Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Yoko Ono
June 24, 2015 5:23 AM Subscribe
I have always been drawn to the women who can arouse this kind of vitriol. The kind of hate that seems too big and billowing to be directed at just one woman, the kind that seems like a person or an entire society is vomiting out all its misogyny onto one convenient scapegoat. At some point — after successive Joan of Arc and Courtney Love phases — I started to see this position of feminine abjectness as a kind of superpower. A position from which a woman could offend far more deeply than a man.Lindsay Zoladz: Yoko Ono and the Myth That Deserves to Die.
I've always been really impressed by the way the actress (Gwen Taylor) impersonating Yoko Ono managed not to burst out laughing in that scene from the Rutles.
posted by nicolin at 5:41 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nicolin at 5:41 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have a theory that Ono, as a conceptual artist, is quietly responsible for raising the Beatles to mythic stature in the band's afterlife. You don't just get that by being a great pop band. You get that by making specific choices about framing your legacy. And I would put money on her being very savvy about that.
Also, Dar Williams singing I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:42 AM on June 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
Also, Dar Williams singing I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:42 AM on June 24, 2015 [9 favorites]
I'm always puzzled that still nobody seems to like Yoko's singing. We've had punk and we've had metal and we've had rap and we've had auto-tune; I thought people would be used to the voice being more than a song by now. Also she did this live performance with RZA which I love.
Grapefruit remains one of my favourite books.
posted by solarion at 5:45 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Grapefruit remains one of my favourite books.
posted by solarion at 5:45 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Obviously the story surrounding Yoko Ono is larger than life by now. The haters and the supporters both seem to miss the point, though. Her work is considerably more niche than the mainstream Beatles.
If the only people who knew of her were those who followed avant garde art, or studied art history, she'd have a smaller number of people who know her, and many more would love her. Instead, there are a lot of people who were exposed to her by her proximity to John Lennon, and they know her only by her influence on him. She became a lightning rod for any blame for his problems or changes in his artistic output.
It's unavoidable, too. A contemporary example is Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. I know a lot of people have Strong Feelings about Ms. Palmer. Mostly I'm just unfamiliar with her work. But I basically had to stop following Neil Gaiman on social media because more of the posts were about Palmer than his own work.
Yoko Ono certainly doesn't deserve all the hate, but her work is decidedly not for everyone, and it's not meant to be readily accessible. So it kind of sucks too that the average person was "forced" (in the loosest sense possible) to experience her work just because they were John Lennon fans.
I wonder if this works in the other direction? Do Beyonce fans who don't really care for Jay-Z get worked up about it?
posted by explosion at 5:55 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
If the only people who knew of her were those who followed avant garde art, or studied art history, she'd have a smaller number of people who know her, and many more would love her. Instead, there are a lot of people who were exposed to her by her proximity to John Lennon, and they know her only by her influence on him. She became a lightning rod for any blame for his problems or changes in his artistic output.
It's unavoidable, too. A contemporary example is Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. I know a lot of people have Strong Feelings about Ms. Palmer. Mostly I'm just unfamiliar with her work. But I basically had to stop following Neil Gaiman on social media because more of the posts were about Palmer than his own work.
Yoko Ono certainly doesn't deserve all the hate, but her work is decidedly not for everyone, and it's not meant to be readily accessible. So it kind of sucks too that the average person was "forced" (in the loosest sense possible) to experience her work just because they were John Lennon fans.
I wonder if this works in the other direction? Do Beyonce fans who don't really care for Jay-Z get worked up about it?
posted by explosion at 5:55 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Appropriate: P.S. I Hate You: The Angry John Lennon Letters
The correspondence — often handwritten, sometimes featuring doodles — spans Lennon’s life and paints him as an enthusiastic, occasionally cranky pen pal. Here are a few of his angriest letters, all written in 1971, a year after the breakup of the Beatles.posted by Fizz at 5:56 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
To an unknown fan:
Lennon chastises an anti-Yoko “groupie.”
To the Syracuse Post-Standard:
Two surefire ways to upset Lennon: misunderstand Yoko Ono’s art and mention her more famous husband in the same review. The Post-Standard did both, prompting this letter.
I'm always puzzled that still nobody seems to like Yoko's singing...
It is pretty bad and she would never have been professionally recorded if it weren't for John Lennon.
Bad singing isn't a zero sum game, lots of singing can be simultaneously bad, hers is some of it.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:59 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
It is pretty bad and she would never have been professionally recorded if it weren't for John Lennon.
Bad singing isn't a zero sum game, lots of singing can be simultaneously bad, hers is some of it.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 5:59 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
Jeez, can there really be anybody left who still hates Yoko? Millions of people were pissed at Yoko because it looked like she was one of the biggest things standing in the way of a Big Beatles Reconciliation/Reunion and lots more big boyband hits from the Fab Four. But I would have thought those people would all be dead by now, and the few who aren't would be aware that the big problem with a Beatles Reunion is that John's been dead for 35 years, and it wasn't Yoko who shot him.
posted by jfuller at 6:02 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by jfuller at 6:02 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
Good Yoko Ono 101 article. The girl-breaking-up-a-boy-band is a trope that refuses to die, and Yoko is the Ur-example of this, of course. This is Spinal Tap includes the trope as one of its dozens of jabs at rock mythology. The article may not get deep into feminist ideological explanations for the persistent Yoko-hatred, but they are pretty obvious.
I like the comment above that if it were not for her, millions of people would not have even heard of conceptual art. Being a Fluxus/Beuys/Burden etc. fan already (and Charles Ray…check out this one), I hadn't thought of that.
All I can say, is that I hope to be like Yoko when I'm in my 80's!
posted by kozad at 6:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
I like the comment above that if it were not for her, millions of people would not have even heard of conceptual art. Being a Fluxus/Beuys/Burden etc. fan already (and Charles Ray…check out this one), I hadn't thought of that.
All I can say, is that I hope to be like Yoko when I'm in my 80's!
posted by kozad at 6:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
It's OK not to enjoy Yoko's art or music, at least on the same level as you enjoy the Beatles; I think that a lot of it is meant specifically to not be enjoyed on that level. It still doesn't justify the Yoko-hate, which I'm disappointed to read about Bill Burr getting into as well. Burr and a lot of other people don't seem to get that Yoko's effect on Lennon wasn't so much to hold him back as an artist as to help him develop as a person, and that some of that involved tearing down the walls of celebrity bullshit that had built up around John. Zoladz is absolutely right about that YouTube clip that Burr is ranting over: it's a hack performance by two artists, one of whom is well into the "Garden Party" phase of his career, and one of whom is still salvageable as an artist and a human being. Whether or not the Beatles would have stayed together is maybe a less interesting question than whether or not Lennon would have been happy, even if he lived longer. (And, yes, I know that Ono's life isn't just about making John Lennon a better or happier person; she's spent a lot more time without him than she did with him. Unfortunately, I think that the question of her involvement with Lennon tends to overwhelm that.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [7 favorites]
It is pretty bad
THEM IS FIGHTIN' WORDS.
and she would never have been professionally recorded if it weren't for John Lennon
This, however, is unfortunately probably true. I think my next Meta needs to be about extended vocal techniques.
posted by solarion at 6:11 AM on June 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
THEM IS FIGHTIN' WORDS.
and she would never have been professionally recorded if it weren't for John Lennon
This, however, is unfortunately probably true. I think my next Meta needs to be about extended vocal techniques.
posted by solarion at 6:11 AM on June 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Jeez, can there really be anybody left who still hates Yoko? Millions of people were pissed at Yoko because it looked like she was one of the biggest things standing in the way of a Big Beatles Reconciliation/Reunion and lots more big boyband hits from the Fab Four.
Well one interesting thing about it is that I think a lot of people just kind of absorbed the various theories about ono that this article discusses. I don't really even care about the beatles and grew up in the 80s, but somehow I picked up via some sort of cultural transmission various ideas about Ono that were really pretty reprehensible / based on misogynistic reactions to her. It happens that I ran across some of her art a bit later (which of course I had had very little direct exposure to before that) that I thought was interesting and then re-examined some of my preconceptions, but I think a lot of people might only have a set of vague beliefs about her that are pretty much what you see in the quoted Bill Burr thing in the article. (Which I won't reproduce here because it is really pretty appalling.)
posted by advil at 6:15 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well one interesting thing about it is that I think a lot of people just kind of absorbed the various theories about ono that this article discusses. I don't really even care about the beatles and grew up in the 80s, but somehow I picked up via some sort of cultural transmission various ideas about Ono that were really pretty reprehensible / based on misogynistic reactions to her. It happens that I ran across some of her art a bit later (which of course I had had very little direct exposure to before that) that I thought was interesting and then re-examined some of my preconceptions, but I think a lot of people might only have a set of vague beliefs about her that are pretty much what you see in the quoted Bill Burr thing in the article. (Which I won't reproduce here because it is really pretty appalling.)
posted by advil at 6:15 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
My take is that the Beatles, rather like Fleetwood Mack, became one of those bands that broke up before breaking up. Frankly, it's a bit of a miracle that we got the post-Epstein albums at all.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:34 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:34 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Previously or at least of interest. (Contains a lot of Yoko love.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:36 AM on June 24, 2015
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:36 AM on June 24, 2015
My take is that male Beatles fans who worshiped John Lennon couldn't admit to their homoerotic feelings toward him so they dumped on Yoko for breaking up the band when they were really jealous of her for stealing him.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [11 favorites]
If Ono is actually responsible for the deification of The Beatles after Lennon's death, I'll have to re-evaluate my choice not to hate her.
posted by idiopath at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
My whole thing is that John Lennon was a pretty legit kind of guy and I always thought to myself, Ms. Yoko Ono cannot be all that bad because if John saw something in her that was beautiful and magical, well then that's all that mattered. They made their relationship work, so who gives a shit what the rest of us think. I've enjoyed her art but not so much her singing. I certainly don't think she is deserving of a death threat for simply loving someone who happened to be a in a band.
posted by Fizz at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 6:39 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
I got super into Yoko Ono when I was a teenager and at least part of it was being contrarian to the widespread hatred which seemed unjustified.
