Bucket List Achievements: Ann Powers Knows Who I Am

My heart feels so full and wonderful right now, like it's a freshly blown balloon made out of hopes, dreams and the lifelong desire to become relevant in the field that matters to you.

Quick back story: I haven't been writing. At all. For those who care, or accidentally stumble upon TDOS, my last written expression is a half paragraph about the okayafrica festival. To put this into perspective, I have written more impassioned and thought provoking Trader Joe's grocery lists since then. (The Candy Cane JoJo's ice cream is really quite something.) At Thanksgiving, my mom, various cousins and friends all asked why I had stopped writing. My brother recently told me it made him sad to know that I no longer did the one thing that I had done for myself, regardless of whether or not I had a job (or even an internship) at a respected publication or had people reading my work, period. I have been told that it doesn't matter if I am blogging, scratching away on a napkin, or jotting down thoughts in a Lisa Frank notebook; I should be writing. Doesn't matter if it's good, if it's bad, or if it is documented proof that I am slowly going insane from hanging out with children all day (and there is the simplest reason for my lack of inspiration or willingness to create; cash does, in fact, rule everything around me, and being a nanny, while fulfilling and lucrative, wears the FUCK out of you). I moved to New York to someday be Touré. The white, Jewish, female Touré. Because I love soul music. Because I love R&B. Because I can happily produce 1,000 words on why I still, at the age of almost 25, can relate, in a completely not ironic way, to a Mariah Carey song. Because, after a satisfying, successful and resume building college career at Boston's best entertainment weekly, after running the best damn soul, R&B and slow jams radio program this side of the Mississippi, and after managing a staff of writers and photographers for one of the best college radio station's websites in the country, I knew I had something to offer. I had sat with legends, face to face, and asked them what made them tick, I had spoken to my heroes across time zones and oceans on the telephone, picking their brains and trying my best not to embarrass myself, and most importantly, I had learned from the best mentors, editors and writers around. I had, at the young age of 22, accomplished things I never thought I could. I had taken every opportunity thrown my way, worked ungodly hours, utilized the tools given me, and spent every waking minute working, and loving it.

And since then, I haven't done a fraction of any of that. Part of it is circumstance, I graduated at one of the worst times ever to try and find a job, of any kind, the industry in which I wanted to go into isn't what it used to be, I have an ego, but not that big of an ego to pursue music criticism, the music I care about isn't as fairly represented as it should be, I don't want to compromise my tastes, I'm a cry baby, I'm a girl and the only people I know who are successfully being published in this field are boys, boys that once were under my editorship in college, who I would like to say, I am so very proud of, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I'm too busy, I need money, I am not good enough, I am only one in a million. And of course, and most importantly, I gave up.

I admit this. And I will also admit that I have made plenty of excuses, reasons and justifications over the past year and a half too, but this is the first time I have said (or typed) out loud that I gave up. Threw in the towel. Blew it. Dropped any and all balls. But that's OK. Because I knew that someday my desire to talk shit, spout my unwanted and unwarranted opinions (which are totally right, by the way) and to blast superfluous blog posts about Charlie Wilson and Crystal Waters into the void of the internet would come back. I knew it would. My family and friends did too. Because the only thing that matches the amount of indignant self righteous taste making bullshit I have within me, is the support of my loved ones. No sarcasm, no jokes, no goofs. It's true. And I am grateful.

The only thing was, I didn't know how or when it would come back. But that's the whole crux of the biscuit isn't it? Writer's block, periods of depression, bird flu and Athlete's foot all have their own time tables, and no amount of tough love, Target brand foot cream or naps will make it end. I knew this, so I waited. I abandoned TDOS (I'm sorry to like, 2 people), I stopped applying for writing industry jobs, stopped networking, and waited. I waited almost a year. And then, one day (yesterday actually), the switch flipped.

My dear friend, co-blogger and music soul mate Ben sent me this email last night, at 6:30 PM:

Uh, your This Is It piece is in the other notable music writing appendix of BMW '10!!!! did you know that?! Congratulations! We need to celebrate this.

Hope all else is well by you.

Of course I did not know that. At that exact moment, I was watching Scooby-Doo with a five year-old. I had completely forgotten, that sometime last year I had in fact, in a bout of inspiration, submitted a few of my pieces to Daphne Carr and the gang at Best Music Writing for 2010 consideration. They politely let me know that they got my submissions, and thanked me. Quite frankly, I was just happy I got an email back from them. I then promptly forgot about all of it. (In fact, our good friend Kyle, who designed our lovely site, was the reason Ben found out in the first place. He just happened to be skimming through the list in the appendix and found me. Just like that. I probably wouldn't have known until I bought the book myself.)

