I happened to Google my name today (now, don’t point fingers lads and ladies…you know you all do that from time to time!) and found an interesting link. A review of Indus Creed’s self-titled (ahem, eponymous...) album that I wrote for www.themusicmagazine.com a couple of years ago has been cited by a lady named Rebecca Romanow in her jargon-heavy paper on rock music and the silenced Subaltern. I found myself rather badly misrepresented, but tell me what you think. (I think The Music Magazine links aren’t completely working though)
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7 comments:
Honestly, I've never googled my name. But I'm going to now!
Yeehaw!
WOAH! This woman's a bitch! I'm gonna mail her!
This article is:
1.factually misplaced: Robbie Williams is American? But depends on RTP's bias
2.Condescending
3.full of jargon
4.Badly researched
5.proclaiming the isolation, unchanging nature of culture
6.typical post colonial s**t
7.indicative of the reason why TAAQ doesn't have an album deal
8.causing Bean to promise a mild contradiction to live and let live. :)
A few stereotype busters.
English in India is older than Hindi.
Christianity and Judaism were in India before most of Europe.
So what is alien?
Doesn't Hindustani and Carnatic music also impede local musical forms?
only joking RTP. Forgot the smiley face:)
well, i read it. Here are my thoughts!
It's shallow for a start. She seems to have read all the relevant 'post-colonial' texts but doesn't cite any lyrics or musicians and though she does cite a couple of journos ;) she doesn't seem to have any knowledge of the culture or music scene she is talking about. It doesn’t seem that she has visited India or any country in Asia or even talked with any musician who is performing this music.
She conflates 'the west' and 'america' - one of my big gripes. It happens everywhere - both in India and the US for the purposes we're talking about here - and irritates a little old european like me. There is more to the west then hamburgers or even rock music! Western genres of music also include, for example, 'fado', which i'm sure none of you have heard of, nor her. :) And what about the corporatisation of music? And what about the fact that in India it is very difficult for indigenous rock bands who play originals to get any air time or promotion? We all know what gets the air time ;)
She is linguistically unaware of the status of english in india. She cites some scholars regarding the way that post-colonised countries can take the language and subvert and then claims - without proof! - that indians in rock have failed to do this! Why? How? She shows no awareness of 'indian english' and its development with the influences of vernaculars on its vocab and grammar. She should cite lyrics here to prove her point, but she doesn't and i suspect that despite being a literature teacher, she hasn't looked at the lyrics as texts worthy of study. Could be wrong but not citing any at all is a big faux pas in this essay. Some of Bruce’s lyrics would have been pertinent here, like ‘Look at me.’
She shows little understanding of 'culture' and its fluidity - no culture is static and to claim that taking in influences is 'hybridisation' amounts to wanting a particular culture to embalm itself in formaldehyde. The term 'hybridisation' is provocative and seems to specifically want to invoke the mental picture of a dodgy genetic experiment where the scientist introduces 'alien' material into a species to 'see what will happen'. Culture is not an organism that has a specific genome which should not be messed about with. All cultures are infused at different times with strands from other cultures. The only 'pure' cultures are dead ones which no longer change - and even this is a simplification. A dead culture is really just a snapshot of a culture at a particular stage. Is roman culture dead? Yes - and no: where does italian, spanish, portuguese etc culture come from?
There are some rather simple errors too. She claims that Indus Creed ‘seems also to be mimicking the vastly successful American rock band, Creed’ and yet from their web-sites it certainly appears as if Indus Creed appeared first – 1993 – before Creed – 1997. Such factual errors are inexcusable – unless of course I’m wrong!?
Anyway, I could go on and on (and I have!) so I’d better stop here.
Bassman, cheap shot. Now I'm miffed and nothing less than three grilled chickens from empire/six jumbo rolls from fanoos will earn you forgiveness. Certainly not a smiley face.
I didn't bother to read the whole of the article because it was far too boring. Didn't make me wanna read at all.
But from what I read, she sounds pompous, opinionated and completely straitjacketed about her views. It's like she decided what her results were already, and just selectively sourced material and sources whose mouths she could put those words in.
Aye update pliss.
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