An Impassioned Defense of the 10-Minute Song.

Now, let's get one thing straight: this is not a defense of Jam Bands. In my mind, Jam Bands are like a persistent STD—omnipresent, difficult to get rid of, born of genuine good intent but then just the absolute worst. Oh, the endless guitar wanking: when someone confesses their love of Phish or the Animal Liberation Orchestra, I have to struggle not to equate it with a love of ritual murder or the Great Lord Xenu. I just want to make this abundantly clear: never will this Blogling ever say positive words about songs that ramble self-indulgently in braindead, hash-fueled "improvisation."

However, there comes a time in many an artist's life when two verses & a bridge just won't cut it, when rock's customary three minutes need expanding—tripling, even—to encompass the depth & breadth of a single stab into the Void. Too many lyrics, too many chords: statements that just can't finish fast, that require some meandering. As a lover of the Dirty, Dirty Rock 'n' Roll, I tend to prefer my music fast & loud; almost all of my favorite songs clock in under average. Still, I feel it's important to salute these musical tomes, ideas too big for single digits—&, on that note, to distinguish these structured, chugging trains of thought from the vague stupidity of Jam. Here, now, is (roughly) 100 minutes of music in 10 songs.

Station to Station—David Bowie.

Well, of course the first one is Bowie. Which is frustrating: by the time I actually finish this mammoth essay of a Bowie entry—which I honestly am writing, steadily steadily, swear to Gawd—I will have already said everything there is to say, spilled out in blips these past few months. Because really, I can't help it; David Bowie just takes up an inordinate amount of my brainspace. Anyhow, on to the song, which is truly divine. If you're at all interested, I recommend picking up a copy of the 33 1/3 series book about the album "Low," which, as a sort of preamble, includes a fascinating, in-depth discussion of this song, explaining facets from its production to its mythic themes. But for now, I'll just say: this song is a prime example of one that just has to run over 10 minutes, shepherding you appropriately from station to station, movement to movement: instrumentals to slow-burn vocals to one of the absolute greatest rock surges in history. (Skip to 5:00, but only if you must; like so much in life, it's better if you wait.)

Cygnet Committee—David Bowie.

Okay, of course the second one is Bowie, too. But allow me the juxtaposition—of phases in his career (the former, coked out & jaded in L.A.; the latter, a young, Dylanesque balladeer), but also of 10-minute-ness: unlike Station to Station, with its distinct series of parts, this is one of those songs that just has too many lyrics, too many ideas. Weaving through them slow, dream-like; never changing or picking up too severely, flowing gently from start to finish—until the very end, crying out loud & hopeless. & oh, those words: I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes...

Bela Lugosi's Dead—Bauhaus.

Though this song has, of course, already been featured hereabouts, it was in an abbreviated, specifically filmic format. Now, I'd like to present it in its glorious 9:34 entirety: full of bizarre, ambient clatters & zooms—like walking through a nighttime haunted house, tripping over synthesizers.

American Pie—Don McLean.

An anthem for a generation, nonsensical chorus & all. I often sing this song to keep time; it's about 8 minutes all told, & the surreal images trip over each other with entertainment to spare, making it perfect for passing iPod-less waits.

Turn Blue—Iggy Pop.

A prime example of the genius that is Iggy's bizarre & beaten brain. He rambles & squeals, caterwauling his way into your heart: Oh, Mama, I shot myself down & up & down & up... The live version on the "Iggy & Ziggy, Cleveland '77" album is particularly excellent, too—different, of course, because you can never trust that man to say the same thing twice. (Also, if you listen close, you can hear Bowie on back-up vocals...)

No Conclusion—Of Montreal.

Poppy & upbeat, with the most morose of lyrics: Morrissey-esque, perhaps—but only if the Smith had taken a few dozen percocet. Trance-like in its length & repetition, but not unpleasantly so; sliding discreetly from movement to movement; a song that doesn't want itself to end, skipping like the broken record of a stale relationship.

Jesus of Suburbia—Green Day.

I mean, I know—it's Green Day, the "punk" rockers that just won't die; persistent & plastic, 40 years old in cheap eyeliner, now on Broadway—& still, though that "Wake me up when September ends" song sits like a great big spike in my temporal lobe, you have to admit: they've survived because, quite simply, they're great. & so is this song.

Paradise By the Dashboard Light—Meatloaf.

