babe this rocks and I’m so glad you wrote it— I didn’t finish yet but ran here because i just remembered that years ago when chloe zhao nomadland won for best picture I wrote in my notes app: is this even a win for asians bc her identity(whatever that is) is incidental to the movie…she won via a film that could not be more legible/palatable to the white votership of the academy. striving for that legibility is so lame lmao.
I look forward to your writing because it’s usually chock-full of references, which makes your writing a good jumping point onto further pastures. Also, small suggested edit- Rina Sawayama is Asian British, not Asian American, but your point stands.
"I’ve noticed Asian American musicians are almost exclusively doing some laid-back-indie-bedroom-R&B-soul-alternative thing."
it's interesting because at first this was considered pretty subversive. Asian representation in Pitchfork as a form of empowerment-kind of thing. I think being an Asian-American in a white dominated media space was the most an Asian-American artist could really aspire to in the 2010s. the approval of a different flavor of white person, i guess. I think the attainment of cultural capital has been considered "the final frontier" for Asian-Americans. Especially given that kpop is the most popular form of music created by people of Asian descent, I imagine that there was this desire to prove themselves as "deep" and "legitimate" and "anti pop." Rina Sawayama doesn't really seem to have that baggage; she's well-versed in pop tropes and uses that to her advantage.
I'd say at the very least, Mitski's quite experimental in her form and the whole "white sad girl" scene she got lumped in with is was reductive. She is no gracie abrams lol. I didn't consider her music to be the kind that fetishized its own melancholy. But there definitely is something quite restrained and sparse about her songwriting style if you compare her with the white guys of 2010s indie rock (considering the verbosity and wordplay of arctic monkeys or vampire weekend). oof, is this a "high context" vs "low context" culture thing lol? [also maybe a gendered issue, because i notice a similar sparseness with phoebe bridgers]
thanks for sharing your thoughts. i read your comment when you posted it but wanted to read it thoroughly before responding but then i forgot to. based on your essays i've read i think you're more deeply aware of the American pop and indie music scene - i don't think i consciously remember when japanese breakfast, mitski, etc started getting noticed by white people, let alone what the discourse was.
i had a phase a few years ago where i got nostalgic for the 2010s indie rock but eventually tired of listening to white men saying the same kind of things over and over. it could be a white boy genre thing, the verbosity and the willingness to take space in that way, an overcompensation and overrepresentation of loud white men, rather than a shortcoming of the asian american artists.
i think that since i've gotten into pop/rock/rap from asian artists in asian countries, i've recognized that there is so much more emotion and vibrancy (as opposed to sparse songwriting) that i could instead be engaging with. ex: lexie liu (though she is clearly trying to gain more popularity with western audiences), haze, rolling quartz, wutiaoren, no party for cao dong, etc.
babe this rocks and I’m so glad you wrote it— I didn’t finish yet but ran here because i just remembered that years ago when chloe zhao nomadland won for best picture I wrote in my notes app: is this even a win for asians bc her identity(whatever that is) is incidental to the movie…she won via a film that could not be more legible/palatable to the white votership of the academy. striving for that legibility is so lame lmao.
hi ellen, thank you for reading and for your thoughts. i didn’t even realize an asian person directed nomadland….
I look forward to your writing because it’s usually chock-full of references, which makes your writing a good jumping point onto further pastures. Also, small suggested edit- Rina Sawayama is Asian British, not Asian American, but your point stands.
thanks for the correction!
"I’ve noticed Asian American musicians are almost exclusively doing some laid-back-indie-bedroom-R&B-soul-alternative thing."
it's interesting because at first this was considered pretty subversive. Asian representation in Pitchfork as a form of empowerment-kind of thing. I think being an Asian-American in a white dominated media space was the most an Asian-American artist could really aspire to in the 2010s. the approval of a different flavor of white person, i guess. I think the attainment of cultural capital has been considered "the final frontier" for Asian-Americans. Especially given that kpop is the most popular form of music created by people of Asian descent, I imagine that there was this desire to prove themselves as "deep" and "legitimate" and "anti pop." Rina Sawayama doesn't really seem to have that baggage; she's well-versed in pop tropes and uses that to her advantage.
I'd say at the very least, Mitski's quite experimental in her form and the whole "white sad girl" scene she got lumped in with is was reductive. She is no gracie abrams lol. I didn't consider her music to be the kind that fetishized its own melancholy. But there definitely is something quite restrained and sparse about her songwriting style if you compare her with the white guys of 2010s indie rock (considering the verbosity and wordplay of arctic monkeys or vampire weekend). oof, is this a "high context" vs "low context" culture thing lol? [also maybe a gendered issue, because i notice a similar sparseness with phoebe bridgers]
anyway, lots to chew on, as always! <3
thanks for sharing your thoughts. i read your comment when you posted it but wanted to read it thoroughly before responding but then i forgot to. based on your essays i've read i think you're more deeply aware of the American pop and indie music scene - i don't think i consciously remember when japanese breakfast, mitski, etc started getting noticed by white people, let alone what the discourse was.
i had a phase a few years ago where i got nostalgic for the 2010s indie rock but eventually tired of listening to white men saying the same kind of things over and over. it could be a white boy genre thing, the verbosity and the willingness to take space in that way, an overcompensation and overrepresentation of loud white men, rather than a shortcoming of the asian american artists.
i think that since i've gotten into pop/rock/rap from asian artists in asian countries, i've recognized that there is so much more emotion and vibrancy (as opposed to sparse songwriting) that i could instead be engaging with. ex: lexie liu (though she is clearly trying to gain more popularity with western audiences), haze, rolling quartz, wutiaoren, no party for cao dong, etc.
Thank you so much for more of your excellent writing and thoughtful research.