The book Out of the Vinyl Deeps
is turning my head around. This us the first time I've read music criticism from a female/feminist view, and the writing and observations are first-rate. Ellen Willis wrote for The New Yorker amongst other venues, and reading her burgeoning feminism come to grips with the male dominated "cock-rock" scene of the 1970's makes for fascinating reading. The reprint of her essay on The Velvet Underground for Greil Marcus' Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island
is extraordinary in it's comparison of the Velvets cool nihilism versus the band's spiritual longing.For goodness' sake, they're playing a Muzak version of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" at Stop & Shop. Wasn't the original bad enough? It makes me want to run home and bang my head to The Ramones, Ascension and Elmore James. If the sheer barf-inducing nature of this song weren't bad enough, it brings back bad memories of a certain tubby wall flower looking on as the beautiful people danced and fumblingly groped at junior high school dances. The 1980's must be quarantined for the goodness of society.
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