Twerking through the Ages

1984, age 14. "Head," by Prince, from the album Dirty Mind.

WARNING: This blog post contains frank discussion of some matters related to human sexuality. Proceed with caution.

It's been awhile since I've watched MTV's Video Music Awards. I suppose that's mostly because I don't think MTV has much cred discussing music videos.  I also think they are a little predictable.

Nevertheless, I'm an avid pop culture junkie, so I felt the need to investigate following the social media eruption that happened after Miley Cyrus' performance with Robin Thicke on the VMAs. I will confess that I didn't even know that Ms. Cyrus had crossed over to a post-Disney career, following the footsteps of other alum Fergie, Christina Aguilera, Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Shia LeBeouf, Selena Gomez, and of course, the original beach babe, Annette Funicello.

The hullabaloo seems to be related to Miley extending her tongue and twerking during the performance.  She's been called slutty, trashy, and cheap on posts from my own friends and pop culture bloggers. Several of my friends have opined that she represents a decline in musicianship, civil rights, and/or culture at large.

I gotta say, I think it's all a tempest in a teacup.

For those of you over 30, "tweaking" is defined by the Urban Dictionary as "The rhythmic gyrating of the lower fleshy extremities in a lascivious manner with the intent to elicit sexual arousal or laughter in ones [sic] intended audience." (Congrats, Urban Dictionary, for your post-SAT vocab, but you may want to look up "extremities." I don't think the ass counts.)

When I read that definition, I immediately thought of one pop performer: Elvis Presley.

You know, "Elvis the Pelvis"? The King of Rock and Roll?  You've heard of him, right?

Well, if you don't know how Elvis earned the moniker, it's related to one of his earliest television performances. The 19-year-old singer appeared on The Milton Berle Show in 1956 and performed a couple of his hits, including a hip-shaking cover of Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog." Now, it's no surprise that Elvis might seek to emphasize the sexuality of "Hound Dog." The song is about a man who sleeps around.  (You knew that, yeah? I mean, you knew it wasn't actually about a dog, right?) The result was electrifying and the public reaction was immediate. Ed Sullivan, TV's most popular host, immediately declared that he would never book Presley. The day following the performance, the New York Times said, "Mr. Presley has no singing ability . . . His one specialty is an accented movement of the body that heretofore has been primarily identified with the repertoire of the blonde bombshells of the burlesque runway. The gyration never had anything to do with the world of popular music and still doesn't." The Daily News echoed the sentiment by saying that the performance was "tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos." Other media outlets concurred.

You know the rest of the story: teenage Elvis went back to Tennessee, scorned and dejected, and lived out the rest of his days pumping gas at an Esso station, never to return to the stage again.

Well, except for the part where Ed Sullivan ate crow, signed Elvis for an unprecedented three-show, $50,000 contract, and he became the single most identifiable figure in the history of rock and roll music.

Presley went on to record lots of songs about sex, by the way, including "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," and "Jailhouse Rock," perhaps popular music's first paean to gay prison sex. (You knew that's what the song was about, right? I mean, what did you think Number 47 and Number 3 were talking about, exactly?)

In fact, Elvis was just continuing a tradition of performing songs to shock the elders. Anyone who is a blues fan knows just how "blue" the music got in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. (Go give Bessie Smith's "Kitchen Man" a listen. I once heard my friend Doris perform it and make a room blush.) And R&B singles like "The Rotten Cocksuckers Ball" by the Clovers, circa 1954, were certainly more explicit than anything the King had to offer. Hell, the tradition goes back even further to the so-called "bawdy ballads" like "Roll Your Leg Over."

And the tradition continued. Songs about sex (and drugs, the other post-30 bugaboo) are pervasive in the history of rock and roll, as are "shocking" sexual performances. A sample:

• Almost all of Little Richard's output consists of sexual innuendo, and sometimes explicit content. "Tutti Frutti" was, of course, about gay sex (You knew that, right? I mean "All the Fruits"? What did you think it was about?) and "Long Tall Sally" included lyrics like, "Long Tall Sally she's built for speed, she's got everything that Uncle John needs."
• The Rolling Stones were forced to change the lyrics of their hit, "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" for the Ed Sullivan Show. The group agreed, but then returned to the stage wearing Nazi uniforms and regalia to protest the censorship.
• The Doors' Jim Morrison was arrested in Miami for allegedly shouting, "Do you want to see my cock?" and then exposing his penis to a concert audience.
• David Bowie was possibly the first pop artist to come out as bisexual in an interview with Playboy magazine in 1975.
• The Ohio Players released some albums.
• A 17-year-old Prince releases his first album, including the single, "Soft and Wet." Prince's Dirty Mind album, featured the performer on the cover in a g-string and trench coat and includes songs about cunnilingus and incest. Prince's Controversy track, "Jack U Off," is only one of the most explicit from the album. The newly-formed Parents Music Resource Center targets Prince's "Darling Nikki," for including lyrics about female masturbation. Prince appears nude on the the cover of his album, Lovesexy. Everything that Prince has every done.
• In 1990, hip hop artists 2 Live Crew had their album banned for obscenity by a U.S. District Court.
• Remember Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl?
• The VMAs themselves have included Madonna rolling on the stage in a bridal gown singing, "Like a Virgin;" an 18-year-old Britney Spears donning a "nude" costume and boa constrictor; and Madonna french-kissing Christina Aguilera and a 22-year-old Britney Spears, both former Disney stars.

