Three months ago radio activists were euphoric when the Federal Communications Commission, over the strong objections of influential commercial broadcasters, voted to roll out low-power radio (LPFM), a new class of 10 and 100 watt community-based FM stations. Since that vote though, the ad-hoc LPFM coalition of educators, church leaders, grass-roots entrepreneurs, school administrators and minorities have discovered firsthand why their primary foe, the National Association of Broadcasters, is regarded as one of Washington’s most powerful players.
For months the NAB, not accustomed to losing policy debates with the FCC, has mercilessly pounded the commission and Chairman Bill Kennard over LPFM. The NAB claims that the FCC relied on “junk science” in order to pave the way for new low-power non-commercial signals. NAB president Eddie Fritts said Kennard’s interest in “social engineering,” in the proposed public interests of low-power radio, has blinded him to its effects on the industry.
The NAB was extremely influential in crafting the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which uncorked a radio station buying spree that made owners very, very rich. Lately it has been working the Hill again, telling congresspeople that tiny micro-radio outlets (able to reach a couple of miles at most) would unleash crippling interference on the FM dial. The NAB has lined up a broad coalition of politicians who are poised to essentially kill off LPFM by passing the so-called “Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act of 2000,” strongly favored by the NAB.
As LPFM’s fate now slowly twists in the wind (GOP House leaders hope to bring the bill to the floor for a vote next week), advocates are upset by a surprise opposition to their cause. They expected to fight commercial conglomerates in their David vs. Goliath battle — the Clear Channel Communications and Infinity Broadcasters of the word, which, combined, operate more than 1,000 radio stations nationwide, have fought LPFM every inch of the way. But in the end National Public Radio, that self-styled voice of democracy, could be the one that drives the stake through the heart of low-power radio.
“I’m disappointed to be fighting NPR on this and I don’t understand their opposition,” says Cheryl Leanza, deputy director of the non-profit Media Access Project, a strong supporter of LPFM. She charges NPR, “has been critical in putting a false friendly face on the opposition to low-power radio, and that’s a great, great tragedy.”
Michael Bracy, director of the Low Power Radio Coalition, agrees. “NPR is willing to give lip service to low-power radio and supports its goals of diversity on the airwaves. But behind the scenes NPR’s been incredibly destructive by trying to alert listeners to alleged threats of LPFM, by lobbying in Congress and impeding the process at FCC. When you look at everything NPR supports and stands for and represents, you’d hope they wouldn’t oppose community access to radio,” says Bracy.
Late last week NPR, the mighty non-profit corporation which counts more than 600 member stations nationwide and is heard by 14 million listeners each week, joined the NAB by publicly supporting the Radio Broadcasting Preservation Act. The move surprised and miffed Kennard, who fired off this shot: “I am surprised that an organization which has done so much to promote opportunities for Americans to be heard on the airwaves would join with the special interests in curbing this new service.”
“Our position is not ambiguous,” counters NPR president Kevin Klose. “We do not oppose low-power radio. We wouldn’t possibly oppose more public service. We think low-power radio can be compatible with existing public radio. I just don’t want two years from now to be facing endless unresolved interference issues between low-power and public stations.”
As Klose suggests, the heated debate over LPFM now comes down to a technical question of interference. The FCC insists new LPFM stations on the so-called second adjacent channels to existing signals would not cause significant interference. (i.e. adding an LPFM at 90.5 would be fine, even though an existing station rests two channels away at 90.1.) Opponents backing the bill in Congress insist a third channel distance must be maintained. (i.e. 90.7, with the nearest signal at 90.1) But because the FM dial is so crowded already, insisting on third channel protection would eliminate 75 percent of all possible locations for new LPFM outlets. That means that, whereas the FCC had hoped to license hundereds of stations, it would only be able to license about 70 nationwide.
The FCC is seen as nation’s leading expert on FM spectrum management, and it spent more than a year reviewing potential interference and conducting lab tests. LPFM opponents, following the lead of the NAB, have adopted the position that, caught up in Kennard’s enthusiasm for LPFM, the commission simply fell down on the job. (An NAB spokesperson could not recall the last time the organization challenged the veracity of an FCC technical finding, conceding, “it’s very unusual.”)
