Subversion as Progression.

Antony and the Johnsons' 2004 self-titled album subverts concepts of masculinity (to a degree).

Ever since writing that article two posts down about rebelling, I have been thinking a lot about subversion in contemporary music, and why it is essential.

Firstly, pop/rock/R'n'B/electro are types of music that now reach billions of people across the Globe. We have all heard figures and boasts about how Lady Gaga has become the most widely watched video on Youtube with over a billion views, become the most downloaded artist ever and so on. And it is evident that in any media form, expanding as they are, pop culture is ubiquitous. Even if we don't watch X Factor and despise the concept, we still know that Frankie Cocozza recently got the boot for being too rock and roll (apparently).

I think it would be lovely if poetry or prose touched the hearts and minds of the global masses in the same way as pop, but, unfortunately, this is just not the case. As outlined in this exemplary article on music criticism, Charlie Bertsch points out that part of this is to do with the form of each discipline and its ability to be experienced many times. For example, we might read a book or a poem we especially love a couple or several times, but this is an exception. A pop song we can easily listen to dozens, if not hundreds of times. Indeed, we invariably do, as we cannot escape it in our vast media society. We memorise the words and tap our toes to the beat without even realising it.

Thus, pop has an incredible power that surpasses any other genre of art on a mass scale. All the more important then, to keep it evolving in order to keep challenging perceptions in a way that is not alienating. My love/hate relationship with pop is itself in constant flux. I suppose this depends on the parameters of 'pop music' and how you want to define them.

In essence: pop has greater importance than we want to admit. It can change attitudes towards so many things - make the weird or unpleasant normal and even desirable. It is interesting to note that trends that start off in a minority group previously deemed undesirable can, when filtered through the pop speaker (and lens), become essential to the hipster. We see this constantly in fashion, vocabulary and of course in musical trends.

But more than that, pop, when played around with in the mind of the artist and their team, can ask questions to many that otherwise might never have been asked. Such gender issues as those that concern and populate the music of Antony and the Johnsons might never have received such a wide audience willing to understand without the medium of pop.

Below are a few artists who I feel have had an important affect on culture through their music in either pop or R'n'B. It is through the questions they pose (especially when they first appear to be distasteful questions), that advances our understanding of music, and more widely of art, culture and ourselves.

Janelle Monae - Live At Glastonbury 2011 (Part I) from Dupree Meares on Vimeo.

And the epic conclusion:

The Eventual Review

Vampire Weekend & Janelle Monae at Alexandra Palace

So I realise it’s been nearly two weeks since I posted about Janelle Monae and Vampire Weekend at Alexandra Palace and STILL HAVE NOT let you know what it was like. ‘Was he taken away on the wings of Paul-Simon-styled-African-cyper-funk?’ I hear you asking, ‘Is that why he hasn’t told us, his fellow followers, all about the event?’ Well, no, that’s not why. It is because I was quite disappointed by the experience and haven’t yet been able to write an account that is not slightly marred with the bitterness of the disgruntled adolescent because ‘they just didn’t do my favourite song. God!’

The case was thus: Vampire Weekend, while not bad, were not good. They sounded EXACTLY like the recordings of their songs, with no discernible derivations anywhere, to the extent that several songs were played without interruption in precisely the order they appear on their albums. For a band that relies so heavily on the concept of its Sounds I was expecting a variety of musical breaks, with retro synths sweeping in to remind us how Gracelands really was the defining album of our parent’s generation. Incongruously, annoyingly, a mosh pit formed right in front of me and threatened to drag me in, even though I was in no skanking mood and had left my flared cords and studded belt at home – so it wasn’t all about the band, it was also about the entire experience. While I wasn’t expecting a ‘show’ as such, I didn’t want to come away wishing that I had just sat in the comfort of my living room listening to the album instead.

