Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music

Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music – AudioSuede Book Club

Reviewed by: Christian Hagen

I was going through something of an existential crisis recently, as most music writers I know do on an almost daily basis. What am I? What is my purpose in this world? Why do I write about music the world will forget about before tomorrow, and when did art become such an immediately disposable commodity (and, alternately, if something is a disposable commodity, can it be considered art?)? Am I just a blogger, a single man yelling in a riot? Would I be better off giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to everything I hear, just to get it out of the way? I mean, is anyone even reading what I’m writing?

Questions  like these weighed on me the day I received a book in the mail, a book on, of all things, music writing. Specifically, it was an anthology of the music writing of a historically-significant critic by the name of Ellen Willis, a revolutionary and undoubtedly forward-thinking pop music commentator who began her stellar career in the 1960s, during the height of rock and roll. Willis may have invented rock criticism as we’ve known it for several decades.

And yet, until this book was in my hands, I’d never heard her name.

How had such a treasure been kept from me all of my life? Part of it could have to do with the fact that Willis, a pioneering feminist in addition to being a pop culture critic, gave up on music writing in the early ‘80s to pursue more seemingly important topics like politics and the feminist struggle. In the entire anthology in question, Out of the Vinyl Deeps, there is only one article written since the days when disco was battling hair metal, and it’s about Bob Dylan.

But it’s equally possible that her writing was confusingly ahead-of-its-time, even as it’s distinctly representational-of-its-time. Willis doesn’t so much review albums as she peels back the layers of what’s ostensibly obvious in popular music to find the heart of why it affects her and why it matters to society at large.

Starting the collection with “Dylan,” an essay for Cheetah magazine in 1967, is a perfect introduction to Willis’ most common subject of discussion and to Willis herself. Here she bravely and thoroughly dismantles the many identities of one of rock and roll’s great musicians just at the point when his career was at its most contentious. What struck me most when burning through the piece, as I simply couldn’t put the damn thing down, was just how perfectly Willis married the academic with the emotional. It’s like reading the dream essay of every young upstart critic who thinks they’ve got something to say; she’s articulate and complete, yet heartfelt and accesible. Willis has figured out, in her first major piece of music writing, how to speak for the listener without being reactionary or overly clever. For every statement, a justification, and a feeling.

The rest of the book features wild swings in technique and subjects. Not every piece is at the level of grand mastery, but the collection isn’t going just for the hits, but a comprehensive look at one writer’s distinct voice in a time where it could make the most impact, right at the impetus of rock and roll’s entrance into the elite halls of artistic criticism. And in that sense, Out of the Vinyl Deeps succeeds immensely.

Broken into several sections to highlight the various identifiers one could use to tag Willis as a writer (“The Feminist,” “The Rock Fan,” etc.), Out of the Vinyl Deeps is mostly built on Willis’ work for The New Yorker in the 60s and 70s, where she served as the publication’s first pop music writer. This will likely be the greatest treasure for rock historians and fans of music from the era in question. It’s an extraordinary experience as a rock afficianado to read first-hand accounts of Rolling Stones concerts that aren’t blissfully nostalgic. Often, Willis can be quite difficult to please, but even at these times she’s very open about her emotional state as well as her professional opinion. Recapping her treks through the independent record stores of New York City, combing the racks for some obscure UK import called The Who, Willis has all the engaged flair of a true fan.

Other great articles include her very humanistic take on Elvis’ comeback shows in the 70s, a surprisingly ambivalent look at the end of The Beatles, some terrific reporting on young bands from San Fransisco, her explanation of why Creedence Clearwater Revival became her favorite rock band, and many others. Sometimes she doesn’t engage quite so successfully. When one writes a regular column, it’s hard to keep things fresh. There’s a piece in which she uses quotes from rock songs to describe the 70s. Some are compelling choices. Others seem to make sense mostly to her. It’s something of a thrown-together patchwork of phrases to form a somewhat confusing whole. But this is totally made up for by her exquisite personal narratives. When she goes to see The Grateful Dead in concert, the best parts are before and after the show, the traffic jams to get into and out of the area, the random drug-addled teens she runs across. It’s compelling, fun reading.

Suddenly, the often dull personal essays of the blogosphere have been revealed to me in a new light, because much of what Willis says could fit easily onto the outspoken arenas of current web writing. And yet where many modern bloggers have become bogged down in simplistic, visceral reactions, or in pithy tweets, or in overly-clever, self-serving blather, Willis’ work is illuminating, thought-provoking, and careful, all while maintaing an easy readability.

The real boons for me as a devourer of all things rock history are the pieces culled from outside her New Yorker column. By far the best of these is her essay on The Velvet Underground, in which she frames an absolutely incredible analysis of the themes of sin and salvation in Velvet Underground (a best-of compilation released after the band broke up) as a hypothetical scenario in which, because of a nuclear fallout, she’s trapped in a bomb shelter underneath legendary punk club CBGBs. It’s a hilarious scenario which plays out with an unnerving level of detail (it felt like I was reading a precurser to a Chuck Klosterman book), and yet it doesn’t detract from one of the most beautiful analyses of meaning in music I have ever read. The images she paints using Lou Reed’s words are only half as fascinating as what those images mean to her, and what she believes they mean for society. My eyes were opened to the power of The Velvet Underground, and to the power of art, all while connecting to an amusing and, at times, personal account of one writer’s favorite album.

I can’t say enough for how much this book has restored my faith in music criticism. When I set it down next to my bed at night (I’m reading it again), it’s like I understand my purpose, and am ready to face it with my next article. For anyone who’s interested in music, and especially for anyone who believes they deserve to be called a “music critic,” you must read Out of the Vinyl Deeps at least once, both to understand what’s possible with music writing and to affirm why it matters.