Stuff like "What a Bastard the World Is" or "Open Your Box" also meshes pretty well with a punk approach, where you don't need the best singing voice, but you make up for it in attitude.
posted by RobotHero at 6:43 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Stuff like "What a Bastard the World Is" or "Open Your Box" also meshes pretty well with a punk approach, where you don't need the best singing voice, but you make up for it in attitude.
posted by RobotHero at 6:43 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I wonder if this works in the other direction? Do Beyonce fans who don't really care for Jay-Z get worked up about it?
I am really confused about what you take to be the standard direction. Women to public men? Unknown people to famous people? Untalented people to talented people?
posted by shakespeherian at 6:43 AM on June 24, 2015
I am really confused about what you take to be the standard direction. Women to public men? Unknown people to famous people? Untalented people to talented people?
posted by shakespeherian at 6:43 AM on June 24, 2015
Jeez, can there really be anybody left who still hates Yoko?
Not to speak for her, but my wife has always said she hates Yoko. I think she sees her as pretentious and flaky. Me, I've abandoned understanding anything, so I've got no opinion besides "Tulip baroo."
posted by saulgoodman at 6:44 AM on June 24, 2015
Not to speak for her, but my wife has always said she hates Yoko. I think she sees her as pretentious and flaky. Me, I've abandoned understanding anything, so I've got no opinion besides "Tulip baroo."
posted by saulgoodman at 6:44 AM on June 24, 2015
Millions of people were pissed at Yoko because it looked like she was one of the biggest things standing in the way of a Big Beatles Reconciliation/Reunion and lots more big boyband hits from the Fab Four. But I would have thought those people would all be dead by now
Really? All of them? I'm exactly the age of those people, and I'm 62. Not quite dead yet. Keep checking.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 6:45 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Really? All of them? I'm exactly the age of those people, and I'm 62. Not quite dead yet. Keep checking.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 6:45 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't dislike Yoko because I think she broke up the Beatles or prevented them from reforming (I don't, and she didn't). I dislike Yoko because her work is crap and she's pretentious about it.
posted by cmoj at 6:53 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by cmoj at 6:53 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
THEM IS FIGHTIN' WORDS.
Such a terrible song on so many levels.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:56 AM on June 24, 2015
Such a terrible song on so many levels.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:56 AM on June 24, 2015
I am really confused about what you take to be the standard direction. Women to public men? Unknown people to famous people? Untalented people to talented people?
Lesser-known women to famous men get hated on, for "bringing down" the man's career (or influencing it in a path the fans dislike). Even if it's not pure misogyny, part of it comes from that place.
Beyonce/Jay-Z was the first example I could think of where the wife actually outshines the husband. It's not a great example though, because Jay-Z's quite famous in his own right.
posted by explosion at 6:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Lesser-known women to famous men get hated on, for "bringing down" the man's career (or influencing it in a path the fans dislike). Even if it's not pure misogyny, part of it comes from that place.
Beyonce/Jay-Z was the first example I could think of where the wife actually outshines the husband. It's not a great example though, because Jay-Z's quite famous in his own right.
posted by explosion at 6:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm always puzzled that still nobody seems to like Yoko's singing...
In my experience, men are allowed to be lousy singers and still be considered brilliant, must-listen musicians, but this same courtesy is not extended to women. When a woman's voice goes off the beaten path, it is a bad voice and emblematic of her lack of talent. I know people who will, for example, never give Joanna Newsom a chance because of how she chooses to sing. A woman's voice should be pretty, irrespective of genre or goals.
When a man's voice does the same, it is a marker of one's true musical appreciation, that you can love that weird or non-traditional voice, that you can appreciate how its surface badness interplays with the brilliant lyrics or amazing instrumentation or whatever. It is a challenging noise, and one's ability to embrace the challenge marks the seriousness of one's love for music.
Related: when a man has a pretty voice, that music is often marked as being for women. R&B lovermen, crooners, teen idols, the occasional folky with a fine piercing tenor: more often girl's stuff than not.
posted by palindromic at 6:58 AM on June 24, 2015 [46 favorites]
In my experience, men are allowed to be lousy singers and still be considered brilliant, must-listen musicians, but this same courtesy is not extended to women. When a woman's voice goes off the beaten path, it is a bad voice and emblematic of her lack of talent. I know people who will, for example, never give Joanna Newsom a chance because of how she chooses to sing. A woman's voice should be pretty, irrespective of genre or goals.
When a man's voice does the same, it is a marker of one's true musical appreciation, that you can love that weird or non-traditional voice, that you can appreciate how its surface badness interplays with the brilliant lyrics or amazing instrumentation or whatever. It is a challenging noise, and one's ability to embrace the challenge marks the seriousness of one's love for music.
Related: when a man has a pretty voice, that music is often marked as being for women. R&B lovermen, crooners, teen idols, the occasional folky with a fine piercing tenor: more often girl's stuff than not.
posted by palindromic at 6:58 AM on June 24, 2015 [46 favorites]
I think this article takes every view on the spectrum about Yoko Ono, picks the stuff that can be called baseless "hate", and then refutes that.
Except it doesn't. It intermixes Yoko Ono's abysmal music masquerading as art with her life overall, and vaguely tries to imply that the hatred is directed towards Yoko Ono as a person, and as a woman.
The relevant (as well as valid and rational) "hatred", if that's what you want to call it, is to do with Ono's brazen and abysmal crimes of taste and substance against music. Frank Zappa expresses some of that dismay, too. I happen to agree, for reasons. And I couldn't care less about the life around the music of a woman I don't even know.
posted by huron at 7:03 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Except it doesn't. It intermixes Yoko Ono's abysmal music masquerading as art with her life overall, and vaguely tries to imply that the hatred is directed towards Yoko Ono as a person, and as a woman.
The relevant (as well as valid and rational) "hatred", if that's what you want to call it, is to do with Ono's brazen and abysmal crimes of taste and substance against music. Frank Zappa expresses some of that dismay, too. I happen to agree, for reasons. And I couldn't care less about the life around the music of a woman I don't even know.
posted by huron at 7:03 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
The more I get to know about her work pre-John, the more I get to thinking the Yoko myth is ass-backwards, and rather than her diluting Lennon's output and legacy, he, or the inevitable repercussions of being in a relationship with with him, diluted her output and legacy. Yes her pop influenced music of the 70s-80s is often goofy or annoying, but her art before John was fucking laser sharp. I want to see the trajectory of what that artist might have been without being thrown into the glare of being married to one of the most famous people on the planet.
posted by threecheesetrees at 7:04 AM on June 24, 2015 [25 favorites]
posted by threecheesetrees at 7:04 AM on June 24, 2015 [25 favorites]
I don't know if she broke up or helped break up the Beatles but if she did then that's a good or even great thing. They went out with a strong album (Let it Be) and a brilliant one (Abbey Road) and there's been little to dilute that legacy since. Would we really have wanted The Beatles equivalents of Emotional Rescue or Dirty Work?
posted by octothorpe at 7:08 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 7:08 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Frankly, it's a bit of a miracle that we got the post-Epstein albums at all.
From what I've read, the "miracle" in question is named Paul McCartney; Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be were projects proposed and largely designed by him to try to get the band interested in really working with each other again, and he also had an idea, never actually done, to have the band play gigs in pubs while wearing disguises; this is the germ of the recurrent rumor that Beatlesque bands such as Klaatu were really the Fabsters in disguise. Me, I'd like to think that if they'd taken some time off from the band to work on their solo projects, they might have periodically reunited to work on albums or even the odd tour, instead of getting burnt out on the Beatles to the degree that they did.
I'm sure that the bulk of that is pure wishful thinking on my part, but I'm intrigued by the fact that, despite the post-breakup animus between Lennon and McCartney, they later repaired their friendship. McCartney talks about how he and John were watching the SNL episode in which Lorne Michaels offers the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show (there was a concert promoter at the time who was offering them millions of dollars for a single reunion concert), and they actually talked about grabbing a couple of guitars and going down to 30 Rock and just dropping in to the middle of the show to do a couple of numbers, but they were too stoned to do anything but laugh at the idea.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:13 AM on June 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
From what I've read, the "miracle" in question is named Paul McCartney; Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be were projects proposed and largely designed by him to try to get the band interested in really working with each other again, and he also had an idea, never actually done, to have the band play gigs in pubs while wearing disguises; this is the germ of the recurrent rumor that Beatlesque bands such as Klaatu were really the Fabsters in disguise. Me, I'd like to think that if they'd taken some time off from the band to work on their solo projects, they might have periodically reunited to work on albums or even the odd tour, instead of getting burnt out on the Beatles to the degree that they did.
