Is Stephen Merritt a racist? Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker's Pop Critic and maybe the finest music critic writing today, has long been an activist against rockism. Stephen Merritt, the gay, white auteur behind such postmodern pop experiments as 69 Love Songs, and sometime target of S/FJ's ire, recently got into hot water with Jessica Hopper, among others, for allegedly racist comments made at the EMP Pop Music Conference, which is Christmas and Halloween all rolled into one for music crits and their fellow nerds. Slate's John Cook defends Merritt, claiming that disliking rap doesn't necessarily make one a racist, and S/FJ responds with some further thoughts. But was Frere-Jones accusing Merritt of racism, specifically, or simply of wack unexamined biases? And is that a fair criticism? Slate's readers don't seem to think so.
posted by maxreax on May 9, 2006 - 182 comments

Spot The Essential, Seminal, How-Could-These-Imbeciles-Have-Forgotten? Popular Song: A well-made list, specially if it's authoritative and includes no less than 500 songs, is just asking to be cruelly inspected for omissions, ridiculed for certain inclusions and generally derided. This one is, admittedly, a toughy. But perhaps way too US-centric and too Rockist. I mean, honestly, sometimes you Yanks act as if you'd invented Pop music! ;) (Via the newly-discovered Rivurcated Bifets.)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Nov 19, 2003 - 67 comments