Vampire Weekend front man Ezra Koenig 'rocks out'

Janelle Monae does her thing, unaware at how
perplexed the Little Vampires watching her are

I took NONE OF THESE pictures, they
are all courtesy of the dudes at SONGKICK
(my gig pictures always suck)

Sadly, no one seemed to have any idea who Janelle Monae was, and her Arch Android album concept was not relayed perhaps as clearly or inclusively as it could have been, through terrible TERRIBLE graphics on two vast screens flanking the stage where Monae, dressed in her signature tux emerged, quaffed like Elvis, from a black cloak and delved energetically into Dance or Die, followed non-stop by Faster and Locked Inside. While she was very good, certainly entertaining (at one point, during Faster opting for a Sesame-Street-style Count laugh, instead of the lyrics to the chorus – AH! AH! AH!) I felt like she was let down by the crowd, which really means she was let down by her own management team. The only link between Vampire Weekend and Janelle Monae (other than the tedious vampire link of the Count’s clearly irrepressible laugh) is that both are slightly off-kilter takes on a modern musical genre, be it different genres with – evidently – very different followers. All I wanted to do was throw my hips and slightly inadequate quiff around to the impassioned 70’s soul-pop of Tightrope, but everyone else seemed stuck still to the floor, readjusting their preppy jumpers over the shoulders of their lurid Abercrombie and Fitch polo T’s – with the collar starched upward like wings flying home to the Hamptons.


No, it wasn’t quite that extreme. But it was apparent that someone much LESS interesting was required to warm up all the little vampires, and renegade Louisianan cyborgs were not this, as, like a cyber-soul stake, Monae pierced their minds with just a little bit too much to prevent them from catching fire in the Year 2300 Sun that rises over Metropolis. However, she is a very talented and original performer, so far into her own futurist world that the rest of us have to stand back, dance madly, and observe the spectacle, fish bowl like, which I really adore in an artist and wish I hadn’t felt like I was the only one who felt like it. If my friend and fellow Monae fan hadn’t been jiving next to me I would have felt like I was taking This-Crowd-Ain’t-So-Crazy Pills. I would, having now witnessed a glimpse of her live shows, love to see her in a small venue where other fans were more ostentatiously part of the dance floor, such as when she performed a year ago at Hoxton Square Bar and Grill, in East London, a gig I will always hate myself for not bothering to go to. Vampire Weekend however, I will listen to with extreme contentment, gently nodding my head in the knowledge that what I am hearing is the best it gets. And I don’t even have to leave the comfort of my sofa to get it.

Preemptive Gig Excitement

Tomorrow I am going to see Vampire Weekend supported by the amazing and insatiable Janelle Monae. I am very excited. Especially about Janelle Monae, who is just about my favorite lady in pop right now. I have been holding out ever since the mid-Missy-Elliot-years and post-Neptune-production-albums for some interesting R'n'B, and here she is, dressed like Andre 3000, with the moves of James Brown and the cyber concepts of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. She even has her own Haus Of Gaga style art collective behind her, the Wondaland Arts Society.



And Vampire Weekend are obviously very cute.




Her collaborations are more interesting than most r'n'b artists, having worked with Outkast's Big Boy on their pop opera Idlewild and her track Tightrope, as well as working with Panic! At The Disco and Cee Lo Green on the collaborative track Open Happiness in 2009 (cheesy and part of a Coca-cola promotion, but very cute none the less.) It is so refreshing to hear and see a female r'n'b artist who is not afraid of being more creative than showing a bit of Adidas nipple and a jelly booty rubbing up against 50 Cent's Candy shop. It's also nice that she clearly doesn't take herself too seriously, in a good way, while maintaining her individuality as an artist. Basically, I'm really glad she came along.

Here she is performing with Kooky Canadian pop act Of Montreal. I'm just going to say it one more time - I. Am. Excited.



They are at Alexandra Palace Friday 3rd December. Tickets might still be available over at TICKETMASTER. Come along, we can all do the preppy cyborg jive together.