I'm sure that the bulk of that is pure wishful thinking on my part, but I'm intrigued by the fact that, despite the post-breakup animus between Lennon and McCartney, they later repaired their friendship. McCartney talks about how he and John were watching the SNL episode in which Lorne Michaels offers the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show (there was a concert promoter at the time who was offering them millions of dollars for a single reunion concert), and they actually talked about grabbing a couple of guitars and going down to 30 Rock and just dropping in to the middle of the show to do a couple of numbers, but they were too stoned to do anything but laugh at the idea.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:13 AM on June 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
Yoko and John met when he swung by a preview of her show at London’s Indica Gallery in November 1966. He took a bite out of the apple she’d staged like a Duchamp readymade — at last, she’d found her Eve.
It's funny, I'd only ever heard this story from John's perspective. Here's how John tells the story:
There was a fresh apple on a stand - this was before Apple - and it was two hundred quid to watch the apple decompose. But there was another piece that really decided me for-or-against the artist: a ladder which led to a painting which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. This was near the door when you went in. I climbed the ladder, you look through the spyglass and in tiny little letters it says 'yes'. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say 'no' or 'fuck you' or something, it said 'yes'.
I was very impressed and John Dunbar introduced us
Hearing John tell it the story fits the traditional patriarchal narrative of a man who sees a woman he likes and pursues her but clearly he was already on her radar the moment he took a bite of that apple—a detail that is missing from his recollection of the event. It helps drive home the authors point about their relationship striving to be a meeting of equals that before they had even met they had both independently picked each other out of the crowd as someone worth their time. Yoko choose John not simply because he liked her or her art but because he became a part of her art by biting that apple.
posted by metaphorever at 7:14 AM on June 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
It's funny, I'd only ever heard this story from John's perspective. Here's how John tells the story:
There was a fresh apple on a stand - this was before Apple - and it was two hundred quid to watch the apple decompose. But there was another piece that really decided me for-or-against the artist: a ladder which led to a painting which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. This was near the door when you went in. I climbed the ladder, you look through the spyglass and in tiny little letters it says 'yes'. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say 'no' or 'fuck you' or something, it said 'yes'.
I was very impressed and John Dunbar introduced us
Hearing John tell it the story fits the traditional patriarchal narrative of a man who sees a woman he likes and pursues her but clearly he was already on her radar the moment he took a bite of that apple—a detail that is missing from his recollection of the event. It helps drive home the authors point about their relationship striving to be a meeting of equals that before they had even met they had both independently picked each other out of the crowd as someone worth their time. Yoko choose John not simply because he liked her or her art but because he became a part of her art by biting that apple.
posted by metaphorever at 7:14 AM on June 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
In my experience, men are allowed to be lousy singers and still be considered brilliant,
Just go ahead and call Lou Reed out by name, why don't you...
posted by saulgoodman at 7:16 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Just go ahead and call Lou Reed out by name, why don't you...
posted by saulgoodman at 7:16 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
The actor/carpenter Nick Offerman (Ron Swanson) has a strong appreciation for Yoko Ono, as described in his book Gumption. His NPR interview is here.
posted by happyroach at 7:20 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 7:20 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
So with all the people in here talking about how horrifyingly bad Ono's music/singing is, I realized I'd never heard any of it. The first thing I found on YouTube was Walking On Thin Ice which is pretty spectacular, really. It's like a more-interesting Talking Heads.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:24 AM on June 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by shakespeherian at 7:24 AM on June 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
Yoko choose John not simply because he liked her or her art but because he became a part of her art by biting that apple.
(Cute anecdote: My wife Lori always told me she picked me because she liked the sound of my voice when I read my poems in the workshop we were in together. She practically stalked me the first few weeks we knew each other, writing notes to me on the back of my workshop poems. It took a long time for me to be convinced, but when I bit the apple, I bit it hard. Lately I've been feeling a lot like I became part of a much bigger work of art than I realized in biting that apple. But it's really not that uncommon, I don't think, for strong women to pick their partners rather than the other way around anymore is it? )
I do think Yoko gets too much guff and much of it definitely is misogynistic. But it seems overly reductive to attribute any and all criticism of her work or public persona to misogyny. Tastes and opinions on matters of taste vary. And that's good, as it protects us from totalitarianism.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:28 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
(Cute anecdote: My wife Lori always told me she picked me because she liked the sound of my voice when I read my poems in the workshop we were in together. She practically stalked me the first few weeks we knew each other, writing notes to me on the back of my workshop poems. It took a long time for me to be convinced, but when I bit the apple, I bit it hard. Lately I've been feeling a lot like I became part of a much bigger work of art than I realized in biting that apple. But it's really not that uncommon, I don't think, for strong women to pick their partners rather than the other way around anymore is it? )
I do think Yoko gets too much guff and much of it definitely is misogynistic. But it seems overly reductive to attribute any and all criticism of her work or public persona to misogyny. Tastes and opinions on matters of taste vary. And that's good, as it protects us from totalitarianism.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:28 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Beyonce/Jay-Z was the first example I could think of where the wife actually outshines the husband. It's not a great example though, because Jay-Z's quite famous in his own right.
explosion
Beyonce/Jay-Z is a bad example if you're looking for a Yoko/John dynamic because the two were already equally enormously famous and successful when they wed. Theirs was more like a union of royal houses than the narrative of a monarch marrying a commoner and raising someone from obscurity to the heights of fame.
I'm having trouble thinking of a reverse pairing where a hugely popular artist marries a much less well-known male artist and her fans revile him for being "forced" to experience his work.
One example that comes to mind, but that I'm very hesitant to bring up, is Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. I'm very hesitant because he was never an artist like Yoko Ono was prior to marrying Spears, though I think he did attempt to launch a rap career.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:29 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
explosion
Beyonce/Jay-Z is a bad example if you're looking for a Yoko/John dynamic because the two were already equally enormously famous and successful when they wed. Theirs was more like a union of royal houses than the narrative of a monarch marrying a commoner and raising someone from obscurity to the heights of fame.
I'm having trouble thinking of a reverse pairing where a hugely popular artist marries a much less well-known male artist and her fans revile him for being "forced" to experience his work.
One example that comes to mind, but that I'm very hesitant to bring up, is Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. I'm very hesitant because he was never an artist like Yoko Ono was prior to marrying Spears, though I think he did attempt to launch a rap career.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:29 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm on board with the Yoko made John better theory, but I think that John was something of a asshole before, less after.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:29 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 7:29 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Would we really have wanted The Beatles equivalents of Emotional Rescue or Dirty Work?
That immediately brought to mind this quote from Lennon and Ono's Playboy interview:
There's always somebody who has to be doing something to you. You know, they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years. Whoooopee! At least Charlie and Bill still got their families. In the Eighties, they'll be asking, 'Why are those guys still together? Can't they hack it on their own?
Which I bring up because growing up in the 70s the "Yoko broke up the Beatles" trope was very much the dominant viewpoint. But when I read that interview (for younger readers it was done 3 months before Lennon's death and published the month after and was a Big Deal when it came out) and realized the breakup was a lot more complicated and had relatively little to do with Yoko. Having read that when it first came out and read a lot more on the band since then it seems pretty obvious that all four Beatles were chafing at the confines of being in the band and wanted to move in their own direction. They had been together from their teens/early twenties through adulthood and marriage, a time of great changes in anyone's life. It is not surprising at all that they broke up in retrospect. Why Yoko Ono got the blame and not, say, Linda Eastman would be an interesting topic for speculation.
The other thing that struck me about that interview is how much Lennon's admiration and respect for Ono and her art came across. Regardless of my personal feelings about her work, Lennon was someone who was continuously being told he was one of the great creative minds of his generation. How does someone in that position find an artist they can look up to? Lennon did, and it seemed to be genuine and make him happy. I can't really begrudge him that.
posted by TedW at 7:30 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
That immediately brought to mind this quote from Lennon and Ono's Playboy interview:
There's always somebody who has to be doing something to you. You know, they're congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years. Whoooopee! At least Charlie and Bill still got their families. In the Eighties, they'll be asking, 'Why are those guys still together? Can't they hack it on their own?
Which I bring up because growing up in the 70s the "Yoko broke up the Beatles" trope was very much the dominant viewpoint. But when I read that interview (for younger readers it was done 3 months before Lennon's death and published the month after and was a Big Deal when it came out) and realized the breakup was a lot more complicated and had relatively little to do with Yoko. Having read that when it first came out and read a lot more on the band since then it seems pretty obvious that all four Beatles were chafing at the confines of being in the band and wanted to move in their own direction. They had been together from their teens/early twenties through adulthood and marriage, a time of great changes in anyone's life. It is not surprising at all that they broke up in retrospect. Why Yoko Ono got the blame and not, say, Linda Eastman would be an interesting topic for speculation.
