| 21/04/2006 |
By Julie Burchill
I'm reading the most gorgeous book about the
Brill Building, the New York song-writing factory which in the late '50s
and early '60s turned out classic songs the way other people collect
parking tickets. Impressive enough, but the vast majority of the writers
were in their teens and early twenties - and some 95 percent of them were
Jewish. Considering that their grandparents - and sometimes even parents -
had been immigrants to the U.S, how doubly utterly amazing and fantastic
that these kids were able to shape our aural image of America with songs
as varied as ?Jailhouse Rock? and "Walk On By."
In this, Ken
Emerson's "Always Magic In The Air: The Bomp And Brilliance Of The Brill
Building" is the musical equivalent of Neal Gabler's "An Empire Of their
Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood." But sadly, both books make one
mourn the present while relishing the past. For just as Hollywood now
churns out either Neanderthal action films or insipid chick flicks - with
rarely a glimpse of the tough, articulate fare which was once par for the
course film fare for the common man of both genders - popular music has
become a lumbering and brittle thing, veering wildly between the joyless,
destructive impulses of hip-hop and the mechanical,
dance-till-your-hernia-pops castrate-disco of Madonna and her endless
disciples. In both arenas, the humanizing, articulate, life-affirming zest
of the Jews (is my prejudice showing?!) is sorely lacking. Mrs. Ritchie
can wear as many red strings round her wrist as she likes - no real Jew
would, after 20 years in the racket, write a song as lousy as "Hung Up."
End of!
As the blurb rightly boasts, these young Jews "melded
black, white and Latino sounds before multiculturalism became a concept,
integrated audiences before America desegregated its schools, and brought
a new social consciousness to pop music." Compare this open-hearted,
tough-minded attitude with the recent "anti-war" "Bring 'Em Home" (which
might more accurately be called "Bring 'Em Home Because The Darkies In
Eye-Rak Can't Really Appreciate Democracy, And Who Gives Two Hoots If They
All Die In A Civil War Bloodbath Caused By Insane Islamofascist Insurgents
So Long As We White Folk Stay Safe Over Here, Yee-Ha!") concert. What a
nasty, self-congratulatory, I'm-alright-Jack isolationist stance the
cretinous crooners - Michael Stipe, Rufus Wainwright, Peaches; wow, what a
loss to the U.S. war effort THOSE spineless weirdos must have been! -
demonstrated! And how absolutely PERFECT that the guest of honor was
Professional Grieving Mom Cindy Sheehan, whose poisonous statements
include "My son joined the army to protect America - not Israel" and "My
son was killed for an agenda to benefit Israel."
There is little outspoken anti-Semitism in popular music, though liberties are, as usual, taken with Jews and their feelings that no one would dare take with any other race, be it Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie changing a "Make Poverty History" poster into one reading "Make Israel History" at a London charity event, or Michael Jackson coming out with the singularly ugly line - even for him - "Jew me, sue me" in the characteristically crap song "They Don't Care About Us." But it is not completely fanciful to say that it is the absence of Jewishness in contemporary popular music that makes it so hollow and essentially unengaging, as with Hollywood. The Jews grew up, it seemed, and decided that capering and jestering for the amusement of the Gentile establishment probably wasn't the most fulfilling or useful way to spend one's life, regardless of the financial rewards. Good for you - but bad for us!