The Klosterman Files : IV (2006)

May 25

May 25 The Klosterman Files : IV (2006)

It finally hit me while re-reading a portrait of The White Stripes from 2004 or something. What am I hoping to achieve with this retrospective? Who the fuck cares about The White Stripes anymore? I never even liked them myself. Are there universal truths and immaterial philosophy hidden in the pop culture from a decade and a half ago? Who am I writing these long, semi-pretentious pieces for? Is this interesting to anybody but me? Fortunately, the answers started coming almost as quickly as the questions.

Reading Chuck Klosterman is like growing third eye for a week or two. You suddenly come up with the right questions that allow you to understand why Taylor Swift’s personal life is as important to her success as her actual songs or why people chastise Jonathan Franzen for being a cranky technophobe. These short bursts of enlightenment are one of the most awesome things about being me and this is what I’m trying to communicate with these pieces. My passion for a different way of thinking about pop culture and the world in general.

IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas is split in three parts: Things That Are True (portraits of artists and pop culture figures of early XXIst century), Things That Might Be True (essays and theories) and Something That Isn’t True At All (a novella I’ve never read completely).

Things that Are True

Things That Are True is pleasant in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way, but also prompts you to revisit and reevaluate your deepest certitudes about rock music. I thought The White Stripes sucked in 2004 and still think they suck in 2020, but I changed my mind on bands like Radiohead for example. They make a lot more sense to me personally and musically in 2020 than they did in 2012. It’s like Thom Yorke lives in the future and anticipates what it’ll feel like to be an adult in a world out of control. Because he’s been a 30something in a world out of control before me, I guess.

There are things that made sense then and make sense now too, like his interview with Britney Spears. Her almost unconscious refusal to commit to a definite, self-created version of herself is both what made her so popular and the idea that crafted an entire generation of pop stars. If you never say “I am X” or “I am Y” you’ll always be everything to everybody. Fans will see what they want in you and it’ll only make you more loved. Whether her genius is her own, some expert marketer or completely accidental, Britney changed the game of popular music.

One important thing I understood from Things That Are True is that not every band is culturally important. For example, I fucking love Mayhem but the only two things I’d have to say about them is 1) the circumstances of how I discovered them (involving illegally downloaded mp3s, liquor and loneliness) and 2) they burned churches in Norway. They are undoubtedly awesome and influential in their own scene, but their influence on culture at large died with Euronymous in 1993.

A band like Metallica on the other hand, are culturally important for a myriad of reasons. In the context of Klosterman’s review of the documentary Some Kind of Monster, they are important because of their unwitting exploration of how a certain genre of music has a creative expiring date. Metallica were good because they were self-destructive teenagers who channeled their rage into technical and creative mastery. They fueled on negative emotions. The moment frontman James Hetfield wanted to “get better”, we ended up with St. Anger.

Things That Might Be True

This segment was much more interesting to me than the first and a handful of essays even took a new meaning to me. Cultural Betrayal is (I believe) one of the most enduring pieces Chuck Klosterman’s ever written, which basically gives the key to how he thinks. It addresses people feeling angry or betrayed by what they see in media. He claims that your unwillingness to compromise on your values is not a sign of integrity and I agree with him. It doesn’t matter if you dislike Nickelback, they will always be like by people who are fundamentally unlike you.

Believing they shouldn’t exist is not idealistic, it’s fascistic. You don’t get to decide what other people like unless you’re Mussolini, Mark Zuckerberg or the dad in Twisted Sister videos.

One of the greatest moment of cultural anger I remember in recent years was the finale of Game of Thrones. No one was satisfied with it because it felt rushed and underwritten, but what was the right ending? John and Daenerys ruling together? John killing Daenerys and becoming king? Daenerys killing John and becoming the mad queen? Sansa Stark taking over everything? Whichever your answer is, millions of people are going to disagree with you and call you names on the internet for it. Because they love the characters too and wanted an ending on their terms.

Not Guilty is another razor sharp essay about the idiotic concept of guilty pleasure, which is the idea that you should be ashamed to like certain things. The example given of Road House is excellent. You can like Road House, understand it has nothing to do with real life and not be ashamed of liking it. A movie doesn’t have to enable social progress or challenge political situations in order to have artistic and cultural value. It just has to exist and be seen by people who aren’t dismissive of it because it features a bouncers who knows kung fu and philosophy.

There is no great unifying theme behind Things That Might Be True, partly because it’s Chuck Klosterman’s first collection of archives from Spin, Esquire and whatnot. The essays have merit in and of themselves. Some more than others. I did not enjoy his essay about the Olympics as much as I did in 2012, but I highlighted a different part of it: “Life is fucking confusing. I don’t know anything and neither do you” and I think this is the ultimate takeaway here: there’s a gap between what you believe and reality and we should all be more respectful of it.