I actually can't get enough of Jim Steinman's style: the progressions he picks, his way with lyrics—jaunty & matter-of-fact, but always ballad-worthy. This song is catchy as a catcher's mit, cheeky, hilarious—a must-have, truly. & the drawn-out baseball innuendo is priceless.

Land—Patti Smith.

Patti Smith is distinctly talented at putting words together. That's really the only way I know how to put it; how else to explain lines, like Aw, pretty boy, can't you show me nothin' but surrender? I could listen to her ramble about Rimbaud for days. & speaking of surges, the beginning build-up—that insistent, pounding chant: Horses! Horses! Horses!—is pure bliss, a shoulder-tensing war cry for the ages.

& finally, Today's Headphone Fodder:

Heroin—The Velvet Underground.

How to qualify this song in words? The beauty is in its unraveling: the cannibalism of screeching violins, building, building; the simplicity that cuts (hard, knife-like in accuracy) against addiction; peaks of waves rising & crashing like the endorphin-adrenaline rush before vulgar self-destruction. In form & function, it is simply brilliant—every minute paced perfectly into the next. Shivers, I tell you—every fucking time.

Raw Power.

After a night of ringing ears & too-stomped feet—a night on which I can proudly say that I danced onstage with (& touched, twice) (!!!!!!) one of my most idolized of idols—I feel I must take this time to salute the Godfather of Punk, the World's Forgotten Boy: Iggy Fucking Pop.

[ My sole attempt at a picture onstage. For obvious reasons, I gave up quickly & danced my ass off to "Shake Appeal." ]

This entry came quick—poured out with endorphins & sweat—because unlike Bowie, who is enigmatic, cerebral, fading in & out in shades, Iggy is simple; raw; the absolute strongest, most feral distillation of Rock & Mother Fucking Roll. At 63—sixty-three—this utter fireball of a man, with skin burnt & sagging over straining muscles, veins spidering out in raised squiggles on his left shoulder—this dilapidated, drug-collapsed shell of a body stage-dived, thrice, flailed & screamed like he was boiled alive by every guitar wail, every thrum of the bass, slap of the snare. There's a passage of his from Please Kill Me (required reading, for every human) that I think about constantly, every time a song gives me goosebumps:

I wanted the music to come out of the speakers and just grab you by the throat and just knock your head against the wall and just basically kill you. That’s want I wanted. And it never did that enough for me. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get it. I couldn’t get the treble to hurt enough, I couldn’t get the bass to hit you enough, I couldn’t get the beat hard enough, and so on, and so on, and so on. So I kept doing mix after mix after mix until I was crazier and crazier. But it still was not hard enough, you know?

& this is what I will always love most about Iggy: that he recognizes—&, in fact, strives for—that moment when music transcends its sound waves & crawls through your pores, tingles toxic in your blood until, flesh heavy, you have to fucking thrash it away: writhe like the exorcised, like leeches, cutting out your heart for the Gods. Music is never so good as when it hurts—but even then, there's music & then there's music & then there's Iggy Pop, operating on another plane: that level just past tangible, reaching down your throat & taunting the beast that lurks behind your bones. Raw power—& honey, I can feel it.

Hallelujah.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Gimme Danger (Live at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go, 9/16/73)—Iggy Pop.

Sometime, somewhere, someone told me that poetry can be defined as the least number of the most beautiful words. If so, then Iggy Pop is possibly the most talented poet I know, spilling forth lyric after lyric, most made up on the spot: utterly bare-bones phrases that are somehow more right than anything else.

We're gonna dance to the beat of the living dead.

Soul radiation in the dead of night; love in the middle of a firefight; honey, gotta strike me blind.

& the sight of it all makes me sad & ill; that's when I want some weird sin.

I see the bright & hollow sky.

Mama, what color will the lights be? Will they turn blue on me?

Sweet sixteen & leather boots; body & soul, I go crazy.

Now I'm ready to feel your hand & lose my heart on the burning sand.

I'm worth a million in prizes.

& when I get excited, my little China girl says: Oh, Jimmy, just you shut your mouth.

Give me danger, little stranger, & I'll feel your disease.

& on & on. Some of the brevity is intentional: when Iggy was starting out, he would write songs like letters to Soupy Sales—that is, in 25 words or less. (No fun, my babe, no fun—a whole verse & only four!)

Still, where it really gets me is in the improvisations, the deviations into raw, unscripted soul that you're likely to find on any live recording of his. Like in this version of "Gimme Danger," with its desperate, ad-libbed bridge: "& I, I wanna be touched, & I’m a'gonna be loved," devolving quickly to the base "& I want, & I need." Just a subject & a verb, & still they slice—just too honest; simple & perfect: poetry.

