Acts 10:10-15 (tniv)
About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles and birds. Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
“Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
Two years ago, a guy who calls himself Girl Talk released an album called Night Ripper. I loved the album. According to my last.fm stats, it’s my #1 most played album of all-time (since August 19, 2005, excepting several months early on when I wasn’t the diligent/compulsive scrobbler I am today). I remember writing about it, soon after it came out, that I probably wouldn’t care about it in a few months. I remember writing about it, at the end of the year, that I probably wouldn’t care about it the next year. I’ve always had this weird, push/pull relationship w/Night Ripper, so much resistance to something I so thoroughly enjoyed.
The resistance is easy to explain, though. On Night Ripper–and again on his new album, Feed The Animals–Girl Talk draws on any and every pleasure that could somehow be distinguished as “guilty.” The source material ranges from schmaltzy to vulgar. James Taylor to Ying Yang Twins. En Vogue to Snoop Dogg. Seals & Crofts to 2 Live Crew. The vulgarity is in full display, with the p-word and the d-word unedited. The schmaltz is similarly shameless. I’d be embarrassed to listen to the vulgarity in front of my parents; I’d be embarrassed to listen to the schmaltz in front of my peers.
Maybe even more of a predicament was presented in the hip/unhip dichotomy. Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement, Sonic Youth were rubbing elbows with Michael McDonald, Wings, and Phil Collins. It seemed wrong. But it felt right.
Moments of it were enlightening, like B.I.G. spitting “Juicy” over “Tiny Dancer.” I already liked both songs, but there was something about the mix that really gave them new life for me. There’s a sweet wistfulness to both songs, highlighted by the juxtaposition. Later, as 2 Live Crew half-sings “We Want Some *****” over Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair” and Wings’ “Silly Love Songs,” the filthy lyrics sound almost tender. On their own, the words sound animalistic vis-à-vis sexuality. Here, they sound incredibly human and vulnerable.
There’s something about music that tempts us (music lovers) to equate our tastes with our identities. Girl Talk challenges that, offering all kinds of four-lettered words, as well as schmaltz and bubblegum. “Get up, Peter. Listen and dance.”
7 Comments
You know, a friend of mine put this on the other night and as we listened to it I oscillated between being mildly offended by the language and mildly embarrassed by the cheesiness factor. Yet the whole time I had what I’m sure Girl Talk would describe as a “s— eating grin” on my face. I much as I might think I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it, I did anyway.
Exactly!
After I first read this post, I had “You have won a tiny Dundee” stuck in my head for 3 days, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing or inherently related, but it still happened.
Anyway, I think this is a pretty good assessment. And, btw, I’ve also been thinking about music lovers equating taste with identity lately.
Maybe you can help me figure out why that is (about taste & identity).
I don’t know! I think it’s a Four thing, though. Before you wrote this post, I was looking at a bunch of Facebook pages and noticing how many people say they “love everything!” I caught myself thinking, “Why could anyone say that?!” And then I felt really snobby. I mean, I know that’s not “bad” & doesn’t make up a person. Even so, I still thought it. (Remember when you said that you were both proud and not proud of being a Snob while not being the biggest Snob, or something like that? I wish I knew as much about music as you do. I don’t, but I still feel that tension you were talking about.) After that, but still before this post, I was driving with Caelyn. Some song was coming up with the f-word in it, and I had this internal battle about whether or not I should skip it, because she’s old enough to pick up the lyrics, but young enough to not be able to rightly process content (like the conversation we all had on the GIGO post). Yet, I caught myself feeling like it was really important that she be exposed to all kinds of good music from the beginning, even if the content’s rough, because it would shape her identity. I even thought about how different it might have been if I had had such an opportunity! In the end, I skipped the song and decided she could listen to good music with more appropriate content and still turn out okay.
So, yeah, let me know if you figure anything out.
No, I disagree w/you about it being a Four (or any particular personality type). I think it’s fairly universal. Even a statement like “I LUV EVERYTHING!” is a statement about one’s identity. Okay. This is what I’m going to write about today.
You might not believe me, but after I posted that comment, I started thinking almost exactly what you said: that it’s really not specific to a type & that even saying “I love everything” is a statement about identity. But I wasn’t home & I figured I’d just wait to see what you said. So I thought about it some more.
I guess what I was trying to say before but hadn’t fully figured out is that, while I think it’s true that even saying “I love everything” is a statement about one’s identity, not everyone else necessarily thinks that it is (which doesn’t negate the fact that it’s true). I’m sure other types, particularly music lovers of other types, personally equate taste w/identity (and I think that’s true of taste in things besides music too). But I think it might be more common w/Fours, or at least that Fours might be more likely to spend a lot of time thinking about what their taste in music (or anything else) says about their identity. Then again, if I put “I LUV EVERYTHING!” on my page, I would do it w/the express intention of conveying something that I believe is significant about me. But maybe that’s just me, & I’m a Four, so I can’t figure it out!
Okay. I’m excited for you to write about this today.