lana del Ray. I'm kind of like, Eh, you know, I mean, and that might be a generational thing. And so I'm wondering how much of, how much of power's interpretation of Lana del Ray and then Lana del Rey's interpretation of power's critique, right? It is a sign of this sort of generational divide and you know, powers wanting her to be like, oh, come on, be more of a feminist. And Lot of Delray just saying, Hey, I'm singing songs about my life. Well, and it's ironic that you're talking about generation because her whole artistic persona basically
Speaker 4 08:56 putting yourself in the position, somebody from roughly the 1910 birth cohort <inaudible>
Speaker 3 09:03 interesting too. Thinking about kind of who reads music criticism because I think Ann Ann Powers, she's, she's very well established. I think that she's in charge of music at NPR. That's her, her bit. She's very well established in the field and I think that people in Lauderdale raise kind of generational group of fans. They might not be used to reading music criticism. I think that the older generations maybe grew up with that more so than the kind of amateur critiques or kind of takes that people have on social media, which her fans might be more familiar with and a lot of them did comment, who is this Anne powers? Who is she? I'd never heard of her, so maybe they're not familiar with the genre,
Speaker 2 09:40 but powers is apparently gotten into this type of friction before. There was a really interesting piece that she had in the La Times about blow back that she got for criticizing Tina Turner and the Jonas brothers. Like she's gotten into these messes before and she wrote a really interesting piece like when does an artist become untouchable? Is there a point at which criticizing someone's work results in so much blow back that you don't even want to get involved with it? You know, maybe the fans personalized a criticism or they feel the need to defend their, you know, their group head or whatever. I thought that was kind of an interesting topic in and of itself. Right?
Speaker 5 10:18 Oh no for sure. Cause like the next thing that happens is that then like someone like posts something on Twitter like using a Sharpie, erasing certain words from the critique and having it seem like it's actual fact and then getting other people you know, under that they're employed or under or who owes them a favor to come back and say yes, that was actual truth.
Speaker 2 10:42 <inaudible> it's interesting. It's something that I think happens in our line of work too. Like there's a danger when you publish critical work. I remember the blow back we got for the false notions of objectivity episode we did. Right. Cause people take that as a personal attack when you sort of hang your hat on a person or a movement or something.
Speaker 4 11:02 I don't even remember that it, I mean I remember us doing that conversation but I don't remember any polo back then. Yeah,
Speaker 2 11:09 there you got blow back. Yeah. Blow. Well that's, I wouldn't expect you to, yeah,
Speaker 3 11:15 yeah. Our critiques in a blinded fashion and most people, other people don't have to see those critiques. Right,
Speaker 4 11:21 right. Okay. So that's a, that's an interesting point, right? Because people can be pretty blunt in peer reviews for journals, but there's a convention that people are much less blunt in reviewing books. And I feel like one of my distinctive things as a sociologist is I've actually written negative book reviews. Whereas, you know, you go through contemporary sociology and it's just a big, like you felt like everybody took Molly before they started typing.
Speaker 2 11:48 Huh.
Speaker 3 11:48 But it does reflect back on you, right? Like, um, I was a book review editor for a journal and I mean I think that that's something that people take into account when they accept or reject to even do the book review. Right? Like can I give this a positive review? Yeah. Right.
Speaker 2 12:02 Well, what about this whole sentence? Like there's a set overset is there an oversensitivity aspect to all of this? Because ultimately all it does is it produces less interesting book reviews. And I'll admit like I've written some pretty tepid book reviews of stuff that I didn't care for but didn't bother to take on.
Speaker 3 12:17 Do you think it's a career stage thing? Like would people, so if it's right, if it's your first book and you know that this person that is going to be important for them going up for tenure, maybe you would be less critical. And then also on the flip side, someone who's more established, there's more to kind of pick out more critique that you could give them in a kind of holistic way about the, how their scholarship fits into some sort of trajectory.
Speaker 5 12:38 I mean I think, I think that's been the norm. The way that I was socialized into, into the discipline and into academia was just that way. Now you don't have to totally conform to that norm, but there was, I mean I was trained with the understanding that yeah, you don't want to ruin someone's prospects for tenure, but you know, once they get tenured, you know, you can take the gloves off.
Speaker 4 13:06 Hmm. I think Leslie's right that in a weird way, like you might expect that the reason you go easy on a non blinded book reviews. Well actually I kind of agree and I kind of dug, okay so you might expect the reason you go, you're very nice and book reviews but not nice and journal or views just because you know it could blow back on you and then you're saying like, well, but there's this whole idea of like are you going to do with that to somebody where it could be a critical phase in their career or something like that. But then why aren't we nice in journal reviews? I mean part of it could be because you don't know that it was an assistant professor or an abd or whatever who wrote the journal Article. But even if you suspect it and any editor will tell you that, they'll get like the private comment to the editor saying, you know, I'm not mad at this author. I'm mad at their advisor for letting them send it out. Or then they tell their friends like, oh actually that was from a senior scholar who's like, but I think it's a weird kind of thing of like, we do have this etiquette of like, you don't want to perform your scholarly function of screening someone out from a permanent position who's totally incompetent, you know, but we do it in journal review because it's blinded. I think there really is something to it being blinded.
