Jake, as expected, has delivered yet another lengthy and worthwhile
set of points here. Especially useful was the reference to the
Althusser etc. idea about the different layers of
culture/socioeconomy/demographics responding at different rates to
different forces but coalescing (at least in retrospect) to form
particular cultural styles.
Think of the map Jake was drawing as a seismographic (tectonic-plates)
survey and I think that makes sense of why Barry's issue about
individual boomer differences and the like doesn't obviate the point.
Generational bonds are one of the layers that scrape beneath our feet.
(NB: I'd clarify that my question about the timing of the first
punk-style ironic covers wasn't meant to be a criticism of Jake's use
of the Mats, just a music-trivia sideline.)
I also found the periodic questions about one-mass-culture vs.
splintered-niche culture interesting, esp. re: speed and pervasiveness
of media.
My sense is that demographic pressure is helping push the parts of
mass culture closer together again (unity in diversity as rock &
hip-hop fanciers start to hop borders via hybrid New Top 40 pop hits a
la Puff Daddy). But each of the new mass phenomena is now famous for
much less than 15 minutes, helping reinforce a cultural amnesia-anomie
that's very far from the icon-saturation of the seventies. (And
nervous making, imho.)
My sense of the post-ironic moment all this is helping create was
reinforced last night at an astoundingly packed and high-emotion
concert by Rufus Wainwright. His archly sentimental songs were being
treated as anthems by a crowd he suspected of being too young even to
know who River Phoenix (subject of his song "Death of the Matinee
Idol") was. Also significant, for instance, that this Gap-ad-doin',
slacker-fop incarnatin' singer closed with a cover of a little folk
song rather than of, say, a piano-retooled disco hit. Though of course
his own background informs such choices (having folk-makin' folks).
Watch those layers slide.
Here's my review, appearing in tomorrow's Globe & Mail in Toronto.
(This is also part of my continuing consciousness-raising campaign on
behalf of Martha Wainwright's upcoming album...) --
POP REVIEW
Rufus Wainwright
Trinity-St Paul's Centre, Toronto
by Carl Wilson
The Globe & Mail
Diva this, diva that. While pop pundits _ who resist catchphrases less
hardily than medieval peasants did the bubonic plague _ affix the
label to every Celine, Alanis and Shania who comes along, the only
Canadian who earns it is a gay ex-Montrealer in his mid-20s.
Rufus Wainwright, after all, croons about sex, death, Venetian
columns and the love rituals of arcane gods, in his unique
octave-skipping "popera" style. And if the fever of the
standing-room-only crowd at Trinity St. Paul's in Toronto Tuesday
night was any indication, he's tapping the latent romanticism of a
generation that would normally scoff at the whole idea of latent
romanticism.
After a warmly received opening set by British singer Imogen Heap,
whose piano ballads aligned comfortably with the Rufus vibe, a female
chorus immediately began chanting "Roooofuss!" in an oh-so-20-year-old
singsong cadence. In fact, the starstruck Rufies (for want of a better
word) defined the evening _ even as brash a performer as Wainwright
seemed surprised to see how quickly a Gap-ad cameo, an
alternative-album Juno (last weekend for his eponymous Dreamworks
debut) and a year's worth of media fawning can make you a cult idol.
The cheekbones and sideburns don't hurt either, of course.
Wainwright, in his flower-embroidered short black jacket and blue
crushed-velvet pants, embraced sex-symbol status with cheerful, if
self-conscious, arrogance. After full-band treatments of bouncy album
numbers Danny Boy and Matinee Idol, he introduced the tougher Damned
Ladies from behind his piano: "This song is about opera and divas" _
screams from the fans. Pause. "Some of you girls better grow up to be
opera singers, okay? ... For daddy?"
The irony of being greeted as a sophisticated Backstreet Boys
didn't escape Wainwright, perhaps the most unabashed gay man ever to
grace a U.S. major label (and, with his blend of Sondheim, Schubert
and Harry Nilsson, a songwriter who takes camp seriously indeed).
Later, taking up his guitar, he coyly addressed the crowd: "Now, I'm
sure you little girls all brought your gay friends along _ are you
going to pimp them to me? Come on, line 'em up," he chuckled. "Oh, I
keep forgetting we're in a church ... and here I am giving a sermon."
The tease continued into the encores, when Wainwright left aspiring
Lolitas crestfallen by ignoring their proffered roses and outstretched
arms. Still, no one was too disappointed. With Jack Petrizelli on
guitar, Jeff Hill on double-bass and Kevin Hobbes on drums, Wainwright
cranked out rousing versions of the single April Fools (with its
irresistable You will believe in love and all that it's meant to be
chorus), Foolish Love and the ragtimey Beauty Mark, a touching song
about not being "too manly" written for his mother, Kate McGarrigle of
Quebec folk-rock institution the McGarrigle Sisters.
As expected in any Rufus show since he was playing cabarets in
Montreal five years ago, family references didn't stop there.
Wainwright is of course also the son of McGarrigle's ex-husband, U.S.
singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, and the saga of the broken
musical home always provides something to ruminate on when (as in one
meandering mini-epic about Norse gods) the younger Wainwright loses
one's attention.
One encore brought family friend Jordy on stage to duet on folk
song Do You Love an Apple? And audience members shouted questions
about sister Martha, who provided exquisite backup vocals on *Rufus
Wainwright* and is now in New York preparing her own debut recording.
"She's writing great songs, and I'm going to have her killed,"
Wainwright half-joked. But he repented by playing a new song, Little
Sister, which portrays himself as the villain of the sibling rivalry.
Martha's absence also allowed for the concert's highlight, a
revised version of the album's brother-sister duet In My Arms.
Wainwright compensated for the missing second voice by slowing the
song down to a sultry, steamy striptease grind, and a thick silence
descended on the room. It was as if the dreamy Rufies were suddenly
confronting more genuine sex than they'd bargained for _ their
starcrossed diva's sensuous way of saying, "You ain't heard nothin'
yet."