"Blah Blah Blah, But Can You Dance To It?"

[ Good evening, Internet! First, some business:

1) Work has officially ended, which means no more chasing small children, therefore far less exhaustion, followed by far more writing.

2) The Gaga-Bowie thing was a hoax—as proven by this post on his official website—& all I can say is: Thank the Good Lord Above. Despite the likelihood of this circumstance, I don't necessarily feel foolish for last week's entry; it felt all too good to vent. Scary, still, how close it seemed to real... ]

With more & more time to waste, I've been reading more & more: Stories, a collection edited by Neil Gaiman to sate my fetish for short fiction, along with Legend of a Rock Star: The Last Testament of Dee Dee Ramone, which is fresh & fascinating & nearly illiterate in the most joyously poetic sort of way. Most importantly, though, I've gotten back to the News—capital N—which for me means a decent scan across the front pages of the Guardian, the Times, & the Globe, ending with an archaeological dig through their Arts & Leisure sections.

It was on one such expedition that I encountered this article about Ms. Katy Perry, who has, of course, been on my radar since her frustratingly heterosexist "I Kissed a Girl," & whose voice unfailingly wheedles its way into my eardrums from some stray speaker every 15 minutes with that insipid "Tik Tok" rehash—the one about Daisy Dukes & bikinis & utterly mind-numbing "OMG POPSICLE = DICK" innuendo. I read the piece because I was curious—because I wondered what exactly about Perry, who speaks in a baby voice while striving valiantly to bring back the bow, classifies her as a "Pop Cartoon." What I learned is what I expected—that is, not much. But beyond that, I was struck by a few passages in the article:

“A lot of people criticized ["I Kissed a Girl"] for playing into masculine fantasies as opposed to saying something new about gender politics,” said Sadie Stein, a contributing editor at the blog Jezebel, who has followed Ms. Perry’s career. She paused, considering that statement. “It seems silly to even say that,” she said.

It was, after all, just pop: that was Ms. Perry’s line of defense, to call her work lightweight, fun, throwaway. (She has also spoken in support of gay marriage.) Still, her credibility has been questioned throughout her career: is she a symbol of rebellion or a rote representation of a good girl gone bad, a manufactured product of the music industry or an individual with a loopy sense of style, blah blah blah, but can you dance to it?

Yes, that last bit—"blah blah blah"—is, in fact, written into the text of a New York Times article.

It just bums me out, because what this reporter is saying—or, rather, shaming Sadie Stein into saying—is that pop criticism is unimportant; that it doesn't matter that what passes for entertainment today is Katy Perry lying naked & doe-eyed in a pile of cotton candy, winking as she says "on top," while pre-packaged synthesizer beats bop along & millions of copies are sold. It's unremarkable that an infantilized pinup who spends her time playing (one assumes, being generous) dumb struts around in a bustier while calling herself a strict Christian. I could perhaps entertain the point that Katy Perry is such an inconsequential flash in the pan that she's not worth discussing, but as long as her "music" garners enough attention to be number one on the Billboard charts for six weeks, I'm going to care.

When I rant & rave about Lady Gaga, it's not in the slightest because I hate Stefani Germanotta, the girl with excellent fashion sense & marketing who happened to strike a few chords right on a piano; it's because I'm frustrated with her fanatic fan base, the legions who hold her up like a deity without much real cause, while better, campier, more interesting acts flounder in obscurity—frustrated that they've settled. Because this is what pop—short for "popular"—music does: it mirrors back at us what we want; what we, as a society, are feeding into the Music Machine to be ground up, spit out, & played on Top 40.

Perry's songs may be "lightweight, fun, throwaway," but the fact that her Jessica Rabbit meets Candyland visuals—complete with that insipid, breathy ditz-voice & a straight-girls-making-out-for-male-amusement cliché—are so widely accepted, even lauded, drives me absolutely up a wall. Because it means that's still what we expect: stupid sex kittens, coy smiles, good Christian girls with after-hours clothes. We are just as sexist, crude, & slow as we always were—or, if we aren't, our tastes have been dulled by so much Pure Shit that we've given up on asking for better, & that depresses me.