The other thing that struck me about that interview is how much Lennon's admiration and respect for Ono and her art came across. Regardless of my personal feelings about her work, Lennon was someone who was continuously being told he was one of the great creative minds of his generation. How does someone in that position find an artist they can look up to? Lennon did, and it seemed to be genuine and make him happy. I can't really begrudge him that.
posted by TedW at 7:30 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
after successive Joan of Arc and Courtney Love phases
OMFG the Courtney Love hate is so bad. I gather there's been another "Courtney killed Kurt!!1!!111" documentary released recently, people need to back off with that shit already.
posted by Hoopo at 7:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
OMFG the Courtney Love hate is so bad. I gather there's been another "Courtney killed Kurt!!1!!111" documentary released recently, people need to back off with that shit already.
posted by Hoopo at 7:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
John and Yoko were both very successful artists, in completely different fields with completely different audiences. We can blame Yoko for our seeing a bunch of mediocre conceptual art that John made, that wouldn't otherwise have gotten much attention (I would hope).
posted by idiopath at 8:00 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 8:00 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
"I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically — any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace."
Man beats wife- becomes hero.
Woman distracts a man from a band and makes music people thinks is overrated- hated worldwide.
Priorities.
If you're going to slander yoko ono's character do it for something legitimately harmful she did like what she did to a (from what I can from all sources) totally non-consenting woman forced to endure "rape by camera" for an audience invited to use her fear and horror to experience " thrills and – yes – pleasure from it." To complete the story, she was later actually murdered.
I like to hope Eva was in on the whole thing- and quite possibly she was, but even if so presenting it as an actual attack and inviting the public to enjoy it as such is a dimension of fucked up that invites future wrongs like this to be carried out on innocent people in the name "art" or sick thrills, much less if she actually did not know what was happening.
So in completion, if you want to promote social hatred of someone, at least find reasons than make sense. I do think some avant garde artists can sometimes involve unconsenting public- and I don't buy that. If it's a social justice cause, or a way to wake up people who are doing something wrong they are avoiding addressing- that's one thing. But violating consent is not something that should be done for the sake of "art".
I don't actually hate either Lennon or Yoko Ono. People who actually think band members whould marry the band- refuse to marry or have kids (or IGNORE their family if they have one??) are being extremely shitty. The public doesn't give a shit about aging rockstars-- anyone who actually LOVED the beatles- the people in the band- would want them to get to quit the band and have a family rather than aging and gradually being discarded by the public if not turned into a joke (aging rockstars haha!) with no one who truly loves them.
posted by xarnop at 8:01 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Man beats wife- becomes hero.
Woman distracts a man from a band and makes music people thinks is overrated- hated worldwide.
Priorities.
If you're going to slander yoko ono's character do it for something legitimately harmful she did like what she did to a (from what I can from all sources) totally non-consenting woman forced to endure "rape by camera" for an audience invited to use her fear and horror to experience " thrills and – yes – pleasure from it." To complete the story, she was later actually murdered.
I like to hope Eva was in on the whole thing- and quite possibly she was, but even if so presenting it as an actual attack and inviting the public to enjoy it as such is a dimension of fucked up that invites future wrongs like this to be carried out on innocent people in the name "art" or sick thrills, much less if she actually did not know what was happening.
So in completion, if you want to promote social hatred of someone, at least find reasons than make sense. I do think some avant garde artists can sometimes involve unconsenting public- and I don't buy that. If it's a social justice cause, or a way to wake up people who are doing something wrong they are avoiding addressing- that's one thing. But violating consent is not something that should be done for the sake of "art".
I don't actually hate either Lennon or Yoko Ono. People who actually think band members whould marry the band- refuse to marry or have kids (or IGNORE their family if they have one??) are being extremely shitty. The public doesn't give a shit about aging rockstars-- anyone who actually LOVED the beatles- the people in the band- would want them to get to quit the band and have a family rather than aging and gradually being discarded by the public if not turned into a joke (aging rockstars haha!) with no one who truly loves them.
posted by xarnop at 8:01 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
In my experience, men are allowed to be lousy singers and still be considered brilliant, must-listen musicians, but this same courtesy is not extended to women. When a woman's voice goes off the beaten path, it is a bad voice and emblematic of her lack of talent.
The singing in songs by L7 or Tracy and the Plastics, for example, is not all that great, but the energy makes up for it. If your band has attitude and something to say that connects with an audience, the quality of the actual music can be less important.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:04 AM on June 24, 2015
The singing in songs by L7 or Tracy and the Plastics, for example, is not all that great, but the energy makes up for it. If your band has attitude and something to say that connects with an audience, the quality of the actual music can be less important.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:04 AM on June 24, 2015
The young me took Half Japanese's gauntlet-throwing-down "No More Beatlemania" very seriously - really, shouldn't the earnest post-punk actually have Yokomania? It seemed an important question to answer.
Three decades later, having listened to almost all of it, there's so much great, great Yoko, but also a lot of missteps and self-indulgent dross - which is probably what you could reasonably expect from someone who has been working steadily for half a century. Whatever criticisms you can level at her, Ono is an Artist, and she had continued to work, stick her neck out, and take chances.
Gut, unqualified Yoko hate is still enough for me to totally dismiss someone's taste and opinion about pretty much anything.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:06 AM on June 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
Three decades later, having listened to almost all of it, there's so much great, great Yoko, but also a lot of missteps and self-indulgent dross - which is probably what you could reasonably expect from someone who has been working steadily for half a century. Whatever criticisms you can level at her, Ono is an Artist, and she had continued to work, stick her neck out, and take chances.
Gut, unqualified Yoko hate is still enough for me to totally dismiss someone's taste and opinion about pretty much anything.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:06 AM on June 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
I'm on board with the Yoko made John better theory, but I think that John was something of a asshole before, less after.Hate to say it, but I think he was every bit assholish even after getting together with Yoko, at least according to the bio that came out a few years ago (which granted even Yoko Ono backed away from slightly, but still). Why would he have been so jealously guarding of her if he didn't think she had something special he could absorb? It's my opinion that Lennon was talented, no question, but his greatness came largely from appropriating the light of others (Paul, George, Yoko) and he soaked up all the resulting adulation. Team Yoko!
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 12:29 on June 24
posted by Queen of Spreadable Fats at 8:16 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
In my experience, men are allowed to be lousy singers and still be considered brilliant, must-listen musicians, but this same courtesy is not extended to women. When a woman's voice goes off the beaten path, it is a bad voice and emblematic of her lack of talent.
Kate Bush being the obvious counterexample.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:18 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kate Bush being the obvious counterexample.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:18 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
there's so much great, great Yoko, but also a lot of missteps and self-indulgent dross - which is probably what you could reasonably expect from someone who has been working steadily for half a century.
Indeed, the same could reasonably be said of Lennon himself, and his Beatle and solo careers combined were barely 20 years long.
posted by DiscountDeity at 8:40 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Indeed, the same could reasonably be said of Lennon himself, and his Beatle and solo careers combined were barely 20 years long.
posted by DiscountDeity at 8:40 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
OMFG the Courtney Love hate is so bad. I gather there's been another "Courtney killed Kurt!!1!!111" documentary released recently, people need to back off with that shit already.
posted by Hoopo at 10:57 AM on June 24 [2 favorites +] [!]
The recent documentary on Curt Cobain, Montage of Heck is definitely something that should be seen. It's a very moving portrait of a gifted musician who struggled with his new found fame
posted by Fizz at 8:44 AM on June 24, 2015
posted by Hoopo at 10:57 AM on June 24 [2 favorites +] [!]
The recent documentary on Curt Cobain, Montage of Heck is definitely something that should be seen. It's a very moving portrait of a gifted musician who struggled with his new found fame
posted by Fizz at 8:44 AM on June 24, 2015
I'm having trouble thinking of a reverse pairing where a hugely popular artist marries a much less well-known male artist and her fans revile him for being "forced" to experience his work.
No one remembers the first time we were told to love Tom Arnold?
posted by Mchelly at 8:55 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
No one remembers the first time we were told to love Tom Arnold?
posted by Mchelly at 8:55 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
OMFG the Courtney Love hate is so bad. I gather there's been another "Courtney killed Kurt!!1!!111" documentary released recently, people need to back off with that shit already.
posted by Hoopo at 10:57 AM on June 24 [2 favorites +] [!]
The recent documentary on Curt Cobain, Montage of Heck is definitely something that should be seen. It's a very moving portrait of a gifted musician who struggled with his new found fame
I believe Hoppo is referring to the even more recent documentary on Cobain, Soaked in Bleach.
posted by alexoscar at 9:01 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Hoopo at 10:57 AM on June 24 [2 favorites +] [!]
The recent documentary on Curt Cobain, Montage of Heck is definitely something that should be seen. It's a very moving portrait of a gifted musician who struggled with his new found fame
I believe Hoppo is referring to the even more recent documentary on Cobain, Soaked in Bleach.
posted by alexoscar at 9:01 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
My take on this is that John Lennon is felt to be such a Christ-figure that meeting Yoko Ono can only be interpreted as one of his Stations of the Cross.
posted by nicolin at 9:07 AM on June 24, 2015
posted by nicolin at 9:07 AM on June 24, 2015
shakespeherian: "It's like a more-interesting Talking Heads."
Impossible, by definition.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:10 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Impossible, by definition.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:10 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Such a terrible song on so many levels. (song)
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:56 AM on June 24 [+] [!]