In fact, NPR declared the commission’s engineering findings were “significantly flawed in numerous respects.” Now in a first, NPR is joining others in calling for a third party to determine what sort of static LPFM would create for existing stations. Despite the fact that Kennard has made it clear any legitimate claims of interference will be dealt with swiftly as the first few dozen micro-radio station go live, NPR is instead asking the commission to prove in advance that LPFM will never interfere with any existing signals.
The technical argument strikes some as hollow. “It’s absolutely a red herring,” says Leanza at the Media Access Project. “NPR realizes it would not look good to oppose LPFM so they claim technical reasons that would eradicate the service.” Billy Winslow, with the United Church of Christ, another LPFM supporter, insists “The FCC ought to know what works and doesn’t work when it comes to engineering. That’s their stock and trade. Why would chairman Kennard propose it if it were a problem?”
“It’s a bogus argument,” adds Mel Buxbaum, president of San Diego Public Radio Inc., which is not affiliated with NPR. With permission from the FCC, Buxbaum recently launched a test-case LPFM, broadcasting a low power, 100 watt signal in San Diego County. XLNC’s classical, non-commercial station has been operating on a second adjacent channel for three months and Buxbaum says not one broadcaster has complained about interference. “We made it clear in our proposal to the FCC; if anybody voiced legitimate complaints we’d shut down that day. Nobody has. And believe me we would have heard within the first three hours.” Buxbaum says because of new microelectronic technology, the old third channel proposal, embraced when radios were run on tubes, is badly outdated. “It’s not a valid argument, and we’ve proven it.”
As for NPR’s vocal opposition to LPFM, “It’s always disappointing when you see somebody pulling up the drawbridge; ‘I’ve got mine and nobody else is coming in.’ It’s the moat mentality,” says Buxbaum. “But they see things like what I’m doing, all-classical music, as competition. They’re afraid I’ll draw their listeners.”
Nonsense, says NPR’s Klose. “Some in the industry wanted to gore low-power radio, we didn’t do that. We aren’t criticizing anybody. We have a set of very reasonable issues that can be addressed. The goal is a conflict-free future between low-power and public radio.” That said, Klose will not back off the deal-breaker; crucial third channel protection. “That is a real issue for us.”
Not everyone in public radio agrees with NPR’s position, though. “I think we need diversity in ownership and programming. And I think the FCC is doing what they should be doing: maximizing the airwaves for public benefit,” says Michael Brasher, manager of Albuquerque, N.M., public radio station KANW, and president of the Albuquerque City Council. “I’m comfortable with the FCC proposal in terms of interference. But I’m real uncomfortable with NPR’s position. I’m concerned they’ve weighed in so heavily on this issue. I’m also concerned NPR is relying on totally flawed engineering data. Information provided by NAB which is specious at best, and inaccurate at worst.”
Brasher is referring to a now infamous CD created by NAB engineers used to simulate the type of migraine-inducing interference LPFM would cause on the FM dial. The CD became a favorite lobbying tool for the NAB up on the Hill. After finally hearing it, Kennard dubbed it “fraudulent,” and part of a “misinformation” campaign. “Clearly, you have an industry that does not want to have new voices coming onto the airwaves.” The FCC’s top engineer Dale Hatfield insisted “the CD demonstration is misleading and is simply wrong.”
The NAB stands by the controversial recording, but does NPR? Klose insists the organization, “relied on our own stations and our own testing. The NAB’s CD is between the NAB and the FCC.” But in a March 14 correspondence to members, an NPR staffer wrote, “NPR technical staff, after a careful evaluation, considers the NAB CD demo of LPFM interference to be a credible and very useful representation of what could happen in the field under the FCC’s LPFM decision.” Members were then directed to NAB’s Web site where they could access their own copies of the interference recording.
