Weekend Reads (Feb 24): Beyoncé, Bill Laswell, Muppets, “Masters of the Air,” Bluesky
Recommended weekend reading for February 24, 2024.
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Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
Last week, an Oklahoma country radio station caused a stir when they refused to play Beyoncé’s new single, “Texas Hold ’Em.” (The station manager claimed they were unaware that Beyoncé had released country music.) But with an honest-to-goodness country album coming in March, Queen Bey is shining a light on Black country music artists.
After the singer debuted two country singles, “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” on Sunday during the Super Bowl, some country enthusiasts hoped that Beyoncé’s star power would help bring more recognition for Black artists within the genre. Many people also pointed out country’s roots in the African diaspora and believed Beyoncé’s venture into country would be an act of reclaiming the music, which has often been perceived as a genre for white men.
“I hope this is going to open up some people’s eyes to country music,” said Reyna Roberts, a Nashville-based singer who has previously opened for Reba McEntire. “Just [with] Beyoncé releasing her music, in the past day I’ve probably gained like 12,000 fans just from people looking at Black Country music.”
Not surprisingly, Beyoncé has officially become the first Black woman to ever reach #1 on the “Hot Country Songs” chart with “Texas Hold ’Em.”
Folk music is arguably one of the most traditional “American” genres of music. In the ’50s and ’60s, however, it was considered countercultural and leftist and folk artists were subjected to government investigations.
Although launched in 1938 with the purpose of investigating German-American Nazis, the [House Un-American Activities Committee] hearings reached national attention in 1950 when McCarthy claimed to have a list of communists working in the State Department. Before long, anyone suspected of communist connections or sympathies was summoned before the committee; among them was Pete Seeger. One of many to have considered the Communist Party as the natural opposition to the fascism that swept across Europe in the ’30s, Seeger’s continued support for the Party’s positions on organized labor, nuclear disarmament, and African-American rights led to him being subpoenaed to testify before HUAC in August 1955.
Bill Laswell might be the most prolific musician and producer that you’ve never heard of. But Zachary Lipez is here to correct that.
The Bill Laswell back catalogue is extensive, bordering on absurd. From his not entirely humility-inducing start, playing lofts in the 80s Lower East Side of NYC (and quickly bopping around Washington Square Park with Brian Eno), Laswell has collaborated — as bassist, band member, or producer — with some of the most visionary (and/or misunderstood) artists, in nearly every musical genre, of the last fifty years. In 1986 alone, his credits include albums with PIL, Laurie Anderson, Peter Gabriel, Ginger Baker, and The Stalin. And that’s just his sidework. Gigs that most musicians would consider career/life highlights is how Laswell made a little pocket change with which to ride out the Reagan years, maybe take in a movie or two. Concurrent to his years of either being a one man avant equivalent of the Wrecking Crew or producing a couple Motörhead albums for shits and giggles, Laswell has put his focus on work that, made either solo or in collaboration, has consistently pushed against and forward all notions of what constitutes rock, noise, dub, drone, metal, ambient, funk, and all the various no-, post-, and -wave hyphenates a music critic could ever hope to name.
When I say Laswell is prolific, I mean it. Just check out his Bandcamp page. And according to his Discogs profile, Laswell as written, produced, and performed on more than 2,400 releases.
Speaking of Discogs, they’ve compiled a list of a dozen Black-owned record labels that have made music history. Chances are, you probably know about Def Jam Records and Motown, but consider the strange story of Vee Jay Records:
Vee Jay Records was founded in 1953 by the husband-and-wife team of Vivian Carter and James C. Bracken — Vee and Jay, respectively. Vee Jay quickly established itself as a major R&B label, and they made a deal with EMI to acquire the U.S. rights to some Frank Ifield recordings — as long as they also agreed to take material from an up-and-coming band called the Beatles. Thanks to this life-changing addition to the Ifield contract, Vee Jay became the most successful Black-owned record label in the U.S. In early 1964, they sold 2.6 million Beatles 45s in a single month. Capitol Records had passed on the Beatles, but once they saw Vee Jay’s skyrocketing sales, they filed lawsuits and got the Beatles back. Legal fees and other financial woes led to the label’s bankruptcy in 1966, but later iterations and catalog acquisitions have kept many of Vee Jay’s vital recordings in print.