Of course, there are plenty of just-as-deserving targets for my vitriol—Ke$ha, Britney Spears, even 3OH!3, Perry's sometime collaborators who boast they've brought the "fun" back into music (though why fun has to come at the expense of quality or taste, no one's quite sure...). But Katy's in my crosshairs because I found her article first, because I fucking loathe that California song, & mostly because I refuse to tolerate shit like this:

Asked if she ever regretted not finishing school, [Katy] said: “No, because spell-check exists everywhere.”

We need to—need to—stop idolizing willfully dumb people in this country. It just has to stop. Not one person has ever benefitted from foregoing education, whether high school or grad school or taking the time to read a book about something new. Whatever you can stomach—or afford; knowledge & intelligence, information & communication has to prevail. Stupidity erodes as much as it sells, & that is why I see doom spelled in the flourescent wigs of Katy Perry—who, with her braindead innuendo & cherry chapstick, has rocketed to the Top of the Pops.

So sure, you can dance to it—but only just.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Let's Go Surfing—The Drums.

Hot & quick like the best rock 'n' roll, throbbing with the surf sensibility of the Beach Boys—from whom Perry stole & perverted her title—this song is utterly adorable & danceable & catchy as all calamity. The perfect summer anthem for a summer's end.

& Hell Followed With Him.

[ There is, of course, a chance that this alleged document has been Photoshopped—that it's all a prank, that the track will get cut, that my panic & general despair are somehow all for naught. Still, this potential atrocity shocked me out of my nine-to-five delirium enough to write, & I miss that. So, enjoy. ]

Hell has frozen, pigs have flown, & David Bowie is collaborating with Lady Gaga.

It's over. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I try & I try, & for all my incessant ranting into this most microscopic of megaphones, I can't seem to stem the tide of Public Opinion. The Lady has won. Mediocrity triumphs. This—tepid, repetitive shock-rocking over disco beats—is the best we can hope to receive from the "glam," the "avant garde." & it makes me want to scream.

I mean, Bowie has always, above all else, been interested in his own tenacity, hopping almost schizophrenically from trend to trend: singing on SNL with Klaus Nomi, joining an alt-rock band, duetting with Placebo. So, I guess this could just be one in a long line of 'Cause It's Popular decisions on his part—trying to stay relevant & whatnot (she says, trying not to step on the toes of her pages-long Bowie-athon, accumulating & soon to be posted...).

Still, I'm pissed. Because this is exactly what I didn't want to happen: that Bowie now becomes redefined through Gaga; that every camper who asked me what my shirt was about today will soon understand him only as "that guy who sings on 'Vinyl'" or "where her lightning bolt comes from." It's hilariously unfair—like defining water as "the thing they use to make soda." One so clearly trumps the other—in talent, influence, vocabulary—that it's painful to see him reduced to her footnote.

Moreover—&, more painfully—it feels like this is somehow the final word, that she's now been legitimized by the Gods of Glam. All we need now is for Marc Bolan to rise from the grave with a glitter-plastic wreath while Brian Ferry dances around in Iggy's silver pants to the strains of "All the Young Dudes." I mean, really—this is it. She's got the handshake; she's in the clubhouse; & I am livid.

Because Glam Rock was fundamentally about excellent rock 'n' roll mixed for the first time with gender-bending aesthetic—NEITHER OF WHICH GAGA DOES. She's a plastic pop artist, a shitty lyricist, & while she is an undeniably fantabulous dresser, her stylings are just simply not in the vein of glam. They're a modernization/rehash of 80s & 90s counterculture, à la Club Kids & Leigh Bowery mixed with Madonna. Crediting Bowie with her look is like crediting Alexander Graham Bell with the invention of the iPhone; it's technically correct, but it's a far & frustrating reach.

At least when he sang with Placebo—self-proclaimed Nancy Boys, lipglossed & cheeky—I saw the through-line, but even they just did covers. Bowie's recognition of Gaga—his collaboration, no less, on vocals, guitar, production, even the lead writing credit—represents a depressing compromise of principles, a vast & sloppy glossing of history to fit the lowest common denominator.

First Patti Smith denounces New York, now this; my heroes are deserting me, but quick. & so the walls crumble as skin does, by Time's fell hand defac'd & all.

And I looked, and behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. —Revelation, 6:8

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Now, to offset the doomsdaying, a collaboration—or, well, combination—of which I absolutely approve.

Justin Bieber Death Remix (Justin Bieber vs. Wings)—El-P.

Because Wings is lame, & Justin Bieber is like a deadly virus to Musical Quality, but together, they're dissonant & haunting & hilarious. Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!, indeed.