I disagree. Sounds like early B-52s to me.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:19 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:56 AM on June 24 [+] [!]
I disagree. Sounds like early B-52s to me.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:19 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kate Bush being the obvious counterexample.
Kate Bush being considered a "lousy singer" is actually an example, not a counterexample - because she's not one. She's not the greatest vocalist who ever lived, but she's decent. She makes some stylistic choices that take her outside the boundaries of what is considered conventional or pretty, and gets some really harsh judgments in return, though.
The criticism she receives is stronger than I think a male artist would. Like the Joanna Newsome example posted above. I don't really like the style, but it's intentional - she's not doing it because she "can't sing." Male artists who employ similar styles seem to get much more of a pass than she does.
Then of course, men in general seem to get much more of a pass than women do, when it comes to all sorts of endeavors.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:28 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Kate Bush being considered a "lousy singer" is actually an example, not a counterexample - because she's not one. She's not the greatest vocalist who ever lived, but she's decent. She makes some stylistic choices that take her outside the boundaries of what is considered conventional or pretty, and gets some really harsh judgments in return, though.
The criticism she receives is stronger than I think a male artist would. Like the Joanna Newsome example posted above. I don't really like the style, but it's intentional - she's not doing it because she "can't sing." Male artists who employ similar styles seem to get much more of a pass than she does.
Then of course, men in general seem to get much more of a pass than women do, when it comes to all sorts of endeavors.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 9:28 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'm having trouble thinking of a reverse pairing where a hugely popular artist marries a much less well-known male artist and her fans revile him for being "forced" to experience his work.
Madonna, Guy Ritchie, and Swept Away.
posted by Thing at 9:34 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Madonna, Guy Ritchie, and Swept Away.
posted by Thing at 9:34 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
This all seems pretty obvious to me. You have a successful avant garde artist whose work is deliberately challenging on an intellectual and aesthetic basis, and is consumed by a relatively small audience that is experienced in this sort of art and, for the most part, has taken the time to become highly educated in this kind of art. In other words, this is not necessarily art for beginners, and it's unlikely to be appealing to beginners or even understood by them. This is why, in the opera, we don't recommend Lulu as the first opera someone attends. So, this artist ends up married to someone who has achieved remarkable fame and success in a style of music that is far less experimental and challenging, and which fundamentally is music for the masses. The musician's fame brings unprecedented attention to the artist's work, including some not-very-successful collaborations in the musician's medium, and the inexperienced, uneducated and disinterested public hates it. Why should this be surprising? A big part of the reason segments of the public are closer to finding value in Ono's work is that it's not nearly as edgy and experimental today as it was 30 years ago. Meanwhile, I don't suppose Ono's attempts at music-making are any less successful than Lennon's attempts at non-musical art.
posted by slkinsey at 10:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 10:09 AM on June 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
Oh yes, I think Lennon was likely an asshole with Yoko, but there are multiple biographical hints that he was a recovering asshole rather than just an asshole.
Kutsuwamushi: The criticism she (Kate Bush) receives is stronger than I think a male artist would.
Tom Waits comes to mind as a male artist famous for making strong stylistic choices based on the mood and narrative of the song.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:20 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Kutsuwamushi: The criticism she (Kate Bush) receives is stronger than I think a male artist would.
Tom Waits comes to mind as a male artist famous for making strong stylistic choices based on the mood and narrative of the song.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:20 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I was just reading this article about Anais Nin on the bus this morning and thinking about Yoko. I hear what y'all are saying about the problems inherent in bringing a popular music audience to avant-garde art, but I think this is also just how we tend to treat women who insist on being the star of their own movie despite being intimately involved with men considered to be "more important."
I've always had a fierce love for Yoko, her art, and her entire persona, and I want to be just like her when I'm 80.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:25 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
I've always had a fierce love for Yoko, her art, and her entire persona, and I want to be just like her when I'm 80.
posted by sunset in snow country at 10:25 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Except it doesn't. It intermixes Yoko Ono's abysmal music masquerading as art with her life overall, and vaguely tries to imply that the hatred is directed towards Yoko Ono as a person, and as a woman.
yeah, this reminds me of the relatively recent historic "truth" that the anti-Disco hate of the late 1970s was a resolutely homophobic thing. It wasn't. I'm not saying that there wasn't some homophobia in the mix but to argue that it was the dominant ingredient (as I've heard more than once lately) feels like the worst kind of revisionism. Please, if you're going to perpetuate that kind of thing, at least have the courtesy to wait until everybody that had to endure it has passed on ...
As for Ms. Ono, it is possible to both admire her art and intellect while generally* running the other way when it comes to her singing.
* there have been a few occasions when I didn't instantly reject an Ono vocal. The most recent one that comes to mind was something she did with the Flaming Lips. Even if it is all just two words repeated (probably a sample), it's the right two words.
posted by philip-random at 10:30 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
yeah, this reminds me of the relatively recent historic "truth" that the anti-Disco hate of the late 1970s was a resolutely homophobic thing. It wasn't. I'm not saying that there wasn't some homophobia in the mix but to argue that it was the dominant ingredient (as I've heard more than once lately) feels like the worst kind of revisionism. Please, if you're going to perpetuate that kind of thing, at least have the courtesy to wait until everybody that had to endure it has passed on ...
As for Ms. Ono, it is possible to both admire her art and intellect while generally* running the other way when it comes to her singing.
* there have been a few occasions when I didn't instantly reject an Ono vocal. The most recent one that comes to mind was something she did with the Flaming Lips. Even if it is all just two words repeated (probably a sample), it's the right two words.
posted by philip-random at 10:30 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm sure that the bulk of that is pure wishful thinking on my part, but I'm intrigued by the fact that, despite the post-breakup animus between Lennon and McCartney, they later repaired their friendship. McCartney talks about how he and John were watching the SNL episode in which Lorne Michaels offers the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show (there was a concert promoter at the time who was offering them millions of dollars for a single reunion concert), and they actually talked about grabbing a couple of guitars and going down to 30 Rock and just dropping in to the middle of the show to do a couple of numbers, but they were too stoned to do anything but laugh at the idea.
Interestingly this, too, kind of got pinned on Yoko. In the made-for-cable film "Two Of Us" , a fictionalized account about this day they spent together -- featuring Jared Harris doing a pretty damn good Lennon and Aiden Quinn not doing a particularly good McCartney -- they're all set to head down to the studio to crash the broadcast when Yoko calls... and John disappears into this needy conversation and Paul waits for a little while and eventually just smiles wryly and heads for the door.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:32 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Interestingly this, too, kind of got pinned on Yoko. In the made-for-cable film "Two Of Us" , a fictionalized account about this day they spent together -- featuring Jared Harris doing a pretty damn good Lennon and Aiden Quinn not doing a particularly good McCartney -- they're all set to head down to the studio to crash the broadcast when Yoko calls... and John disappears into this needy conversation and Paul waits for a little while and eventually just smiles wryly and heads for the door.
posted by George_Spiggott at 10:32 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
also, I'd be a damned dirty liar if I didn't say this brings back fond memories of my own grandmother as she moved into her eighties
posted by philip-random at 10:33 AM on June 24, 2015
posted by philip-random at 10:33 AM on June 24, 2015
When I watch that Mike Douglas performance now, I see something different from what Burr does — or from what I might have seen a decade ago. I see in Ono a locus of possibility. A portal leading toward an alternate universe in which I can freely admit sacrilegious things: that I feel uncomfortable falling at the feet of both Lennon or Berry because one of them beat his ex-wife and the other was once arrested for transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines; that these two don’t sound all that great together; that there is something laughably tame about their performance, and by extension the entire supposedly revolutionary art form of rock and roll, if it can be so profoundly threatened by a woman playing a drum and making weird noises with her voice. I see a woman throwing blood.There's nothing threatening about Ono's "performance," I found that clip totally hilarious. Just look at Chuck Berry's face when Ono starts warbling.
posted by wuwei at 10:48 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Her musical output is terrible but not as bad as her bonkers proclamations about music, which she delivered earnestly, such as "I realized that the classics, when they went from 4/4 to 4/3, lost the heart beat."
A big reason so many people hate her is because of the awful gloomy face she had when sitting in the Beatles' recording sessions in Let it Be. These four musicians had spread the deepest and most profound joy throughout the world and yet when they pulled back the curtain to show you where it came from, there was now a shitty atmosphere of tetchy arguments with a spectator who looked ready to commit suicide. She became the visible scapegoat for that trauma.
posted by colie at 10:49 AM on June 24, 2015
A big reason so many people hate her is because of the awful gloomy face she had when sitting in the Beatles' recording sessions in Let it Be. These four musicians had spread the deepest and most profound joy throughout the world and yet when they pulled back the curtain to show you where it came from, there was now a shitty atmosphere of tetchy arguments with a spectator who looked ready to commit suicide. She became the visible scapegoat for that trauma.
posted by colie at 10:49 AM on June 24, 2015
Jeez, can there really be anybody left who still hates Yoko?
Not hate, just disgust.