Despite its cordial image, public radio has not been averse to playing a little hardball on the low-power issue. Last year when the FCC was accepting comments on LPFM from all interested parties (more comments were filed regarding LPFM than for any other FCC initiative on record), representatives for an Oregon public radio station railed, “the commission has proceeded in the worst possible way with this [issue], cutting corners, relying on wishes, naiveti, and procedural irregularities. The commission must base its ultimate decision upon real evidence, not the hopes and unfounded predictions of LPFM proponents and [FCC] staff.”
Public Radio’s Regional Organization warned “LPFM will result in the jeopardization of the substantial federal, state and private investment in public radio,” and that “the unintended consequences” on public radio would be “devastating.” Interestingly, the organization also urged the commission “to advocate another distribution mechanism, such as Internet webcasting.”
Early on in the low-power debate NPR lawyers also suggested the Internet — not the FM dial — was a better forum for LPFM, as did longtime FCC critic Sen. John McCain. But NPR representatives have backed off that argument, perhaps after realizing over 100 million Americans today still don’t have access to the Internet.
Meanwhile, writing a recent editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a Minnesota Public Radio VP warned citizens that LPFM interference would decimate a news reading service for the blind run by public stations. (Kennard and the FCC insist it will not.)
Public radio’s message has certainly been heard in Congress. There, low-power advocates knew they’d encounter resistance from NAB-friendly legislators such as the retiring Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, R-Va., who expressed annoyance that the FCC didn’t simply abort its LPFM plan once broadcasters objected. (In a curious bit of political one-upsmanship, the two men vying to fill Bliley’s chairman position in the next Congress, David Oxley, R-Ohio, and Billy Tauzin, R-La., are busy trying to outdo each other when it comes to burying LPFM.)
What LPFM backers didn’t see coming was the opposition from the left, which is where NPR has had such an impact. “Members sympathetic to the NAB were approached by that organization, while members sympathetic to radio diversity and alternative media have been approached by public radio,” says Leanza, at the Media Access Project
An aide to Sen. Ron Wydon, a liberal Democrat from Oregon who’s co-sponsoring the anti-LPFM legislation in the Senate, confirms it was “the tremendous outpouring from public radio” that prompted the senator to act.
Bracy at the Low Power Radio Coalition notes, “Until NPR’s comfortable with LPFM, it’s hard for some in Congress to go public with their support. Especially for progressive Democrats. NPR is their targeted audience.” One of those progressives who’s still supporting LPFM is House minority whip David Bonior, D-Mich,. According to one of his aides, “NPR must be having an impact, because other members are citing them. It’s not helpful that they’re not on our side.” Says Klose at NPR, “We haven’t been shy about informing members where we stand.”
Meanwhile the NAB seems thrilled to have public radio on board for the fight, prominently mentioning the non-profit organization at every turn. In a March 24 press release, the nation’s largest broadcasters, with their
attention fixed on Capitol Hill, wanted to make one thing clear: “It is
important to remember that opposition to LPFM comes not just from NAB, but
from National Public Radio.”
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about how the media giants who own your local commercial television and radio stations have been striking like startled rattlesnakes at an FCC proposal that would shed a light on who’s buying our elections. The proposed new rule would make it easier to find out who’s bankrolling political attack ads by posting the information online.
The stations already have the data and are required by law to make it public to anyone who asks. But you can get only it by going to the station and asking for the actual paper documents – what’s known as “the public file.” Stations don’t want to put it online because — you guessed it — that would make it too easy for you to find out who’s putting up the cash for all those ads polluting your hometown airwaves.
If approved, the new rule would require the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates in the top 50 markets to make their files on political advertising available online immediately. Other stations would have a two-year grace period.
In the meantime, the mighty giants of broadcasting have been fighting back. A number of senators serving the industry have spoken up against the proposal and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) — led by their top lobbyist and president, the frozen food millionaire and former Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith – have been meeting with commissioners urging them to scuttle its proposal or at least water it down until it means nothing.
As Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic magazine wrote:
“The arguments against transparency offered by the networks show that, having experienced the windfall of advertising dollars that Citizens United unleashed, they have little interest in meeting their legal and ethical responsibility to serve the public interest.”