I mean, this is a sample — not some exhaustive list. And I'm not including all the Satan-worshipping, biting-the-heads-off-doves incidents, either. The history of music is just full of this stuff.

So what's it all mean?

Two things I think.

The first is that my aunt Awayn was right. (That's pronounced "A-1" with the accent on the first syllable, and yes, that is her real name.) Awayn is a fundamentalist Christian (and she would not mind me saying that). When I was a kid, she insisted that rock and roll was "jungle music" and that it was mostly about sex.

Well, she's right. I'm sure that the term "jungle music" probably indicates some latent racism on her part, but the music is African in much of it's origin — as is all American music. (The conversation about the appropriation of these styles, i.e., the "white boy who stole the blues," is too long for this post, but Robin Thicke is just the latest example.)

But rock and roll is also largely about sex. I mean, "rockin' and rollin' . . ." That's obvious, right? Why are we surprised that there is music about what is arguably the single most dominant biological function of every living organism on the planet? And why are we pretending it's new?

The second is that rock and roll — and many other popular American styles — are about a younger generation rebelling against the social mores of an older generation.

My guess is that Miley's manager said something to her like this: "Girl, Lady GAGA is gonna be on the VMAs. That chick wore a dress made out of flank steaks! You better step up your SHIT!"

Because, how do you shock a generation that rocked out to "Love the One You're With" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road"? We've all seen your muddy nude dancing at Woodstock, we have read about your acid trips, and we know how you advocated "free love." It takes a lot to shock you.

And you 70s types, with your Studio 54 and cocaine spoons, your Masters and Johnson, your Coming of Age in Samoa — how exactly are we supposed to rock your world?

As for you 80s children, all I can say is that you had Prince.

Art is fundamentally about starting a conversation, making people think. For that reason, this one goes in the "win" column for Ms. Cyrus. We're talking about her performance. And you've read this far. 

The other group who has expressed strong objection to Sunday's show are those who are distressed that we are all talking about Miley while Syrians are being killed, the Egyptian government is in a shambles, and the polar ice caps are melting. To those good-hearted people, I would just say that you are right: the world can be unbearably awful at times. Sometimes art answers those issues. But sometimes (as I have written elsewhere), it just provides a much-needed, booty-shaking respite from all the awfulness. It may not be your cup of tea, but there are those, probably younger than you, who are twerking away, just trying to lose themselves in the music for awhile.

Why I'm Not a Snob (Anymore)

1990, age 18. "Time After Time," by Miles Davis, from the album You're Under Arrest.

You know the movie High Fidelity? It's easily one of my top five movies of all time. I may qualify as a nerd in several of the genus' subspecies, but I am most definitely and finally a music nerd. This is a movie for people like me. It shows the types of obsessions that we have about record labels, limited releases, track order, and the like. Perhaps given the ubiquity of Top 40 (and Top 10, Top 20, Top 50, and Top 100) lists, it also shows our passion for ordering. Top Five Track One, Side Ones of All Time. Top Five Songs about Death. Top Five Crimes Perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80s and 90s.  It's true: we really do that. I can remember conversations with like-minded friends about top five (or ten) Art Blakey sidemen, break-up songs, underrated bass players, country covers, and pop records of all time. Oh, and saxophonists. The list is a staple of the music nerd's life.

Of course, inherent to the list is the idea of ranking, i.e., determining who is the best. It's kind of a weird obsession with music fans, but it's pretty universal. "You think Sonny Rollins swings harder than Trane? Are you freaking kidding me?!" "In what world is The White Album better than Revolver?" "Only a complete imbecile would think Screamin' Jay Hawkins sings 'I Put a Spell on You' better than Nina Simone." Music lovers strongly attach to their opinions. They can make a discussion of the Top Five Folk-Rock Duos after Simon and Garfunkel more contentious and of seemingly greater gravitas than the First Council of Nicaea.

Which brings me to one of my favorite scenes in High Fidelity. The record store staff are talking to a regular customer, Louis, who has just witnessed them belittling another store patron and this exchange happens:

     Louis: You guys are snobs
     Staff: No, we're not.
     Louis: Yeah, seriously, you're totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit        on people who know less than you.
     Staff: No!
     Louis: Which is everybody . . . 
     Staff: Yeah . . . 