I'll never forget the documentary footage that shows her following Lennon around the studio. If he walked to the drum kit, she followed him. No personal space. The letter she sent to Lennon while he was in India, "when you see the clouds think of me", or close to those words. That's next level creepy shit. Just how many people have to write or talk about her almost hypnotic control over Lennon before people believe it? Same thing happened to Brian Wilson.
I don't think she caused the breakup, though, but the Beatles probably reunite if not for her. Considering that none of them wrote a decent song after 74 or 75, it's probably best they didn't get back together. Can you stomach the thought of A Little Luck being on a Beatles' album? Neither can I.
posted by Beholder at 10:53 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not hate, just disgust.
I'll never forget the documentary footage that shows her following Lennon around the studio. If he walked to the drum kit, she followed him. No personal space. The letter she sent to Lennon while he was in India, "when you see the clouds think of me", or close to those words. That's next level creepy shit. Just how many people have to write or talk about her almost hypnotic control over Lennon before people believe it? Same thing happened to Brian Wilson.
I don't think she caused the breakup, though, but the Beatles probably reunite if not for her. Considering that none of them wrote a decent song after 74 or 75, it's probably best they didn't get back together. Can you stomach the thought of A Little Luck being on a Beatles' album? Neither can I.
posted by Beholder at 10:53 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Tom Waits comes to mind as a male artist famous for making strong stylistic choices based on the mood and narrative of the song.
when I was about 16 I was really digging on Tom Waits and thought it was something my dad would really like. I remembered him being into acid rock and old blues stuff etc, but the old person tastes were starting to creep in at this point too (yes I realize acid rock and blues could very easily be considered old person music too if you want to go there, but this was the 90s and 60s acid rock was still a pretty huge and direct influence on popular music). He told me after listening to Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs or whatever it was I gave him that he liked the music but couldn't stand Tom Waits' voice. YMMV but Tom Waits' vocals are not appreciated by everyone.
I'm also pretty sure 3rd Bass called him out for putting on a fake blues guy voice/appropriation but I'm not totally sure what they were getting at and that's pretty rich for a group of white rappers. But I digress.
posted by Hoopo at 11:34 AM on June 24, 2015
when I was about 16 I was really digging on Tom Waits and thought it was something my dad would really like. I remembered him being into acid rock and old blues stuff etc, but the old person tastes were starting to creep in at this point too (yes I realize acid rock and blues could very easily be considered old person music too if you want to go there, but this was the 90s and 60s acid rock was still a pretty huge and direct influence on popular music). He told me after listening to Swordfishtrombones or Rain Dogs or whatever it was I gave him that he liked the music but couldn't stand Tom Waits' voice. YMMV but Tom Waits' vocals are not appreciated by everyone.
I'm also pretty sure 3rd Bass called him out for putting on a fake blues guy voice/appropriation but I'm not totally sure what they were getting at and that's pretty rich for a group of white rappers. But I digress.
posted by Hoopo at 11:34 AM on June 24, 2015
I have a theory that Ono, as a conceptual artist, is quietly responsible for raising the Beatles to mythic stature in the band's afterlife. You don't just get that by being a great pop band.
You are aware they had mythic stature while they were a current band, right?
posted by tremspeed at 12:15 PM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yeah, Yoko made the Beatles myth. Laugh for the day.
posted by telstar at 12:30 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by telstar at 12:30 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
YMMV but Tom Waits' vocals are not appreciated by everyone.
I'm also pretty sure 3rd Bass called him out for putting on a fake blues guy voice/appropriation
I like a lot of what I've heard from Mr. Waits over the years, but I can also relate to this. To my mind, what he's really doing much of the time is acting (ie: taking on a part), and usually doing it very well. But it's still acting.
Yoko Ono on the other hand, that's not acting. That's uniquely her.
posted by philip-random at 12:31 PM on June 24, 2015
I'm also pretty sure 3rd Bass called him out for putting on a fake blues guy voice/appropriation
I like a lot of what I've heard from Mr. Waits over the years, but I can also relate to this. To my mind, what he's really doing much of the time is acting (ie: taking on a part), and usually doing it very well. But it's still acting.
Yoko Ono on the other hand, that's not acting. That's uniquely her.
posted by philip-random at 12:31 PM on June 24, 2015
I have a theory that Ono, as a conceptual artist, is quietly responsible for raising the Beatles to mythic stature in the band's afterlife. You don't just get that by being a great pop band. You get that by making specific choices about framing your legacy.
No. Just no. I don't hate Ono or blame her for the breakup of the Beatles. But she has very little to do with the Beatles legacy, which was far more than just being a great pop band. The Beatles were one of the few popular artists of the last century that had a real and profound impact on western culture. This would have been the case with or without Yoko Ono.
posted by Ber at 1:08 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
No. Just no. I don't hate Ono or blame her for the breakup of the Beatles. But she has very little to do with the Beatles legacy, which was far more than just being a great pop band. The Beatles were one of the few popular artists of the last century that had a real and profound impact on western culture. This would have been the case with or without Yoko Ono.
posted by Ber at 1:08 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
I like a little Ono in my life - I remember hearing Open Your Box on the radio a long time ago, and it's stuck fast to this day - and the "Why" track linked above is something I'll listen to again (not quite sure about the Can vibe, but I can see that I might get there.) I admire her a lot, like her music sparingly, and will be doing a spot more exploration.
Whether there's a big aversion to female out-there vocalists compared to male ones, I really don't know - out-there vocalists aren't that common, at least that get much public prominence. Bad vocalists? Well, when you can't sing well you bring something else to the party. There was Lou Reed (whose Art Celebrity Marriage to Laurie Anderson didn't seem to do either of them any harm artistically, and clearly made them happier people), but then there was Nico too.
There has been sniggering from the back of the class over the Fripp/Toyah pairing, but I don't think it's changed anyone's opinion of either's musical merits and on the whole has added to the gaiety of nations.
Thinking... Young Marble Giants/Lene Lovich/Cosey Fanni Tutti all have places in lots of people's hearts. It's certainly possible to be out there, for various values of out there, and be female, and be taken on your merits. I can't offhand think of any remotely plausible male analogue for Ono to compare her with musically, and I'm too much of a dilettante in conceptual art to make any meaningful judgement on that side: I doubt if she'd not hooked up with Lennon her gender would have affected people's stated perception of her. Those that like that sort of thing would have taken her output alongside her contemporaries, those who consider all such stuff pretentious crap would dismiss it and her with the same lack of compunction they'd offer to the rest.
The hatred is a peculiar amalgem of dispossession, jealousy and incomprehension, laced with the same sort of misogyny and racism that finds itself suddenly permitted to appear as you get with the freedom lately awarded the anonymous online. It's ugly and mean and wrong and not unique.
posted by Devonian at 1:10 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Whether there's a big aversion to female out-there vocalists compared to male ones, I really don't know - out-there vocalists aren't that common, at least that get much public prominence. Bad vocalists? Well, when you can't sing well you bring something else to the party. There was Lou Reed (whose Art Celebrity Marriage to Laurie Anderson didn't seem to do either of them any harm artistically, and clearly made them happier people), but then there was Nico too.
There has been sniggering from the back of the class over the Fripp/Toyah pairing, but I don't think it's changed anyone's opinion of either's musical merits and on the whole has added to the gaiety of nations.
Thinking... Young Marble Giants/Lene Lovich/Cosey Fanni Tutti all have places in lots of people's hearts. It's certainly possible to be out there, for various values of out there, and be female, and be taken on your merits. I can't offhand think of any remotely plausible male analogue for Ono to compare her with musically, and I'm too much of a dilettante in conceptual art to make any meaningful judgement on that side: I doubt if she'd not hooked up with Lennon her gender would have affected people's stated perception of her. Those that like that sort of thing would have taken her output alongside her contemporaries, those who consider all such stuff pretentious crap would dismiss it and her with the same lack of compunction they'd offer to the rest.
The hatred is a peculiar amalgem of dispossession, jealousy and incomprehension, laced with the same sort of misogyny and racism that finds itself suddenly permitted to appear as you get with the freedom lately awarded the anonymous online. It's ugly and mean and wrong and not unique.
posted by Devonian at 1:10 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Just how many people have to write or talk about her almost hypnotic control over Lennon before people believe it? Same thing happened to Brian Wilson.
Come on now. Whatever you think of Ono's work the Beatles - and yes, particularly John - broke up the damn Beatles. Brian Wilson was already losing his shit when Eugene Landy got to him.
posted by atoxyl at 1:35 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
Come on now. Whatever you think of Ono's work the Beatles - and yes, particularly John - broke up the damn Beatles. Brian Wilson was already losing his shit when Eugene Landy got to him.
posted by atoxyl at 1:35 PM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
blaming women for men's mental illness has a particularly nasty history.
posted by nadawi at 1:46 PM on June 24, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 1:46 PM on June 24, 2015 [20 favorites]
laced with the same sort of misogyny and racism that finds itself suddenly permitted to appear as you get with the freedom lately awarded the anonymous online.
I think the general street level of respect for Ono has increased in recent years, whereas when I was a kid in the early 80s you would hear openly racist idiotic jokes about her, and it was an accepted 'fact' that she 'broke up the Beatles'.