The FCC is scheduled to vote on their proposal on April 27, and on Monday its chairman, Julius Genachowski, walked into the lion’s den – the really nice one in Las Vegas – and addressed the NAB’s annual convention. He noted that, “Using rhetoric that one writer described as ‘teeth-gnashing’ and ‘fire-breathing,’ some in the broadcast industry have elected to position themselves against technology, against transparency, and against journalism.”
He added, “[T]he argument against moving the public file online is that required broadcaster disclosures shouldn’t be too public. But in a world where everything is going digital, why have a special exemption for broadcasters’ political disclosure obligation?”
Whatever the result on the 27th, those negative attack ads already are cluttering the airwaves like so much unsolicited junk mail and it’s only going to get much, much worse as the super PACs, political parties, the moguls and tycoons, many acting in secrecy, lavish perhaps as much as three billion dollars on local stations between now and November.
But now there’s something new in the mix, especially appalling to anyone who truly cares about public broadcasting. On April 12, by a vote of 2-1, two of three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of KMTP, a small public station in San Francisco, and struck down the federal ban against political and issue advertising on public TV and radio. For decades there’s been a rule against turning those airwaves over to ads for political campaigns and causes. Now the court has ruled that the free speech rights of political advertisers take precedence.
Imagine if you turned on your TV set someday soon and were greeted by “Sesame Street,” brought to you by the letter C, for “creeping campaign cash corruption.” Perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but as the late William F. Buckley, Jr., used to say, the point survives the exaggeration.
If ever there was a camel’s nose under the tent, this is it – and we don’t mean one of those humped creatures that show up on PBS’ “Nature” or an episode about backpacking through Egypt on “Globe Trekker.” The current public system was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. “It will get part of its support from our government,” Johnson said, “but it will be carefully guarded from government or from party control. It will be free, and it will be independent — and it will belong to all of our people.”
The Public Broadcasting Act uses the word “noncommercial” 16 times to describe what public television and radio should be. And it specifically says that, “No noncommercial educational broadcasting station may support or oppose any candidate for political office.” We’ve taken that seriously all these years, and most of us who have labored in this vineyard still think public broadcasting should be a refuge from the braying distortions and outright lies that characterize politics today — especially those endless, head splitting ads.
But in its majority decision the court wrote, “Neither logic nor evidence supports the notion that public issue and political advertisers are likely to encourage public broadcast stations to dilute the kind of noncommercial programming whose maintenance is the substantial interest that would support the advertising bans.”
Sorry, your honors: This is the same so-called “logic” that led the U.S. Supreme Court to issue its notorious Citizens United decision, the one that opened all spigots to flood the political landscape with cash and the airwaves with trash. “To be truthful” one former PBS board member said, “it scares me to death.” Us, too.
The court decision did uphold the ban on public broadcasting selling ad time for commercial goods and services, although, as corporations and others cover the cost of programming through what’s euphemistically referred to as “enhanced underwriting,” public TV already is close to the line of what differentiates it from commercial broadcasting.
And understandably, with our stations always in a financial pickle, frantically hanging on by their fingertips, it won’t be easy to turn down those quick bucks from super PACs and others. But hang in there, brothers and sisters in the faith: If ever there was a time for solidarity and spine, this is it.
Stations KPBS in San Diego and KSFR, public radio in Santa Fe, have said they won’t do it. If enough of you say no, this invasion might be repelled. And viewers, they need to know you’re behind them.
There is no way to deny that on NPR today, author Caitlin Flanagan tried to lecture me on how I might have had a “better” adolescence. (There is proof on the Internet, so I know I didn’t hallucinate it.) Specifically, she tried to use me as an example of the perils of having the Internet in your room as an adolescent, because I didn’t happen to meet a great guy to date in high school. The remedy? More princess movies.
Many people, including my actual parents, think I turned out pretty OK. And Flanagan, whose book “Girl Land” I reviewed here, usually restricts her professional vocation of annoying feminists to print. So what was I doing defending my very existence on the radio?