Inspirational Quote of the Day.

Or the week. Month. Lifetime.

This wonderful vital force that was articulated by the music was really about corrupting every form—it was about advocating kids not to wait to be told what to do, but make life up for themselves, it was about trying to get people to use their imaginations again, it was about not being perfect, it was about saying it was okay to be amateurish and funny, that real creativity came out of making a mess, it was about working with what you got in front of you and turning everything embarrassing, awful, and stupid in your life to your advantage.

—Legs McNeil, when asked to define "Punk."

I gloss over this once every few weeks—hours in a rough or guitar-laden patch. It reminds me to stay vital, to stop being ashamed—because if the Ramones did it, then so can you. Let's dress up & be stars tomorrow: so said the ad Joey answered, & so says the ink on my forearm.

Long live Punk Rock.

Amen.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Blank Generation—Richard Hell & the Voidoids.

Though perhaps not the best known figure of the '70s New York punk scene—in a time when Delia's sells Ramones shirts alongside fluffy pink skulls & stripe-y tights—Richard Hell left, dare I say, one hell of a mark. For a preliminary taste, I recommend the album Spurts: The Richard Hell Story—or, if you'd rather, a read-through of Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk, where you'll find tidbits like this:

One night I was lying in bed thinking about her, how gorgeous and irresistible she was, and I remember thinking, I wish she was there when I got hit by a car. Then I could say to her, ‘Mimi, I’m dying, would you hold my hand?'

A Question.

A blip of a momentary interim post. I apologize again for my endless hiatus, but really: you try chasing after children 8 hours a day—sometimes even for an Overnight (I shudder at the memory)—& see how eager you are to pluck the keyboard strains.

There is, however, something that has been plaguing me. It's been gnawing at the edges of my consciousness since I first heard the offending song played over earbuds in the subway, then on every subsequent listen-through (though, for obvious reasons, there haven't been many)—& really, whenever my brain has the time (& volition) to take a break & turn to pop. It has befuddled & confused, perplexed & dare I say bamboozled—& now, it's time to exorcise my demons:

Why, for the love of all that is holy, does the Britney Spears song "3" list Peter, Paul, & Mary as its three threesomely names?

I mean, of course, after listening to the song at all—or viewing this lifeless excuse for a video—most of the words in that question seem to fall away, leaving one big looming "WHY?" Really now: there are about 157 problems with this song—the amateurish deep voice echoing in the background, the trashy-lewd premise, the insertion of a moan in place of "sex"—but most egregious & most careless is the lyric issue: the issue being, they are painfully stupid. As if Faith Hill hacked up a hairball, or Ryan Seacrest blurted them out during his conversion therapy. So. Fucking. Dumb. As to boggle the mind. I mean, really now, let's take one of the more ridiculous lines to task:

Living in sin is the new thing.

Is it, Britney? Really? Because there are several hundred thousand corpses left over from the Spanish Inquisition who may beg to differ. Perhaps if we hop forward a few hundred years, we could talk to some Antinomians. Maybe even zoom ahead to the underground clubs of the '80s & '90s—results of the sexual revolution that flowed right alongside your three favorite folksingers. My point is not that a pop song need be a history lesson, but that every source in which words are spoken should stray from asinine generalizations, no matter how alliterative. (Also, how sick is it that in the edited version—the one showcased in the video above—this already frustrating line was altered to "living like this"; that someone in marketing thought a mere mention of "sin" would tank the song's sales. Someone, please—I dare you to deny we're slipping into a theocracy.)

But back to my main point—that is, the naming of '60s folk trios—because this one is an easy fix. Three names. That's all you need: in a threesome, there are three people, & therefore three names. Any three names would, in fact, have been better than Peter, Paul, & Mary: they sang "Leaving on a Jetplane," for fuck's sake! "Blowin' in the Wind"! "Puff the Magic Dragon"! They are perhaps the least inherently sordid human beings possible—& not even really in an interesting or ironic way.

What I mean is, if she (oh, who are we kidding: her various publicists & lyricists) were interested in sullying the sacred—perhaps to live better in sin, as I hear it's the new thing—why not pick three biblical characters who didn't sing folk songs, who actually interacted in a way that could be spun lewdly? (The Three Kings, anybody?) & honestly, if you're going down that road, you have THE FREAKIN' HOLY TRINITY staring you right in the face.

