Eminem v. Pynchon

[Phil Wise]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <DMillison at ftmg.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 5:01 AM
Subject: RE: Eminem v. Pynchon


> Media industry consolidation has been ongoing.  TimeWarnerAOL epitomizes
the
> larger trend.  Today's global, integrated media empires are quite a bit
> larger than the first feeble attempts of so-called "conglomerates" in the
> 70s.   Rupert Murdoch, Sumner Redstone, Gerald Levin all have far more
> power, and the ability to promote product across media and national
> boundaries, than media industry executives had back then.  Check out
Global
> Concentration:
> The Media Ownership Chart at http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/ and
the
> links there to more info on the consolidation of the media industry over
the
> past couple of decades.
>
> I don't know that you could ever make any fine political distinctions
based
> on rock and roll or musical tastes (Zappa did a great job of exposing the
> phoniness of "hippies" judging people based on style in his one Top 40
hit:
> "There will come a time when everybody who is lonely will be free to sing
> and dance and love. There will come a time when every evil that we know
will
> be an evil that we can rise above. Who cares if hair is long or short or
> sprayed or partly grayed, we all know that hair aint where it's at.  There
> will come a time when you won't even be ashamed if you are fat." -- quoted
> from memory, not vouching for accuracy, "scuse me while I kiss this guy".)
> But it is true that in the 60s and into the 70s, here in the U.S. (the
> cities I'm most familiar with, anyway -- Dallas/Ft. Worth; Phoenix; San
> Francisco) a clear distinction seemed to exist between Top 40 and Middle
of
> the Road radio stations and "underground" FM stations that played albums
and
> "non-commercial" music (which was of course produced and distributed by
> large record companies) and which in fact was the medium by which
> "non-commercial" acts became commercially successful, by exposing their
> albums to consumers.  My understanding is that most of these FM stations
> have been gobbled up by larger companies (and further consolidated into
the
> big media empires); I know of no commercial FM stations in the San
Francisco
> area that play anything but rigidly controlled lists of specific songs and
> performers (determined by focus group testing and other market research
> techniques), including the so-called "alternative" stations.  Some local
> college FM stations range far beyond these boundaries, however, in some
ways
> approximating what underground FM radio station dj's did in the 60's and
> early '70s.

I think you're right.  I'm sure the state of radio is what Pynchon has in
mind in Vineland when he talks about how the system's going to have us all
listening to innofensive music and watching the Tube: plugged into the
Spectacle, basically.  Perhaps in 1990 P actually though Rock & Roll had
died or that its death was imminant.  He's since written some liner notes
for an alt-rock band (Lotion?), which isn't bad if you consider that he was
pushing 60 at the time...
>
>
> "Eminem, I guess, can do what he likes in the future, can put out as many
> records his artistic imagination provides & doesn't have to sell himself
to
> any record company or MTV or whatever."
>
> I find this a romanticized view of Eminem.  If he strays too far from his
> successful formula (which his record company channeled him into in the
first
> place, if I understand correctly),  his corporate backers will cut him
> loose.  He could easily wind up like MC Hammer (a local celebrity, he's a
> gospel preacher now, from what I gather), selling off the gaudy trinkets,
> big houses and cars, etc., scrambling to make ends meet.

Eminem's superior ability with language will keep him in good stead,
although who could keep up the sort of sales he's currently generating?
(That's if his personal problems don't catch up with him - the last
similarly blessed rapper, Biggie Smalls, was shot and killed).  Whether or
not his record company pushed him into his current thematic direction, they
couldn't have possibly envisaged the complexity with which he'd tackle it (a
higher commercial risk than they'd counternance, surely?).

I personally hope eminem, having made a great one in this mode, switches
tack to something else.  But it just might be that I lack the imagination to
tell.

>
> Untangling Pynchon's take -- as reflected in his writings, of course -- on
> contemporary music in the larger cultural and economic contexts is
something
> he seems to invite us to do, if for no other reason (and there are of
course
> other reasons) than the People's Republic of Rock and Roll in Vineland
>
I agree completely.

Phil