“Do you know about Quakers? They try to find the good in everyone, and I felt you tried to do that in Flanagan’s book,” the producer at NPR’s “On Point” told me, as he tried to convince me to take part in the on-air discussion. (If you read my review, you’ll see this says more about the laceration Flanagan received elsewhere than any unusual empathy on my part.) I told him I was reluctant to engage in something that could turn into a catfight, but was persuaded that the thoughtful tone of the show and its host would prevail. Ultimately, too, I didn’t want to shy away from a fight that I thought was important.
My other worry was that Flanagan would use the first half-hour, which she had exclusively to herself, to moderate her message and preempt any criticism, leaving me to lamely disagree. Others had also seen her analysis as dangerously nostalgic, a fantasy of sheltering precious girls that seemed divorced from real girls’ lives and totally ignored the lives of boys. Turns out I needn’t have worried.
After all, this is a major component of what people pay her for: Trolling, plain and simple, a Michele Bachmann-esque disregard for facts, only better-read and better-written. What could possibly induce her to stop?
On the air, she went even further, by suggesting several times that women and girls are solely responsible for whether men treat them like princesses (as one caller said she suggested to her daughter while watching princess movies, which Flanagan cheered) or like sluts, and whether those men stick around to parent, too. When the host, Tom Ashbrook, politely accused her of setting up a false dichotomy between parents who cared about their daughters in the culture and those who didn’t, she replied, “I think there are, you know, people who are very comfortable with their daughters being part of a culture where they’re servicing boys and they’re even comfortable with their girls performing oral sex on boys they don’t know very well. There are a lot of moms like that and I accept that.”
And then she turned on me. I had first taken issue with how she seemed to demonize boys or imply that they weren’t hurt by gender norms. When I talked about the need for information about safe sexuality and healthy boundaries, she responded, “I think as far as information, what I’m seeing is that girls have lots and lots of information about sexuality. I can show you lots of eighth-grade girls who know how to roll on a condoms because they’ve learned that in school. And I think all of that may be fine for some girls, to send them out into this pornified culture with that information, probably best that they have it.” Some girls, meaning those slutty girls who will never get a man to love them! In any case, when I called her out for that bizarre conflation of porn and sex ed, she got personal.
I’d pointed out earlier that I’d had the Internet in my bedroom as a teen, something Flanagan specifically wants parents to ban. I also described my adolescence not as the dreamy withdrawal she’d described, but as “a very fertile time where I was really lucky to have a supportive community that allowed me to pursue intellectual and creative pursuits.”
Never mind those things. “Let me ask you a question, Irina,” said Flanagan. (The host had already said my name, Irin, correctly.) “Did you have a boyfriend in high school?”
Then I made a mistake — I answered. “I dated some guys who were probably not great guys but I was lucky that nothing really bad …”
“What could we adults have done to you to help you with your dating relationships?” she persisted. We went to commercial before I could sputter a reply. (Nothing could have been done “to” me, and like I said, nothing really bad happened.)
Flanagan had the floor when we got back, at which point she used me as an example of a cautionary tale of how girls who are “empowered” and have Internet access allow themselves to be abused by men. Or something. “My book ‘Girl Land’ is asking, What could we have done differently for Irin, so that in addition to the IM and the Internet and the sex-ed classes, she also had something that would help her interact with boys where she could find a way that boys would treat her kindly?” Flanagan cooed.
Never mind that Flanagan writes in her book about a more traumatizing adolescent experience than I ever had, an assault that took place on a conventional date and without Internet in her bedroom and without “hookup culture.” Was that her fault for not demanding more of men?
“Caitlin, I so much appreciate your concern for me,” I replied, “but frankly, my adolescence was fine … I think that making mistakes is part of adolescence and how you figure out how to partner with people.” I also said, “I don’t think this should be about me, nor should it be about you. This is really about what’s going on in the American culture.” (I lost that battle.)
Ashbrook asked, sensibly, “Is that the measure of a good adolescence, whether they had a good boyfriend in high school?” It wasn’t of mine — I said that for me the measure was that ”I emerged feeling happy and connected and with healthy relationships, got into the college of my choice, have a career that I am happy about, where I get to debate Caitlin Flanagan about female sexuality.”