Lennon was simply bored of making music even before he met her, after killing himself singing and smiling constantly for over a decade, and you can hear it in all his songs after roughly the end of 1966. She facilitated his exit from it all.
posted by colie at 1:53 PM on June 24, 2015
I think the general street level of respect for Ono has increased in recent years, whereas when I was a kid in the early 80s you would hear openly racist idiotic jokes about her, and it was an accepted 'fact' that she 'broke up the Beatles'.
Lennon was simply bored of making music even before he met her, after killing himself singing and smiling constantly for over a decade, and you can hear it in all his songs after roughly the end of 1966. She facilitated his exit from it all.
posted by colie at 1:53 PM on June 24, 2015
3rd Bass made a rape joke in their most popular song, so I tend not to look to them for judgment calls.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:21 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Chrysostom at 2:21 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
I can't offhand think of any remotely plausible male analogue for Ono to compare her with musically.
A lot of the ululating, etc. come straight out of traditional Japanese music - something I didn't appreciate until first hearing Folkways' great "Traditional Folk Songs of Japan" set many years after first hearing Ono.
Her first husband was composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, and their mutual love for Japanese folk culture and the European avant garde is apparently what drew them (briefly) together - her later music seems like an extension of interests going back to the start of her career.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:25 PM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
A lot of the ululating, etc. come straight out of traditional Japanese music - something I didn't appreciate until first hearing Folkways' great "Traditional Folk Songs of Japan" set many years after first hearing Ono.
Her first husband was composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, and their mutual love for Japanese folk culture and the European avant garde is apparently what drew them (briefly) together - her later music seems like an extension of interests going back to the start of her career.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:25 PM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
I really like a lot of Fluxus art and dig some of Ono's conceptual work, but am too young to really have heard much of her music. I follow her on Twitter and like her a lot there. The idea that she doesn't have a sense of humor is the kind of ridiculous misogyny that comes from men who do not understand that women make jokes and cannot comprehend that we are also funny, which is a pretty common stream of bullshit, unfortunately.
Regarding Lennon, I'm not sure why people keep saying "asshole" when they mean "abuser".
posted by NoraReed at 2:56 PM on June 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
Regarding Lennon, I'm not sure why people keep saying "asshole" when they mean "abuser".
posted by NoraReed at 2:56 PM on June 24, 2015 [14 favorites]
NoraReed at 3:56: “Regarding Lennon, I'm not sure why people keep saying ‘asshole’ when they mean ‘abuser’.”
Yes, this is true. John Lennon – let's say it, it needs to be said, because depressingly few people know it – John Lennon was an abuser, both mental and physical, who beat both of his wives (Cynthia and Yoko) and heaped all kinds of weird and awful verbal (and probably physical) abuse on his children as well – and who was even known to get violent with close friends.
And Yoko Ono's coping mechanisms were in turn quite bizarre, although I've always felt as though she must have been at wit's end a lot of the time. Still, the whole thing where she ordered her assistant to date John for a year and a half when she wanted a break – pretty odd. Almost a bit humorous, looked at from the outside, since it really allowed her the space she needed, but from the inside I've always felt that that must have been borne out of a certain amount of very real trauma.
In fact, that's really my view on the Beatles in general. They're really the classic instance of people kind of torn apart by everything surrounding the music. I am an undying fan of their love songs, and of a lot of their music; I see how people can get lost in that; but if you do, it's easy to forget that they were people who were severely messed up in almost every way. Mental illness reigned supreme in their lives; Paul was paranoid, obsessive, selfish, at turns kind and cruel; John was sometimes flat-out crazy, flirting with Scientology and other weird affiliations, also at turns kind and cruel – heaping praise and affection on Julian, for example, and then almost immediately screaming "I HATE THE WAY YOU LAUGH!" at him when he giggled harmlessly. All that left them basically powerless when they fell into relationships, and John understood, I think, that Yoko loved him, that he was damned lucky to be with her, and that it was worth putting up with any weirdness.
Yoko, for her part, is a much more unconventional and (in my mind, anyway) interesting artist. I wouldn't want her to be my parent, either, but she was certainly better than John, for all her weirdness. She knew, at any rate, the tremendous cost these people paid for their fame. She's more canny even than those who don't mind her give her credit for.
posted by koeselitz at 3:58 PM on June 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Yes, this is true. John Lennon – let's say it, it needs to be said, because depressingly few people know it – John Lennon was an abuser, both mental and physical, who beat both of his wives (Cynthia and Yoko) and heaped all kinds of weird and awful verbal (and probably physical) abuse on his children as well – and who was even known to get violent with close friends.
And Yoko Ono's coping mechanisms were in turn quite bizarre, although I've always felt as though she must have been at wit's end a lot of the time. Still, the whole thing where she ordered her assistant to date John for a year and a half when she wanted a break – pretty odd. Almost a bit humorous, looked at from the outside, since it really allowed her the space she needed, but from the inside I've always felt that that must have been borne out of a certain amount of very real trauma.
In fact, that's really my view on the Beatles in general. They're really the classic instance of people kind of torn apart by everything surrounding the music. I am an undying fan of their love songs, and of a lot of their music; I see how people can get lost in that; but if you do, it's easy to forget that they were people who were severely messed up in almost every way. Mental illness reigned supreme in their lives; Paul was paranoid, obsessive, selfish, at turns kind and cruel; John was sometimes flat-out crazy, flirting with Scientology and other weird affiliations, also at turns kind and cruel – heaping praise and affection on Julian, for example, and then almost immediately screaming "I HATE THE WAY YOU LAUGH!" at him when he giggled harmlessly. All that left them basically powerless when they fell into relationships, and John understood, I think, that Yoko loved him, that he was damned lucky to be with her, and that it was worth putting up with any weirdness.
Yoko, for her part, is a much more unconventional and (in my mind, anyway) interesting artist. I wouldn't want her to be my parent, either, but she was certainly better than John, for all her weirdness. She knew, at any rate, the tremendous cost these people paid for their fame. She's more canny even than those who don't mind her give her credit for.
posted by koeselitz at 3:58 PM on June 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Regarding Lennon, I'm not sure why people keep saying "asshole" when they mean "abuser".
Make artists get special dispensation, whether it's Lennon, Kanye West, or Igmar Bergman. Female artists don't get that level of "art justifies everything" accommodation.
I think part of it is there's still the common idea that women can't be creatives, especially in music. Singers, sure. But writers, composers, being in charge artistically? That's denigrated. See the narratives about Taylor Swift, or Madonna, as opposed to well, Kanye West.
Unfortunately, I don't see any easy solution, as if anything, sexism in music and media in general has gotten worse over the last twenty years. It's going to be a long time before things get better, and even longer before women in music get as much respect as men.
posted by happyroach at 4:17 PM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Make artists get special dispensation, whether it's Lennon, Kanye West, or Igmar Bergman. Female artists don't get that level of "art justifies everything" accommodation.
I think part of it is there's still the common idea that women can't be creatives, especially in music. Singers, sure. But writers, composers, being in charge artistically? That's denigrated. See the narratives about Taylor Swift, or Madonna, as opposed to well, Kanye West.
Unfortunately, I don't see any easy solution, as if anything, sexism in music and media in general has gotten worse over the last twenty years. It's going to be a long time before things get better, and even longer before women in music get as much respect as men.
posted by happyroach at 4:17 PM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]
Make artists get special dispensation, whether it's Lennon, Kanye West, or Igmar Bergman Roman Polanski.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:42 PM on June 24, 2015
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:42 PM on June 24, 2015
yeah, this reminds me of the relatively recent historic "truth" that the anti-Disco hate of the late 1970s was a resolutely homophobic thing. It wasn't.
Indeed. There was a lot of conscious and unconscious racism mixed up with that as well.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:05 AM on June 25, 2015 [7 favorites]
Indeed. There was a lot of conscious and unconscious racism mixed up with that as well.
posted by MartinWisse at 12:05 AM on June 25, 2015 [7 favorites]
being in charge artistically? That's denigrated. See the narratives about Taylor Swift, or Madonna, as opposed to well, Kanye West.
Pretty much the whole planet loves Swift, and Madonna's reinventions are completely part of her 'brand'. Both of them have sold tens of millions more than West, who most people think is a bit of an egotistical dick.
On the other hand, I do agree that Lana del Rey was vilified for inventing an alter ego whereas say David Bowie wasn't at all.
posted by colie at 12:27 AM on June 25, 2015
Pretty much the whole planet loves Swift, and Madonna's reinventions are completely part of her 'brand'. Both of them have sold tens of millions more than West, who most people think is a bit of an egotistical dick.
On the other hand, I do agree that Lana del Rey was vilified for inventing an alter ego whereas say David Bowie wasn't at all.
posted by colie at 12:27 AM on June 25, 2015
Jeez, can there really be anybody left who still hates Yoko?
Yea, it's a chic "cultured" thing to hate on her if you're a seasoned fedora-tipping-gentlesir redditor type. Like, a lot of nerdy guys link that bill burr video over and over and over and slap eachother on the back and talk about what an awful insert_slur she is.
I went through a period of resenting the fact that it's impossible to even mildly align yourself with the idea of not really liking her work without getting grouped in with them, before i realized that not only is she a cool person who does cool stuff... but the people who hat her now hate the idea of her they've been fed more than they actually hate her, or really know anything about her.