I didn't believe it. I made Ben text me a picture of my name in the appendix. I then tried to Google my name and the book together, but all that came up was my LinkedIn profile. Trife. And when I just tried searching for a list of pieces included in this year's appendix, I came across this:

NYC Thanksgiving Week Double Header

Let's hear it for New York! While there is always a large number of critics in NYC who make it into the pages of BMW*, this is a true banner year for New Yorkers in the book. So, we have an extra special two day extravaganza of writers, henceforth named The Best Music Writing 2010 Thanksgiving Week Double Header:

Monday, November 22, 2010
7pm, Housing Works Cafe
126 Crosby Street New York, NY 1001
Free (please bring used books to donate)

Hosted by Guest Editor Ann Powers and Series Editor Daphne Carr
Readings by 2010 Contributors: Raquel Cepeda, Robert Christgau, Sasha Frere-Jones, Lola Ogunnaike, Starrene Rhett, Jody Rosen, Alex Ross, and Greg Tate

Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Free, 7pm, SouthPaw
125 Fifth Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11217
Hosted by Guest Editor Ann Powers and Series Editor Daphne Carr
Readings by 2010 Contributors: Nitsuh Abebe, Jon Caramanica, Jason Fine, Maura Johnston, Evie Nagy, Tavia Nyong’o, Christopher R. Weingarten

GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. Talk about being oblivious. Instead of being in a car for 14 hours on the way to Chicago, I could have been hobnobbing with Robert Christgau and Sasha Frere-Jones. Thanksgiving dinner this year was good, but not that good (with respect to my aunt's ginger cheesecake that she made just for me, of course). To be fair, they didn't contact me to let me know I was selected, and I assume this is because I wasn't published in the book, only included in the appendix. Which is totally fine, I just wish I wasn't a bonehead and had followed up.

The Best Music Writing series, for those of you philistines out there, is to put it simply, the truth. I have been pouring over these anthologies for years. It's like Christmas. Each piece in the book is a new gift to unwrap and all of them are worth unwrapping. The guest editors are some of my heroes, and the contributors are people I would be honored to share a Twix bar with, let alone an appendix. So now, Isabelle Davis, and her "notable" (!!!!!!!!!) blog post "That Really Was It: Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT" are hanging out on page 318 nestled between people like Rob Harvilla of the Village Voice, Jess Harvell of Idolator, NICK FUCKING HORNBY, GREIL MARCUS, KELEFA SENNEH, DANYEL SMITH, ROB SHEFFIELD and MY PERSONAL HERO, Touré. Touré. Fucking Touré.

My name is in a book. My name, and the title of a piece I wrote, and believed in, is mentioned among a list of luminaries and recommended reading. Now allow me to be self indulgent and congratulatory for one quick, all caps second: SOMETHING I WROTE IS CONSIDERED NOTABLE BY PEOPLE WHO MATTER. I AM LISTED AS SOMETHING WORTH READING, ALONG WITH PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING. I AM MENTIONED IN A BOOK ABOUT THINGS BEING GOOD. A BOOK WITH THE WORD "BEST" IN THE TITLE.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to celebrate.

I Am...Ann Powers

Back in October I wrote a defense/review of the two new B singles (and B as a pop artist in general) from her impending I Am...Sasha Fierce. I just got a chance to hear the whole album (well, just the normal release, the deluxe edition has a few extra tunes per personality and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition circa 1997 inspired cover art) and the two sides of Ms. Hov.

So, I am never embarrassed when I am wrong and have no problem with admitting errors in judgment. Lucky for me, I wasn't completely overly hopeful about the overly ambitious double album: it has some classic Beyonce cuts ("Single Ladies" most notably) and the Sasha half has a sass and sexual aggression that suits the club jam aspect of Sasha's party girl rep well. But in my earlier post I guessed that the Beyonce "ballad" portion would be akin to B'Day's "Resentment," a gorgeous and slightly disturbing song about broken trust, an adulterous relationship and um, a thinly veiled real life experience softly and gut wrenchingly sang over a well chosen Curtis Mayfield sample ("Think" to be precise). And that wishful hypothesis was very very very wrong. I Am...Sasha Fierce's ballads aren't terrible. They are just songs that I never want to listen to again. And would be better suited to Carrie Underwood.

L.A. Times pop guru and my adolescent hero, Ann Powers, has an excellent take on the split diva's record. The best review I have read so far. Pay special attention to what she says regarding the "racial undertone" that separates the two Bs. Very very very spot on and intriguing. The article after the jump.

In the news release for her new, ambitious, somewhat befuddling double album -- the deluxe edition, with extra tracks, is currently streaming on her MySpace page -- Beyonce Knowles discusses her newly revealed alter ego, Sasha Fierce. "She's the party girl, she's Bootylicious," says the singer-songwriter-movie star-mogulista. "She is but I'm not. She's my alter ego. I'm finally revealing who I am."