I’d gone into said debate with the idea of maybe seeing the good in her, or at least seeking a thoughtful discussion of where we diverged and why. That’s where I really went wrong.
Is there a worse insult in rock music than “adult contemporary”? And is there anything worse for a fan than hearing it applied to a favorite band? For many listeners, Nitsuh Abebe’s recent essay in New York magazine will be a provocation. The esteemed critic (and a Pitchfork colleague) appends the sleepy “adult contemporary” label to several indie-rock darlings, including Wilco, Feist, Stephen Malkmus, Neko Case — and even Radiohead, all of which Abebe essentially lumps together and calls “NPR Muzak.” “If there is a consensus about what counts as respectable, adult music in 2011,” he writes, “then these acts are surely a part of it: While more people consider pop music inherently silly than enjoy it, few assaults are leveled at the seriousness or artistic value of this stuff. It’s tasteful and subtle and brings a few newish ideas to the middle of the road; it adheres to a classic sense of what rock and American music are, but approaches it from artful enough directions to not seem entirely fusty.” This is not high praise. “The main criticism you hear about this kind of record — even outweighing references to Starbucks and/or the bourgeoisie — is that it is just too dull to even bother producing any more complex indictment of it.”
Too dull even to hate: That is the essence of “adult contemporary.” What adds even more sting to the indictment is that these acts are not just reasonably successful within the low-expectations parameters of indie rock, but are well-respected and well-loved as lifers and innovators who have developed distinctive sounds and personas over the years. Indeed, Wilco and Radiohead could be considered the reigning elder statesmen of the American and U.K. underground, respectively. Abebe wonders if these older artists will spark a backlash in younger generations, much the same way the indulgences of ‘70s prog and singer-songwriter fare spurred the back-to-basics fire of punk. However, the relationship between these two generations proves much more complicated than that.
But first: Wilco, adult contemporary? Really? “Adult contemporary” originated in the early 1960s as a radio format aimed at older listeners alienated by the harsher sounds of rock and R&B. Over the decades, it has fragmented into hot AC, soft or lite AC, urban AC, and many other permutations. It’s essentially an umbrella term that has historically covered acts as diverse as Pat Boone, Roberta Flack, the Carpenters, Duncan Sheik and even such country acts as Martina McBride and Lee Ann Womack. It is the pasture to which older acts like Rod Stewart, George Michael and Cyndi Lauper are relegated, often with standards or roots albums; the only reason such artists have continued to prosper is because their audience belongs to a generation that still buys albums. In general, however, the term connotes a smooth, sometimes slick, serious and usually unobtrusive aesthetic — perfect for office visits or dinner parties.
Perhaps dinner parties have changed fundamentally over the years, because if acts like Wilco and Feist are truly “adult contemporary,” then they may be the most adventurous generation of adults in the rock era, not bound by any one genre or any one idea of how music should sound or how it should age. Abebe, again aiming for easy provocation, compares today’s bands to Sting’s safe, toothless solo career, somehow finding common ground between “Russians” and “Bull Black Nova.”
And anyway, amid their experiments with motorik beats and fractured song structures, Wilco actually embraced the equally derogatory and silly term “dad rock” on their new album, “The Whole Love.” “If you won’t set the kids on fire, well I might,” Tweedy sings on “I Might,” the first single. It’s a telling moment in the band’s catalog, a reassertion of their musical mission as well as a complicated bit of household politics. Feist’s music is never quite so self-conscious, but the understated quality of her blues-derived pop songs should not be mistaken for easy listening. Instead, her latest, “Metals,” is more often clenched like a fist or braced for the next unimaginable tragedy. Perhaps the only thing she has in common with Wilco — or with Malkmus, Radiohead or Neko Case — is age. Their audiences may overlap, but the music remains distinctive, different and mostly compelling.