Speaker 3 14:14 This reminds me of Liba Chung's work. So she has the book coming out about literary book reviews and argues about them being a genre unto themselves, which the book review also is for us. Right? Like that's a line on a CV that's different from just, I'm a, you know, ad hoc reviewer for a journal. So not only is it the function of reflecting something about that scholar's career, but it also says something about you. So not just are you cutting them down, but do you come across as collegial or contributing to the discipline in a positive or a negative way?
Speaker 5 14:44 Exactly. The book review is a reflection of you. Right. And there are ways when even when you don't like the book, right? You don't like the argument, there are ways that you can present a critique that doesn't crush a person's career in the early stage. Right? And so, you know, you know, the way we would do during, you know, like you know that what we do during seminars, right? Like this is very interesting, right? Which is just an empty word, right? But it's not a mean word. And you know, this is what your argument is. You know what I really liked was you always start with what you really like and then you say, well, but I had some questions, right? And I would urge you, even though the book is already published and there's nothing else you can do about it, I would urge you to think about x, y, and Z. I mean, that's a way for you to sort of present yourself as, you know what people, right? I know my stuff, right? But I'm also not a dick. So
Speaker 3 15:48 I think thinking about the kind of case that we're coming from. So there's Lana del Ray thing. It also made me think of something earlier this summer where an artist tweeted out something and then the fans jumped on the bandwagon, but it had a positive effect. So Taylor swift, when big machine, her record label was sold and there was this kind of discomfort or unhappiness and really kind of outrage around the person who bought the rights. One of the smaller bands on the label, Delta Ray decided to go diddy and then started a Kickstarter to try to, I think it was a Kickstarter, some sort of, you know, platform to, to raise money to make their album. And Taylor tweeted it and her fans funded it immediately. So it's kind of this opposite right, of the, the artist really corralling their fans into, to a goal.
Speaker 2 16:33 The mob can be used for good and evil.
Speaker 5 16:36 Yeah.
Speaker 2 16:38 One last thing before we move on, one of the responses to powers was she received a lot of criticism for not helping champion women or for Denying del Rey a genuine voice and so on. And there was a very interesting response from a journalist named, uh, Jessica Hopper on Twitter who made the point that any kind of review, even a negative one is a sign of respect and represents genuine engagement and is a preferable option to being ignored, which is what most of us endure in our work. Right. And it brings up an interesting question like how hard can you be on somebody? Cause I'm thinking about, remember when we talked to Amy Cuddy?
Speaker 4 17:22 Yeah. Boy, let's, uh, before you get into that, I mean, that actually is a point that you see in some of the sociology of criticism. <inaudible> so a Shaun Bauman made that argument about film that simply the act of refueling film with the conventions of artistic criticism rather than like consumer reports style criticism, uh, made people take film seriously as an art form, even if the particular work is reviewed negatively. And then Marty <inaudible>, Marty, uh, had a series of earlier articles on rock music arguing that rock music criticism was one of the things that made people take rock music seriously as an art form.
Speaker 2 17:59 But if that doesn't help make the object of the criticism be seen as more serious, does it like, so powers being critical of del Rey's work might help pop music and pop music criticism, but it doesn't necessarily help del Ray does it?
Speaker 4 18:12 Yeah. So, so in the hypothetical, Roy assumed that powers gave a pan rather than a rave that the artist doesn't like for idiosyncratic reasons. Right. That would still validate the generic form of, you know, female singer songwriters or something like that.
Speaker 5 18:29 Yeah. And I also think that, you know, that tweet was also a way of driving more people to either buy her album or stream it. Right? Yeah. And so, I mean this is like a controversy that's not a controversy, right? Right. That you know, that I think in some ways or manufactured to number one to be able to display to people like powers and the worlds, see, I'm powerful. See, look at my response. I mean, I don't believe if she didn't think she could activate her fan base <inaudible> the way that she did, she wouldn't have done it. And so this was kind of like a display. And so I think that this was, you know, whatever it was like Lana del Ray flexing a little bit, right. And Thang, look at me, look at what I can do. Who, right. You know, it's like, you know, what did lady Gaga call her followers back in the day?
Speaker 5 19:23 A little monster. Little Ma. Yeah. It's like Gaga could like activate her monsters, right? Um, to come to her defense whenever she wanted to. You know, Beyonce, they had the bay hive, right? I mean, he's like any popular artists, you know, worth their salt has the kind of fan base where, you know, they can send out a tweet and then, you know, whatever response will be swift. And so I think it sends out a signal number one I can flex, right? And number two, hey, it's going to just drive up, you know, people listening to my new album.
Speaker 6 19:57 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 20:02 you've been listening to the annex sociology podcast. A special thank you to Rachel Skaggs from Ohio State University. Run on the web socio cast.org/annex on Twitter at sow Shanix and on Facebook, the annex sociology podcast. Our producer is Lizeth Seth Marino. On behalf of Leslie Hickson and Gabriel Rosman, I'm Joe Cohen. Thanks for listening. Bye Bye.
Speaker 6 20:27 <inaudible>.