Matt Fresh asks the hard-hitting questions, like what would all of the “Best Picture” Oscar winners look like with Muppets? Consider, if you will, a Muppet version of 2012’s Argo:
The key to this is that Ben Affleck would keep his role. He would have a team of Muppets to help make a fake movie so they could rescue Muppet hostages. I’m not even sure you would have to change anything in the script because, despite its true story subject matter, it’s a pretty breezy, entertaining film. Affleck would remain behind the camera of The Muppets version as well. That’s the key to this. It would be the exact same movie but with Muppets. Most of these would have The Muppets changing certain things to fit their brand, adding jokes, songs, etc. Not this, this would be the same. Let Affleck cook with some Muppets.
This should come as no surprise, by physical DVD releases and rentals are plummeting.
All in all, it’s going to make for a humbling final-stage collapse for a product that was once the toast of Hollywood. Introduced in 1996 as a digital, higher-quality replacement to the analog VHS tape, the DVD experienced an exponential rise in its heyday similar to what streaming is enjoying today.
This growth wasn’t fueled just by new releases but by digital remasters and deluxe DVD editions of classic films that catered to collectors and nostalgic cinephiles. Roughly half of all U.S. homes owned a DVD player by 2003; three years later, DVD sales peaked at $16.6 billion, padding the studios’ bottom line through the turn of the century.
But good times don’t last forever. In 2007, Netflix, then a modestly successful DVD rental service founded in 1997, launched its digital streaming platform. And suddenly, the whole notion of consumers owning or renting discs was called into question by a model that enabled much cheaper access without them having to leave home.
In related news, Disney and Sony have agreed to a new deal where Sony takes over all of Disney’s physical media production. This could be a good thing, given that Disney is sitting on a bunch of releases from their own library as well the libraries of 20th Century (Fox), Hollywood Pictures, and Touchstone libraries — but time will tell.
Given the prominence of streaming, it’s no surprise that physical media has declined in popularity. But we’ve also seen instances of studios being very cavalier with their streaming catalogs. Last year, Disney deleted dozens of streaming titles, as did Max. In other words, the irony of streaming is that even as lots of titles become available on services like Disney+, more and more titles are becoming harder, if not impossible, to access.
Which means that if there’s a movie or TV series that you really love, don’t trust that it’ll always be available on your favorite streaming platform. Better to buy yourself a physical copy that can’t be removed or deleted on the whim of some exec looking for a tax write-off.
The WW2 drama Masters of the Air has become Apple’s latest hit, and the folks involved in its production were determined to get it right and do so respectfully.
[D]uring their off time, the cast found various ways to keep themselves entertained, in ways that wouldn’t break the reality of the series for them. “I don’t remember phones being on set that much,” Keoghan says. “But we started to play card games and stuff that was relevant to that time period. There was boxing, there was baseball — just these simple games that took you back to learning how to be communicative with one another, like they were back in those days.”
Beyond the fun and games, though, Keoghan adds that “we always came back to [the fact that] these are true events that we’re telling here, and these are real-life men that we’re portraying, and you’ve got to have a level of respect. It’s a serious matter. There was goofing around, but we knew our time and place, basically.”
My son and I recently started watching Masters of the Air and I’d say they pulled it off. It’s incredibly well-done and easily captures both the brutality of war as well as the courage of the men who flew B-17s on those harrowing missions.
My Christ and Pop Culture colleague Alisa Ruddell reviews The Painters, an animated adaptation of Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning Polish novel.
Such leanings — of the past towards communal responsibilities, and of the present towards individual rights — are no surprise. The discrepancy convinced me that the movie should be watched and the book read in tandem, to prevent us from imagining our moral “progress” over the past. We aren’t better than peasant communities which stigmatized rule-breakers: we just value mobility over accountability, and we have a different set of rules that makes heroes out of non-conformists and paints disruption as a virtue.
[…]
My pastor once advised me that I should attend not to what I fear most, but rather, to my blind spot. If I’m already aware of something, how much harm can it do me? The greatest danger is the invisible one, which is often the flipside of what garners all the attention. Our culture is obsessed with individual freedom and terrified of losing it. In our blind spot is the life of communal connectedness and relational obligation which has been disintegrating for centuries, and which cannot exist without limiting personal freedom.