All this list-making, all of this obsession over minutia, all of the fierce defense over one's opinions leads almost inexorably to being a music snob.

I used to be okay with that. When I was growing up, I seemed to think that becoming more opinionated was somehow the point of it all.  After all, even the most famous of musicians and critics are virulent in their attacks on others.  I've mentioned it elsewhere, so I won't rehearse it again here, but older generations of musicians disparage the music of younger musicians almost as a point of honor. It's not just old versus new, of course. Country fans can't stand hip hop. Blues fans think jazz is pretentious and egg-headed. Hard rock fans think that "disco sucks." Etc.

As I've mentioned previously, I was a huge Prince fan when I was young. It started with the 1999 album when I was just 10 years old (yikes!) and continued through my junior high school years. But when I joined the school band, I started playing saxophone and listening to jazz. Soon my listening habits began to change. Instead of Prince, I was listening to John Coltrane. Miles Davis replaced Morris Day and I dug on Ella Fitzgerald more than Vanity 6. Needless to say, not many 13-year-olds in my zip code were head-bobbing to Horace Silver in 1985. On one hand, that made me a bit eccentric and outcast. On the other hand, it kind of made me feel superior. Superior in taste, in intellect . . . even morally superior in some way, as if the decision to spin Blue Train instead of Purple Rain was of ethical significance.

And so, over the next few years, I began to "refine" my record collection. I not only bought more bebop, I actually got rid of most of my pop records. I can even remember when I sent a crate full of them — including my Prince albums — with one of my sisters to be sold at a flea market for 10 cents apiece.

Fast forward a couple more years and I find myself in college majoring in music. I had a few great professors and a whole bunch of similarly-minded musicians as peers. My ears opened up to all kinds of new sounds that year. Also new that year was a book that came recommended from my professors and made the rounds in our studio — Miles: An Autobiography. You felt cool reading it. Hell, you felt cool just carrying it around so that girls could see that you were reading it. It's very entertaining. (E.g., from page 9: "But shit, I wasn't alone in listening to them like that, because the whole band would just like have an orgasm every time Diz or Bird played — especially Bird. I mean Bird was unbelievable. Sarah Vaughan was there also, and she's a motherfucker, too." There's pages of this stuff.)

So I'm reading this thing and feeling all cool — I remember I was home for a weekend riding in the back of my parent's car going somewhere, reading this book. Then I come across this passage: ". . . I really love Prince, and after I heard him, I wanted to play with him sometime . . . he plays his ass off as well as he sings and writes. He's got that church thing up in what he does. He plays guitar and piano and plays them very well . . . Prince is a very nice, a shy kind of person, a little genius, too."

Say what?!

Miles Davis, the Miles Davis, jazz legend and icon, thinks Prince is a genius. Not just, "Yeah, I can dance to that stuff," but "genius."

I'll be honest with you, it shook up my world. Not least of all because I remembered all those records that someone got for about $2.00 a few years back.

Well, I was still learning and apparently hadn't heard the whole story, you know? Yeah, evidently Miles had been singing the praise of pop music and musicians for a couple of decades by that point, even though my listening hadn't gotten past his mid-Columbia output. In fact, he'd even released an album where he covered Cyndi Lauper's "Time after Time." Oh man.

I kind of took it hard. At first, I wanted to side with all those jazz musicians who accused Miles of "selling out." The thing was, this guy was there at the birth of the cool. There was no one who could school Miles Davis on what was cool. He practically invented the notion.

So, I started picking up copies of all those Prince albums I'd sold off, this time on CD. I was watching Saturday Night Live the night Miles Davis died during my sophomore year.  The musical guest was Public Enemy and they observed a moment of silence in his honor. That seemed right.

I also started a slow shift in my thinking about music that continues to this day.

The thing about music is that most people listen to it because they find meaning and joy in it. When you're a music snob, it's like saying, "You shouldn't find meaning and joy in that thing that seems to be giving you so much pleasure." Why would you do that? This world is hard enough. We need joy and meaning wherever we find it, and we don't all find it in the same place.

These days I enjoy more music than I ever have. I have a couple of college degrees in music and I get why some of it is more complex or sophisticated or technically difficult or whatever, but I have to say: I don't really care. What matters to me when I'm listening is if the performer is connecting with me emotionally. They don't always, but I can always appreciate the attempt.

That doesn't mean there isn't some music I'd rather eat chalk than listen to. Kenny G still turns my stomach. You can keep your Jimmy Buffett, too. I could list a bunch of them, but I don't want to get in the way of your aural bliss. I don't have to dig what you're spinning, but musical taste is not a moral issue for me anymore. The power of music is.

Oh yeah: I'm also gonna keep making those lists. I may have mellowed a bit, but I'm still a nerd.