Apparently, history often forgets to question the separation of church and state, assert the presence of Russian spies in the U.S. government during the Cold War, glorify Ronald Reagan above Lincoln and unwrite hip-hop as a contributing part of American culture. Such are the (generalized) recommendations coming from the Texas Board of Education as it awaits the final vote on what has become a buzz-worthy topic over the last month: revisionist history, a touchy subject when it comes to mixing seemingly historical fact with how certain factions may prefer to view history subjectively. What Texas' Board of Education is really trying to do is take the rules of recontextualization—the refitting or reassigning of a work of art into its greater context because of enhanced or simply new perspectives reached over time—and apply them to history.
While that is, and should be, frowned upon, it touches an aspect of music I have advocated frequently: using the bottomless well of music that is the Internet and the opportunity it brings to continuously recreate your opinions and assertions when it comes to music, or whatever form of art you fancy. It's like how ""Layla"" and other assorted love songs will now live on as the ultimate love letter, even though at the time the meanings were a personal secret from Eric Clapton confessed to Pattie Boyd. It's the same as the way Neil Young's ditch trilogy was considered dirty, disheveled and wholly unappealing by the general public only to become glorified grieving with the common knowledge of Young's mentality after the death of Danny Whitten, Young's counterpart on guitar, and the way Nick Drake is only now being seen as an essential building block of folk music decades after his death. In each case, recontextualization added deeper meanings through the details of personal context, yet this practice can also hurt classic artists.
When it was released in 1975, Brian Eno's Another Green World was heralded with praise, with commentary calling it ""the aural equivalent of a park on the moon,"" industrialist, a dream-filled slumber and so on. He was hailed as mastering the production studio as an instrument, a new concept as pop musicians were only beginning to consider abandoning traditional song structure by testing the outer limits of technology in music. But with today's ADD-riddled descendants like Dan Deacon and, specifically, the redefining of Eno's vision and artistic ambition for our generation by Radiohead's Kid A, Another Green World feels archaic, outdated and even simple in its ambitions to push pop music. His take on minimalism, ambience and an ethereal sound in pop music is lost on most of our generation after 25 years of subgenres and specializations of the techniques he introduced.
This is, in some ways, what the Texas Board of Education is attempting: adjusting (or ignoring) historical landscapes to fit modern ideologies because we are too far removed from the times of the original events to assert any misleadings. Lucky for music lovers, the complete objectivity of the art form and its reception provides for—even requires—recontextualization. And, to take a turn at public service announcements, there's no better way to refine the context through which you view an album than by discussing it with people who are not in your age bracket. The best place to do this: record stores. What is being celebrated this weekend? Record Store Day.
The event's basis points to the fact that no two perspectives on a piece of work are identical and the sharing of these unique perspectives can only contribute to a greater common knowledge. For as good as the Internet has been for exposure, it has also made listening a more isolated endeavor, one that is detrimental to recontextualization. So when you stumble across a gem online, don't forget to go to a record store and talk it up around the proverbial water coolers and maybe even (gasp!) buy it. Otherwise, you might be stuck thinking Radiohead were the first to use studio production to create new landscapes and Thomas Aquinas was more important to the American Revolution than the secular, obtuse Thomas Jefferson.
Big Record Store Day plans? Share them with Justin at jstephani@wisc.edu.