There is, of course, the distinct possibility that the people who barfed out this song at coke o'clock on a Tuesday just couldn't think of another trio ending in "-ee" to fit the syllable count. I have taken the past minute & a half to come up with some examples:

"Larry, Moe, & Curly"

"Huey, Dewey, Louie"

"Athos, Porthos, Aramis" (If pronounced Frenchly.)

"Children of Destiny"

"Heaven, Hell, Purgat'ry"

or, the perfectly innocent: "Jack, Jill, & Britney."

Any of those—or, really, anything at all—would have been better than what stays, etched into the fiber of so much cheap plastic. Because really, Peter, Paul, & Mary are just awkwardly tepid—not sexless, but not sexy—& therefore an exquisitely poor choice.

That is all.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll—Hunx & His Punx.

I am obsessed with this song—& its video. Not only does it combine every pop culture facet I adore—cheeky, punky (in the original sense), straight out of a John Waters movie—but it's also catchy as all calamity, while being simple & basically perfect & speaking the motherfucking truth: You don't like rock 'n' roll, & I don't like you, indeed.

The Bats Have Left the Belltower; the Victims Have Been Bled.

[ Full disclosure: work has kicked up again—another summer spent combatting attention deficits with Photoshop & camp songs from 8-4 daily—which means that I have significantly less time to spend perusing the web for news, pop or otherwise, to expound upon. As a result, my beloved Blogling has gone neglected as of late, & may very well again in the coming weeks. For now, though, let me at least keep the embers alive with a quickly compiled pondering.

&, before we begin, in the theme of full disclosure, I will just say this: I do not like vampires very much. In fact, I was actively terrified of them as a child, sleeping with my blanket tucked up around my neck until I was far too old. Every one of my recurring nightmares somehow involved vampires, who usually appeared on escalators for whatever reason, chasing me as I struggled in vain to run—stuck in time-molasses, as you so often are in dreams. Even today, I have a hard time appreciating Ye Olde Vampire Films (Bela Lugosi & all), uninterested by their bodice-ripping, their simplistic plot. I mean, what good is a villain you already know how to beat? Sunlight, stake through the heart, cross, holy water, garlic, & on & on—Eddie Izzard does a particularly hilarious routine on the subject. The one potential exception is The Hunger, but it includes Bowie—& besides, how could anyone cast off so brilliant an opening sequence? Of course, all of this is subjective, personal, Freudian, what have you; I apologize for my inherent bias, but that said, let's continue with our more relatable Big & Important Cultural Pronouncements. ]

While computering about in the open dining room/kitchen of our new apartment, I was accidentally treated to the last 10 or so minutes of True Blood, HBO's stab at this ubiquitous vampire craze—a show that my stepsister deems "brain candy," but nevertheless watches religiously. (I can relate: L Word, anyone?) Bearing in mind that I've only witnessed these scant few moments; that I've been watching (& writing about—coming soon to a Blog post near you...) The West Wing, which is like a macrobiotic diet for the synapses; &, moreover, that I'm particularly disinclined to enjoy this whole vampire thing in the first place, my preliminary take on the show goes something like this: Um, what the fuck—?

To put this into perspective, here is what I saw:

1) Anna Paquin with a jet black bob—which should just not happen.

2) This guy sprouting fangs, biting into his own arm, then slowly moving it over multiple trays of shot glasses, letting the blood pump freely from his open wound into serving-size portions.

3) A ritualistic maiming, in which a near-naked woman—cloaked only in a large fur coat—gets voluntarily burn-branded, howling in pain while about 100 Central Casting Redneck Men cheer. (These men went on, of course, to morph into wolves—because what is derivative vampire fiction without derivative werewolves? Though I'm told in the modern idiom, they're actually more like Limited Shape-Shifters; their transformations are voluntary, not lunar. & so is the mythology castrated once more...)

This latter parenthetical grumbling—which was unfortunately not so parenthetical when I confronted my stepsister & her friend about how entirely bizarre I found what I had just seen—sparked a train of thought that's been unravelling in my head for some time now, ever since Twilight fandom reached its impossible fervor:

Why vampires?

As exhibited by my previous dissection of werewolves, I'm of a mind that most cultural phenomena—or, at the very least, mass-fanatic devotion to a particular mythical creature—stems from something inherent in its backstory, some basic kernel that folk of a certain place & time find alluring or cathartic or helpful. So, with mind open in full, I ask: what is it about vampires that sells so well?