In yet another sign of online publishing’s beleaguered state, BuzzFeed (itself once a shining light) has announced that they’re selling off “entertainment media” site Complex and cutting jobs.
The deal represents an enormous strategy shift for BuzzFeed, which went public two years ago in order to raise money to acquire companies and scale its offerings. Now, it’s forced to offload some of its most lucrative franchises as it struggles to survive on the public market.
The new owner is NTWRK, a live video shopping network. Most likely, Complex’s editorial aspects will be shut down in order to focus on brands and commerce.
And Vice’s CEO has announced that the once-influential publisher will no longer post stories to its website but instead, focus on social platforms — and in the process, lay off hundreds of employees.
“It is no longer cost-effective for us to distribute our digital content the way we have done previously,” Dixon writes. “Moving forward we will look to partner with established media companies to distribute our digital content, including news, on their global platforms, as we fully transition to a studio model.”
Vice has been struggling with many of the same challenges affecting other companies across the media industry. Advertising has become a less lucrative way to monetize content, and audiences are becoming more difficult to reach directly. That’s why Vice is moving toward new revenue streams, such as licensing out its content and focusing on social platforms with bigger scale.
I realize Opus operates on a far smaller scale than something like BuzzFeed or Vice. Also, I’m no businessperson or C-suite type. But — and I mean this with zero snark — it really does boggle the mind to see so many publications, many that once enjoyed considerable traffic and popularity, shut down or run into the ground after being acquired by investor groups and private equity firms. It’s almost like selling publications to people who have no background or interest in media, journalism, etc., but instead, only care about turning a profit and maximizing shareholder value, is a bad idea.
There have long been concerns over the lack of cultural diversity in AI development, which can lead to unintended discrimination. Not surprisingly, tech companies have begun enforcing more diversity in things like AI-generated images, which sounds like a good thing. But that’s also how you end up with AI tools creating historically inaccurate images like Black and Asian Nazis.
Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Gemini, addressed the model’s inaccuracies Wednesday on X, pointing to wider issues of AI bias when it comes to depicting people of color, which might have led to Gemini’s overcorrection in the images.
“As part of our AI principles, we design our image generation capabilities to reflect our global user base, and we take representation and bias seriously,” Krawczyk wrote, adding that the company will continue to address the issue for open ended prompts. “Historical contexts have more nuance to them and we will further tune to accommodate that.”
More from Casey Newton:
The platforms’ solution to an interface that summons stereotypes, then, is to edit their outputs to be less stereotypical.
But as Google learned the hard way this week, race is not always a question of stereotypes. Sometimes it’s a question of history. A chatbot that is asked for images of German soldiers from the 1930s and generates not a single white one is making an obvious factual error.
This is a fairly humorous story on the surface, but it highlights some very real challenges facing AI platforms. Reality, including history, is tricky and complicated, and when you throw in human nature, there are bound to be lots of bizarre mistakes. Mistakes that nobody could’ve foreseen because we humans take so many things for granted, like the historical inaccuracy of Black and Asian Nazis. AI tools, however, don’t have that benefit because they have no creativity or imagination of their own. Like all computer systems, they only spit out that which we’ve told them to.
From the Blog
Between X/Twitter, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram, it’s easy to forget about Bluesky, which was invite-only up until recently. But now that it’s officially open to everyone, here’s everything you need to know about the platform that was originally intended to be Twitter’s replacement.
One of Bluesky’s biggest features is the ability to subscribe to and switch between multiple custom feeds, which “allows you to pick the algorithm that powers your social media experience.” It’s somewhat analogous to X/Twitter’s topics and interests, but whereas X/Twitter determines the list of selectable topics, Bluesky allows feed creators themselves to specify the criteria that determines which posts appear in a feed. A custom feed might only display posts that contain a certain keyword or even emoji, or come from a manually curated list of accounts.
You may not feel the need to venture onto yet another social media platform, but given X/Twitter’s self-immolation and Facebook’s history of privacy issues, Bluesky’s appeal is pretty clear. That, and it’s always good for users to have more, not fewer, options.
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