The contradiction built into that brief comment says much about Beyonce's artistic predicament. A child talent-show winner molded into a pop star by her notoriously driven father, she is a creature of the stage, like Britney and Christina, the pop stars with whom she might have continued to be lumped if her father-figure husband -- and, more important, her own "rapperly" vocal gifts -- hadn't helped her secure a spot in hip-hop's firmament. Yet because the world of hip-hop soul expects its divas to be "real," she's often criticized for seeming distant within her own performances and refusing to expose herself.

For Beyonce, to say that an identity she is not can also "reveal ... who I am" is not a contradiction. As an artist, she is a role-player first -- a brainy, often showy interpreter instead of a gut singer on ballads, and a brilliantly varied rhythmic innovator on her club hits. "I Am ... Sasha Fierce" shows her further refining both of those tendencies, and it's full of interesting choices. But her misplaced worries about authenticity cause Beyonce to make some unfortunate missteps (mostly into the puddle of excess) that often afflict artists in mid-career.

Her first mistake, noted in other early reviews, was to separate "Beyonce" from "Sasha" and give each lady her own disc. Dispensing with the idea that the one sharing her name is any more genuine makes it clear that Beyonce has accepted standard thinking about what "real" is for a woman.

For T.I. (the other hip hop star who recently tried this schizophrenia thing) real-versus-fake meant thug-versus-pop-star, and ultimately the two were inseparable. But that's the male rapper's version of this struggle -- the ascendant entrepreneur trying to reconcile with the streetwise, marginalized youth still fighting for control of his psyche. (That's also the Jay Z story, so B knows it well.)

Might as well quote B herself (or whoever wrote the lines -- she had many collaborators, as always) to define the split she makes. "My heart used to be cold 'til your hands laid on my soul," she intones in "That's Why You're Beautiful," in which she compares herself to a diamond that finds its sparkle only when bought. This is the "real" Beyonce -- romantic, interdependent, brought to life by love. Her modus operandus is the power ballad.

Then there's Sasha, whose manifesto is the Lil Wayne-inspired "Diva," anchored around the line, "Diva is the female version of a hustla." She is nobody's baby, and if she finds love in the club, she's not necessarily dirtying her apartment with it after closing hours.

Her motif is the club banger -- electro elements optional. When she does go into mid-tempo territory -- say, on the R. Kelly-meets-Rihanna vocal workout "Hello," or on "Ego," in which B shows off the spunk she developed playing Etta James in a movie (much to longtime James supporter Christina Aguilera's chagrin, we're sure )-- Sasha's still all about sonic complexity and challenging singing, rather than the cleaner, more open style of the Beyonce tracks.

The weirdest thing about this split is its racial undertone. The Beyonce ballads fall into that soft-rock zone that incorporates elements of crossover country, Celine-and-Whitney style divadom, and U2-derived guitar hymnody. They're vehemently not R&B, and Beyonce enunciates them in a firmly post-racial style, in the same ballpark as her multi-culti rivals Alicia Keys and Leona Lewis. ("Halo," written by the hip hop world's latest rock crush, Ryan Tedder, was originally intended for Lewis.)

There's also the clear influence of Beyonce's idol, Barbra Streisand. The cowriters on these songs are mostly white, though Babyface, long soul's ambassador to soft rock, makes an appearance. The unrelenting uplift of these tracks conjures thoughts of transcendence, and that universal tone is vehemently not grounded in a "black" sound.

Sasha Fierce, on the other hand, knows where her home is. Enlisting top urban music producers including Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Sean Garrett and Jim Jonsin (who's white, but a veteran of Flo Rida's dirty rap scene), she stars in songs that manically reference the current lingo of the dancefloor and the mixtape.

As a vocalist, Beyonce seems more comfortable in Sasha's stilettos. Her performances on those cuts feel unforced and fun, like she's thinking on her feet. Stretching for deep meaning on the Beyonce ballads, she risks sounding ponderous -- communicating thoughtfulness weighs her down. Still, when she finds the right balance, as on the first single "If I Were a Boy," she can be exquisite -- accessing the timeless quality she's clearly bent on mastering.

So consider "I Am....Sasha Fierce" Beyonce's Obama album. Through it, she is imagining a pop sound that doesn't foreground race, but which still respects its roots in the black community. She's not there yet, but the effort is fascinating, and hopefully she will keep on this path. After all, the Obama that Beyonce invokes with the name of her alter ego is still only a child.

--Ann Powers

Snap Judgment: Beyonce's 'I Am...Sasha Fierce' [The L.A. Times music blog]