The hate and disgust even in here is pretty weird. You really can't escape it. If the conversation comes up, either you step out, defend her, or just fade in to the miasma of disgusting powerful hate and bile. It's turtles of ethics in performance art all the way down.
The only remote equivalent i can think of is Courtney Love. And that hatred was strong enough to get a fucking movie made like it was my little pony fandom or something.
posted by emptythought at 4:10 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yea, it's a chic "cultured" thing to hate on her if you're a seasoned fedora-tipping-gentlesir redditor type. Like, a lot of nerdy guys link that bill burr video over and over and over and slap eachother on the back and talk about what an awful insert_slur she is.
I went through a period of resenting the fact that it's impossible to even mildly align yourself with the idea of not really liking her work without getting grouped in with them, before i realized that not only is she a cool person who does cool stuff... but the people who hat her now hate the idea of her they've been fed more than they actually hate her, or really know anything about her.
The hate and disgust even in here is pretty weird. You really can't escape it. If the conversation comes up, either you step out, defend her, or just fade in to the miasma of disgusting powerful hate and bile. It's turtles of ethics in performance art all the way down.
The only remote equivalent i can think of is Courtney Love. And that hatred was strong enough to get a fucking movie made like it was my little pony fandom or something.
posted by emptythought at 4:10 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yoko Ono's work is distinctly not my thing. Which isn't a big deal because most art finds only a small minority of an appreciative audience. Other areas that are not my thing are Renaissance painting, Bela Bartok, pop country, and other-world fantasy right now.
But the biographical demonization of Yoko Ono and hagiography of John Lennon really bugs me. It's kind of like Antonio Salieri. Antonio was comfortable going to operas with Mozart, became one of the leading conductors of Mozart after Mozart died, retired from composing to train the early German Romantics, including Beethoven, in choral composition. But politics is politics, and demanded a villain to the story.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:57 AM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
But the biographical demonization of Yoko Ono and hagiography of John Lennon really bugs me. It's kind of like Antonio Salieri. Antonio was comfortable going to operas with Mozart, became one of the leading conductors of Mozart after Mozart died, retired from composing to train the early German Romantics, including Beethoven, in choral composition. But politics is politics, and demanded a villain to the story.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 5:57 AM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
I wonder when we will get the hit Broadway "fantasia" with an institutionalized Yoko confessing to destroying the band out of professional jealousy.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:21 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:21 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
colie: "On the other hand, I do agree that Lana del Rey was vilified for inventing an alter ego whereas say David Bowie wasn't at all."
Garth Brooks was, though.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:45 AM on June 25, 2015
Garth Brooks was, though.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:45 AM on June 25, 2015
Also, Dar Williams singing I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono
Also, Barenaked Ladies singing Be My Yoko Ono
posted by LEGO Damashii at 9:24 AM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also, Barenaked Ladies singing Be My Yoko Ono
posted by LEGO Damashii at 9:24 AM on June 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
The only remote equivalent i can think of is Courtney Love.
Ono is very likeable compared to Love, who by coincidence today is out there tweeting away as an ignorant racist.
posted by colie at 11:27 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ono is very likeable compared to Love, who by coincidence today is out there tweeting away as an ignorant racist.
posted by colie at 11:27 AM on June 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
With Courtney Love, it's always a toss-up whether she's going to be the professional who's very knowledgeable and honest about the music business, or the "wax my anus" Courtney.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:08 PM on June 25, 2015
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:08 PM on June 25, 2015
Surely the most knowledgeable people about the music industry have their anuses waxed weekly.
posted by colie at 12:10 PM on June 25, 2015
posted by colie at 12:10 PM on June 25, 2015
As far as ignorant racism goes, i feel pretty comfortable saying that's really mild cranky mom who watches the tv news too much stuff, and that i still feel like she's held to a much much higher and harsher standard than your average celebrity, much less your average person.
I think it's a pretty apt comparison because the tiniest negative or annoying things, or even just things either of them do get pointed to as "see, they kind of suck, it's not just us!". That definitely didn't convince me that she was more of an ignorant racist than your generic average USian person.
posted by emptythought at 12:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
I think it's a pretty apt comparison because the tiniest negative or annoying things, or even just things either of them do get pointed to as "see, they kind of suck, it's not just us!". That definitely didn't convince me that she was more of an ignorant racist than your generic average USian person.
posted by emptythought at 12:54 PM on June 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ono is very likeable compared to Love,
maybe as a person. I haven't met either except via the media's distorted lens. The one person I do know who's spent time with Ms. Love was treated very well even if the circumstances were somewhat chaotic.
As for the music they've given us, I'd rate Live Through This significantly higher than any of the stuff Ono did with John Lennon, let alone her solo stuff.
posted by philip-random at 1:12 PM on June 25, 2015
maybe as a person. I haven't met either except via the media's distorted lens. The one person I do know who's spent time with Ms. Love was treated very well even if the circumstances were somewhat chaotic.
As for the music they've given us, I'd rate Live Through This significantly higher than any of the stuff Ono did with John Lennon, let alone her solo stuff.
posted by philip-random at 1:12 PM on June 25, 2015
So there was this video that went viral last year of the performance at Glastonbury. It came past in one or another feed and to my eternal shame with all the opprobrium heaping on it I didn't have the nerve to pipe up and say how brilliant I thought it was. Yoko was wailing away to her lost daughter, looking and sounding for all the world like a female Damo Suzuki while Yo La Tengo wigged out behind her. What wasn't to like?
Not so. Apparently it was the Worst Thing Ever.
I found out about the scope of her work when I discovered Fluxus a few years ago, and came to appreciate how influential she's been in her way. She's badass. I'd like to think history will be kinder than the present. And there's no way any of us will be that cool when we're 80.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 1:38 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not so. Apparently it was the Worst Thing Ever.
I found out about the scope of her work when I discovered Fluxus a few years ago, and came to appreciate how influential she's been in her way. She's badass. I'd like to think history will be kinder than the present. And there's no way any of us will be that cool when we're 80.
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth at 1:38 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yoko Ono's Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) was covered by The B-52s on their album Whammy as Don't Worry but they were forced to remove it from later pressings due to a legal challenge from Ono.
posted by hippybear at 3:05 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by hippybear at 3:05 AM on June 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
As for the music they've given us, I'd rate Live Through This significantly higher than any of the stuff Ono did with John Lennon, let alone her solo stuff.
Higher than the Double Fantasy album? Not in this universe.
posted by tremspeed at 6:18 PM on July 1, 2015
Higher than the Double Fantasy album? Not in this universe.
posted by tremspeed at 6:18 PM on July 1, 2015
or maybe it just doesn't make any sense to declare a winner between different artists, from different generations, making different music, with a different goals.
posted by nadawi at 7:23 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by nadawi at 7:23 PM on July 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Higher than the Double Fantasy album? Not in this universe.
Double Fantasy is a particularly annoying album for me. It should have been mostly shrugged off as hardly worth the wait (Lennon's first album in half a decade and most of it's way too soft and comfortable and blah), but instead it became this sort of final testament from Bigger Than Jesus John the Beatle that got played to death (and then some all the way to zombie-ism) by every radio station in the known universe.
One more crime for which Mark David Chapman is ultimately to blame.
posted by philip-random at 9:03 PM on July 1, 2015
Double Fantasy is a particularly annoying album for me. It should have been mostly shrugged off as hardly worth the wait (Lennon's first album in half a decade and most of it's way too soft and comfortable and blah), but instead it became this sort of final testament from Bigger Than Jesus John the Beatle that got played to death (and then some all the way to zombie-ism) by every radio station in the known universe.
One more crime for which Mark David Chapman is ultimately to blame.
posted by philip-random at 9:03 PM on July 1, 2015
Art aside, the remaining adoration of John Lennon is an example of why being an irresponsible father, adulterer, drug-addict, or wife beater is still somehow relatively acceptable today. The remaining vitriol directed at Yoko Ono is an example of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and mindless scapegoating. I wonder if the hatred could possibly have gotten so potent had Ono been white. *cough* no f-ing way *cough*
Ono's art is far from palatable to the mainstream; her work is not popular in contemporary East Asia, either.
But everyone (especially on that godawful reddit thread) should seriously get over the fact that John Lennon was a deeply flawed dude, full stop. If they can manage that, perhaps they can also stop redirecting their disappointed fangirl/fanboy ire at the innocent Japanese girl he fell in love with, married, and reproduced with. Yeah, he left his first white wife for her, but since when is modern America so loyal to first wives, and maybe Ono isn't the greatest musician that your parents ever brainwashed you with, but like, suck it up, pick up the shattered pieces of your lives, and move on. Sheesh.
posted by knowgood at 6:06 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ono's art is far from palatable to the mainstream; her work is not popular in contemporary East Asia, either.
But everyone (especially on that godawful reddit thread) should seriously get over the fact that John Lennon was a deeply flawed dude, full stop. If they can manage that, perhaps they can also stop redirecting their disappointed fangirl/fanboy ire at the innocent Japanese girl he fell in love with, married, and reproduced with. Yeah, he left his first white wife for her, but since when is modern America so loyal to first wives, and maybe Ono isn't the greatest musician that your parents ever brainwashed you with, but like, suck it up, pick up the shattered pieces of your lives, and move on. Sheesh.
posted by knowgood at 6:06 AM on July 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
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