First, I think it is important to outline the key features of the vampire: He is undead—like a zombie who retains mental status—& in order to stay even half-alive, he must drink the blood of the living by biting them in the neck with his pronounced fangs. Those on whom he preys—traditionally, helpless, swooning women—are thereafter doomed to a similar fate. Moreover, he can't go out in the sun, nor can he touch holy things, & is bummed out by garlic (why, no one is quite sure); in days of yore, he had a proclivity for big black capes, hailed from Transylvania, & was bested only by a stake through the heart.

Though these current popular iterations of the myth are sufficiently modernized—including sparkly daytime excursions & use of the Unholy to advance a Christian agenda—the basic tenets of our Count Dracula still remain, spattered across every media outlet: the bloodlust, the swooning, the fangs. In my mind, there are three main reasons as to why; they are as follows:

1) Zexy, Zexy Bad Boys.

This is the answer my stepsister gave when prodded: that vampires are the ultimate Bad Boys. & I agree: unlike the (original—none of this animagus whatnot) werewolf, the vampire is always fully conscious of his actions. He doesn't black out or transform somehow in order to conduct his specific brand of violence: he just can't help himself. Bad Boys have been around since the beginning of time, & unfailingly, no matter what form they take, they are always the hottest—rebels alluring with or without their cause. It's Jess over Dean, J.D. & his murderous agenda: people who knowingly flout the law are desirable, intriguing, strong—sexy.

In the case of vampires, though, there are two sides to this most attractive of coins: On the one hand, the vampire can be a powerful symbol of Lust—dangerous, wrong, but fundamentally uncontrollable. In this way, he's almost like a porn protagonist; regardless of flimsy, extraneous plot, he will succumb; it's inevitable; it's in his ravenous nature. Even the act of biting an exposed jugular is unfathomably intimate; when one shucks away age, death, & garlic, the vampire can be read as a profoundly sexual figure.

However, for those still told by their family/religious community that sexual impulses are shameful & dirty, the vampire becomes the ultimate masochistic guilt-rehash: the sympathetic undead protagonist does everything in his power to keep from biting the woman he loves, but in the end, he just can't help it. He perpetrates violence, ruins lives, all because he failed to control his urges. There's often something very sexy to be gleaned from the Wrong, but it is, of course, always easier to read it as is; without nuance, without willingness to partake in the dark, vampires remain the villains—lurking just around the corner, waiting to prey on our latent desires.

& this is why I think Twilight works so magnificently in the razor-thin venn diagram between Unholy Smut & Mormon Morality Tale: because while the very act of vampirism is sexy, it also lends itself brilliantly to cautioning against Unbridled Passion. (Or even sex before marriage: keep in mind, once you're bitten, you can never go back.)

2) Lady Masochism.

More potent, even, than the sexual shaming that these vampire tales can inspire is the bizarre brand of male-to-female nonconsensual S&M that seems to be at the core of the concept. While there are, of course, plenty of lady bloodsuckers stalking the fictional streets, the basis of the myth is in Sir Vlad the Impaler, & the predominantly male cast of True Blood, as well as the predominantly male Edward Cullen—& his predominantly male-attracted fan base—allow me to feel comfortable claiming that the Platonic incident of vampirism is between a male aggressor & a female who may or may not be wearing a flowing white nightgown.

Yes, indeed: the bodice has ripped, the fear-crazed maiden has fainted into the arms of the beast, he plunges his fangs into her lily-white neck—& somehow, she ends up satisfied, vampirized herself. She is quite literally converted into finding this previously undesired act pleasurable, left wanting to do it again & again. I don't mean to sound alarmist, but the traditional vampire myth reads not unlike those creepy, rape-y manga stories (or Ayn Rand novels), in which a woman is bound & forced to have sex, only to find that she Really, Really Likes It.

So, why on earth would such a story structure ever be so popular, you ask? Well, as far as I can tell, it provides assurance for the gentleman that his ladyfriend doesn't really mean it when she says no; those who fantasize about aggression can indulge more & more in the notion that they don't need to go through the song & dance of finding a consenting partner—that either way, once it's all over, she'll have enjoyed herself. Meanwhile, in a sexual culture that tends to count Unilateral Man-Pleasing as a basic foot in the door to any kind of relationship, sexual or otherwise, it's not too hard to believe that women would draw some comfort, some hope from watching a woman converted into enjoying a fundamentally unenjoyable act. It's the perpetuation of one of the great sexual myths, wrapped in a fun, gory package.