However, the concept of “audience” is a moving target, since groups of listeners are constantly fragmenting and subdividing against acute lines of genre and taste. The idea of “adult contemporary,” then, seems like a relic, only slightly more obsolete than rock radio itself. Even the kneejerk pejoratives Abebe associates with the market seem oddly dated: Starbucks has curtailed not only the number of stores in the United States but also the amount of music it sells, and this year NPR has streamed and discussed a wide range of albums, including punk supergroup Wild Flag, Beirut, young jangle-popsters Real Estate, Fucked Up, Hammers of Misfortune, head-bangers Giant Squid and Ohio thrashers Skeletonwitch. It’s hardly the bastion of middlebrow, good-for-you, let’s-go-crazy-in-the-Volvo music, if it ever was.
To be called “adult contemporary” is to be dismissed as old, out of touch, irrelevant. Adults are the establishment — the very thing kids are meant to rebel against. Abebe admits that it’s unlikely, as “the music world is now fragmented enough that we have the luxury of ignoring things we don’t like, rather than rebelling against them.” However: “One great sign about new independent rock bands, over the past few years, has been a noticeable uptick in the number whose names are vulgar jokes, or deliberately inappropriate — in other words, mission statements that tasteful professionalism and the approval of sober-minded adults are not among their interests — and who play music that’s abrasive or adventurous enough to match.”
But unprintable names in rock music have been around longer than A— C—, and something about that idea — of young musicians embracing abrasive noise as a response to the music of their elders — seems to be as antiquated as “adult contemporary.” It imagines a fairly conventional form of rebellion, one based on a historical model that employs aggression in response to the establishment. If an obnoxous name is real rebellion, give me Neko Case any day. If anything, this current generation’s form of rebellion is new and specific to itself, perhaps nodding to the fact that today’s adult rockers in no way resemble the adult rockers of the past. In fact, arguably the best punk band of the moment is OFF!, a Los Angeles quartet led by Keith Morris, who may be older than 50 but still flails and jumps as maniacally as he did with his former band the Circle Jerks 30 years ago.
Perhaps the latest form of rebellion in music has nothing to do with volume or tempo or band names and everything to do with style and history. Reared on the Internet, where vast archives of music are only a few clicks away, younger artists today rely heavily on the past for inspiration. Yet, few generations have been so savvy about the past as this one, and in surveying the music of previous generations, they are discovering and rehabbing sounds and styles once dismissed. And some of what they’re looking to is the adult contemporary. Saxophone solos, once universally derided, are now centerpieces in songs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Foster the People. Anthony Gonzalez of the French act M83 continues to plumb the New Romanticism of the early 1980s to craft synth-pop anthems with an overwhelming melancholy, while Dan Bejar of Destroyer (who is old enough to be “adult contemporary”) reimagined ‘80s lite rock, with its flanged drums and slick keyboard sound, as an almost avant garde framework for his musings on the state of North American pop music. Both of their albums — “Hurry Up We’re Dreaming” and “Kaputt,” respectively —are album of the year contenders.
In that regard, the most divisive song of the year isn’t by Fucked Up or Danish destructo-punks Iceage, who have both released excellent albums this year; nor is it by Tyler, the Creator, the California rapper whose much-discussed sick jokes sound like empty provocations. Instead, it’s by Bon Iver, whom Abebe includes among his list of “meh” and “adult contemporary” acts. The Wisconsin-born indie folk singer embraces AutoTune and even worked with Kanye West, but his most controversial act was adding a Korg M1 keyboard to “Beth/Rest,” the final track on his second album, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver.” Although it adds a subtle anthemic quality to the song, the waterdrop sound of that keyboard is more closely associated with the likes of Bruce Hornsby and Steve Winwood than with indie-folk. Many listeners wrote it off as cheesy or ironic, but Vernon has repeatedly asserted his love of the instrument and the genre with which it has been linked. Along with namedropping Hornsby and covering Bonnie Raitt, that approach has established Bon Iver not as “adult contemporary,” but an act that plumbs old “adult contemporary” for new inspiration. That may be the ultimate rebellion: finding new uses for the music adults once rejected, embracing the uncool as the newly subversive.
