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My parents take pride in always having Christmas with all their children in attendance. It's never really crossed our minds not to be there. This is even more impressive when you consider how their children are consistently returning to endure time in Atlanta, including two this year who'd just finally succeeded in moving away.
The only thing worse than being in the Biggest Hick Town in the World is getting stuck there at year's end. This means enduring America's lamest journalism during the already lame orgy of year-end wrap-ups. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution—which is the only publication that would ever worry about iPods becoming too trendy—offers typical inanity from arts critic Phil Kloer. He's still on the cutting edge of 1998, apologizing "on behalf of all popular culture, and the media that spread it" for the year's past events.
This sad overview includes apologizing "for all the ABC affiliates that aired 'Saving Private Ryan' on Veterans Day even though it contained dirty words and graphic scenes of soldiers actually getting killed in World War II." Maybe Phil will someday get off the korn likker and realize that nobody's actually getting killed in Saving Private Ryan. The film just offers a Fangoria-style orgy of bloody special effects. Even a gorehound can find that offensive.
Of course, Kloer's wrong about the violence ever being an issue with the affiliates. At least the guy isn't as embarrassing as the paper's Joe Bob Briggs knock-off, or any of the Journal-Constitution's other attempts to become a lame alt-weekly on the level of Creative Loafing Atlanta. There's a publication that perfectly reflects Atlanta's massive inferiority complex. Creative Loafing is the paper of record for an arts scene that occasionally pretends that an Atlanta debut is an "East Coast premiere." Every article contains a subtext about how sad it is that Atlantans have to live with a bunch of stupid Southerners.
Both publications sum up why nobody cares about the New South. Atlanta's made the whole notion seem as interesting as a New Condo. Stick to secondary Southern cities to enjoy some character. I don't mean to be completely dismissive of bland mainstream America, though. You can always rely on Hooters to be playing good music.
It's not like I'm off to some ethnic wonderland when I hand over my passport and return to the Third World territory of Manhattan. There's really no end of appropriate places to meet up with Joseph Lanza to discuss the release of his new book Vanilla Pop: Sweet Sounds from Frankie Avalon to ABBA. I reject his corny notion of meeting at some Manhattan ice-cream parlor. In turn, he passes on getting together at the Young Republicans Holiday/New Year's Party. "They'll probably be playing Motown," Lanza notes, "with those kinds of acts where there's never any black people in the audience."
Instead, we settle for a Starbucks in the East Village. No particular one. They're all really good. Along the way, I help out a puzzled young couple who've been walking for blocks and haven't found a single Chinese restaurant.
Gentrification still can't come fast enough in certain areas. Lanza believes that American pop culture is one of those needy frontiers. Vanilla Pop is his celebration of Shelly Fabares, Doris Day, The Sandpipers, The Cowsills and other innovative music acts that long ago became derisive shorthand to moronic rock critics.
Naturally, this means Lanza—also the author of the celebratory Elevator Music—is frequently dismissed as racist. "I'm really in the political crossfire," notes Lanza over a double espresso. "I've been called a redneck in the British press. The obvious thing is to say I'm a reactionary who wants to take us back to white picket fences. People are always defending rhythm & blues, but I'm just questioning how white people have embraced that music as their id."
Lanza's icons of vanilla pop endure a lot of that same hostility. He's written plenty of liner notes, but Lanza still had to put some former idols at ease. "Bobby Vee was originally suspicious," he recalls. "He thought I was putting down his work by calling it the vanilla side of pop music. Right away, that triggers something negative. People like Vee are so used to bitter music writers who are only interested in the dark side of their work, and who'd rather praise Van Morrison sounding like some croaking menopausal moron."
Vanilla Pop is ultimately important for Lanza being comfortable with that kind of comment. Forget talk of guilty pleasures and the occasional critical backpedaling from Rolling Stone. Rock criticism has never been more slavish and less daring. "There's a cadre of critics who dictate what's cool," agrees Lanza, "but not many people stick their necks out. My book is really for people who want to reevaluate pop music. I wrote a book primarily about 60s pop that barely mentions Brian Wilson. That's my big achievement."
Lanza can also claim a chapter that's pretty much the definitive statement on The Carpenters, including a perfect take on how the duo improved "Superstar" by making the lyrics less dirty. That's an idea that few in the music press could comprehend. Lanza also devotes a chapter to ABBA, but don't think he's any closer to being a hipster.
"I hate club kids," he says, "and the whole dance scene. I'm not a big fan of anything with a backbeat. You have to include ABBA in this kind of book, but I didn't want to end on that note. That's why there's a sudden leap in the final chapter to 1989 and Tommy Page."
Lanza's tribute to the forgotten Page—including a touching tale of his tormented stint opening for the minstrels of New Kids on the Block—provides an impressive closing. It's also about as obscure as the book gets. Lanza doesn't know about Charlton Heston touring a post-Apocalyptic L.A. while listening to "A Summer Place" in The Omega Man. He doesn't even know about Joel Grey's vanilla masterpiece Black Sheep Boy, which was reissued this year on CD.
Lanza simply isn't a pop obsessive. That's why the book is interesting and fun to read. He has his standards, though. "I had to feature Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon," Lanza explains, "but they really weren't vanilla enough to count as Vanilla Pop. Rick Astley to me is an R&B singer. He's too much like the lead singer of Spandau Ballet. Not vanilla at all."
Lanza also manages to get through the book without a single reference to American Idol. He's not too up on the current scene, though, with The Magnetic Fields and Belle and Sebastian making his short list of current quasi-vanilla. He's also too kind to the plodding derivate of Camera Obscura.
Lanza also turns out to be wrong about the Young Republicans. I explain to him that I'd entered the party earlier to the strains of The Human League's "Don't You Want Me" There wasn't anything political about it. That's just the kind of stuff they play at Katwalk, which is designed to look like someplace that should be stalked by a young Kim Cattrall.
Lanza's still impressed. "Yeah, that's kind of vanilla. There wasn't much vanilla pop in the 80s, but I mention the New Romantics and Duran Duran in the book. Of course, the one new-wave song from the 80s that has the most vanilla elements was 'Destination Unknown' by—um, who was that?"
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