3) Mass-Produced Freaks.

Sex & violence aside, there is, I believe, a third piece to the puzzle—one that manages, of course, to trammel up Gaga in its wake: that vampires are freakish beings of counterculture, & that's currently seen as cool. As far as I can tell (having been a bit too young to process for much of the time to which I refer), there was a surge in the late-80s-through-90s of what I like to call the Paint-Splattered Revolution, in which Underdog Stories of Weird Kids Triumphing were a dominant part of young adult media. I can confidently say, at least, that after partaking in My So-Called Life, She's All That, Empire Records, Cry Baby, Pretty In Pink, Go—& who could forget Buffy the Vampire Slayer?—it became clear to me that having all of the attributes society told you were right was a fool's errand, that being blond & toting pompoms would only lead to a humiliating downfall; the goal became to Stand Out & Make Art—or, in a pinch, an Empowering Speech About Standing Out & Making Art. There is an extent to which, at least in the eyes of a generation raised on Freaks & Geeks & Mean Girls, the desirable state is now that of the Outcast—only in name, of course.

The only problem with this Everyone Is a Freak movement is that, quite simply, not everyone is; not everyone feels organically compelled to express themselves through bizarre clothes or artistic pursuits, & of those who do, only a small (& fiercely proud) percentage choose to appropriate the occult as part of their identity. I tend to think of a particularly excellent South Park episode, in which all four members of South Park Elementary's goth population express their utter horror at the stupidity of Hot Topic-slathered "vampire kids" who drink tomato juice like it's blood & come up with foreign-sounding names for each other. They recognize the hypocrisy—the commercialization, the trendiness—of this mainstream dip into their cultural niche & spend the episode being rightfully indignant when mistaken for the various poseurs.

& it's here that the inherent paradox reveals itself: once something becomes popular, it can't rightly be called Counterculture. As with the vampire/werewolf myths themselves, the very Otherness that makes vampirism so alluring falls away in its massification, leaving only bloodless rehash, empty symbols emptily miming.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Bela Lugosi's Dead—Bauhaus (as seen in The Hunger).

I'm sorry. I can't not. It's just such a damn good song—& this sequence is truly incredible. When I grow up to be a famous music video director, my first act shall be to make an homage.

May-June Round-Up.

Today, I was searching for a good birthday video to send a friend, while also basking in the glow of a Friday paycheck & thinking somewhere in the back of my brain about the beginning of a new month—&, somehow, the elements coalesced: I decided to do a Music Round-Up of this Blogling's recent backing tracks, while also adding a new (transcendent, brilliant, I'm jittering just thinking about it) song. So, here goes:

1. Animal—Miike Snow. (5/18)

2. I've Seen Enough—Cold War Kids. (5/20)

3. The Nomi Song—Klaus Nomi. (5/21)

4. Search & Destroy—Iggy & the Stooges (Live, Atlanta, October '73). (5/22)

5. Epoch—HUMANWINE. (5/27)

6. Wisdom—Gran Ronde. (5/28)

7. World Destruction—Afrika Bambaataa ft. John Lydon. (6/3)

8. Debaser—David Bowie (Pixies cover). (6/7)

9. Half Jack (Live at the Paradise, '05)—The Dresden Dolls. (6/8)

10. Nancy Boy—Placebo. (6/9)

11. EVERY COVER EVER. (But, for our purposes: I Wanna Be Your Dog—Émilie Simon (Iggy & the Stooges cover).) (6/10)

12. Paris—Hans Unstern. (6/14)

13. Wuthering Heights—Kate Bush (specifically, as danced by Zac Efron). (6/16)

14. Icarus—Jason Webley. (6/20)

15. Succexy—Metric. (6/21)

16. Tranny Chaser—RuPaul. (6/22)

17. Enter Telephone (DJs From Mars Remix)—Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé vs. Metallica. (6/26)

18. Sleepyhead (Wallpaper. Remix)—Passion Pit. (6/27)

19. Rock 'n' Roll Never Looked So Beautiful—Semi Precious Weapons (Live, Bowery Ballroom, 4/26/10). (6/29)

& now, 20. All the Young Dudes (Live, David Bowie's 50th Birthday Party)—David Bowie ft. Billy Corgan.

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't bore you."

Words to live by, indeed. God, I love him so much.

Someday (soon), I'll do a Bowie-gush entry—but until then, I hope you can sate yourself with the May-June 2010 Mix. Enjoy.