UPDATED BELOW
Lisa Simeone, host of two cultural programs on National Public Radio, was fired from one of her positions last night for her leading role in the Freedom Plaza occupation in Washington, D.C. The proximate cause was a series of blogs posts in the Daily Caller asserting that she had violated NPR’s code of ethics, an allegation which Simeone denies.
“It overblown. Everyone’s overreacting,” Simeone told Salon in a phone interview. “It’s like McCarthyism.”
Simeone, a former weekend host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” show, had not worked directly for the network since 2002. As a freelancer contracting with WDAV, a music and arts station in Davidson, N.C., she hosts NPR’s “World of Opera” program. NPR and WDAV released statements today saying they are “in conversation” about Simeone’s future.
[UPDATE 2:35 pm. Scott Nolan, station manager of WDAV, tells Salon that Simeone will remain as host of "World of Opera."
"Her activities outside of the job do not violate anything in our employee code and have in no way affected her job performance," Nolan said in a phone interview. "She's a terrific host and we look forward to working with her."]
Simeone has been active in a group called October 2011 which has occupied Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington since Oct. 5. The group planned its action last spring before the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged. The October 2011 group has since joined forces with the Occupy DC movement based a few blocks away in McPherson Square.
The Daily Caller is using Simeone’s exercise of her First Amendment rights to beat up on NPR for its liberal ways. The conservative Web site said yesterday:
The political advocacy Simeone has displayed also appears to be an affront to what incoming NPR CEO Gary Knell has said he’d like the network to be: “It’s about journalism, it’s about news,” Knell, who starts on December 1, told the Associated Press after he got the job. “It’s not about promoting one political agenda or another.”
The problem, says Simeone, is, “I’m not an NPR journalist. I am not paid by NPR. I don’t do news. I don’t do analysis. And I have never talked about the occupation movement on the air. I do this entirely in my free time.”
Simeone said she was fired Wednesday night by Moira Rankin, executive producer of “Soundprint,” a weekly documentary program that Simeone hosts. The program, independently produced, airs on NPR stations around the country.
“It was bewildering,” Simeone said. “She started by quoting all these reports from the Daily Caller, and I didn’t know even what that was. She said, ‘Are you involved with this organization [October 2011]? I said, ‘Yes, I was one of about 50 people who helped put this together.’ She said, ‘That’s a problem because I’m getting all these calls. I think you violated the NPR code of ethics.’”
“I said, ‘Can you explain how?’” Simeone went on. “Scott Simon writes Op-Eds. Cokie Roberts [is paid] tens of thousand of dollars in fees talking to business groups. Mara Liasson goes on Fox TV to express her opinions. They all report on the issues — which I don’t do. I finally said, ‘Are you firing me?’ She said yes.”
As the Daily Caller has reported, NPR’s ethics policy for journalists forbids them from “engag[ing] in public relations work, paid or unpaid.”
The code allows for exceptions in cases such as “certain volunteer nonprofit, nonpartisan activities, such as participating in the work of a church, synagogue or other institution of worship, or a charitable organization, so long as this would not conflict with the interests of NPR in reporting on activities related to that institution or organization.”
Simeone says there is no conflict.
“I’ve never hid my views and my opinions have never leeched into what I do on NPR. People can listen to all my shows. When I was talking about ‘Tosca,’ I could have talked about the relevance today of Cavaradossi, the tenor who is a political prisoner and who is tortured. I didn’t mention it. It’s a show about opera, for God’s sake.”
Simeone called the spread of occupation movement in recent weeks “a wonderful flowering of citizenship” and said she had no regrets about supporting it , despite the fact that she lost a job.
“I’m really, really lucky,” she said. “I’m married to man with a good job and my home is paid for. I’m way luckier than millions of people in this country. I’m not complaining.”
Caitlin Flanagan (Credit: Andrew Zinn/Little, Brown) 
Thom Yorke, Feist and Jeff Tweedy (Credit: Reuters) 
Kevin Dawes (Credit: YouTube/Kevin Daws) 
Lisa Simeone, fired NPR host (Credit: Reuters/NPR) 
