Kanye West, left, and Bob Dylan both talk trash. So why do we react differently when they do? (Kanye West photo by Vince Bucci/Invision/AP. Bob Dylan photo by Lucy Nicholson, Reuters)
With the trophies disbursed at this year’s Grammy Awards ceremony already collecting dust on their winners’ mantles, the rest of us are left to sift through the trash talk.
Kanye West put an exclamation point on Sunday night’s ceremony with a post-show suggestion that the folk singer Beck relinquish his prize for album of the year to Beyoncé. “I am here to fight for creativity,” West said. Pearls were clutched.
Earlier in the weekend, Bob Dylan was being feted at a Grammy-related charity gala where he delivered an acceptance speech delicately sprinkled with invective. “I’m not ever going to disparage another songwriter,” Dylan said after he’d already specifically dissed Merle Haggard, Tom T. Hall, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. By Monday, Rolling Stone had called the speech “riveting.”
So which artist was shoring up his legend and which one was reinforcing his infamy? Your answer might depend on your age, your race, or whose music taught teenage-you about the complexities of life in America.
Either way, the invariable truth is that trash talk humanizes an artist in the eyes of their flock just as it demonizes them in the eyes of their detractors. But it has an undeniable and underappreciated usefulness. As NFL star Richard Sherman is asked to explain whenever a piece of beautiful garbage explodes from his mouth, trash talk is the most direct way to get into an opponent’s head.
In the arts, it might be the most direct way to get into everyone’s head.
Because trash talk clearly and boldly asserts one’s position in the world — and in the music business, far too many artists are terrified to take anything vaguely resembling a position. Pop stars need their brands to be universally accessible, but trash talk draws lines and makes enemies. Taking a stand is bad for business.
That partially explains why so many of us gasp whenever West speaks up. We’re more accustomed to vapid celebrity zombie-grunting, not passionate gushing about the value of art.
And while many often hear West’s trash talk as nothing more than self-serving petulance, it’s always about issues greater than him. Don’t forget that West’s televised broadside against President George W. Bush’s mishandling of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 still stands as one of the most far-reaching gestures of social protest we’ve ever seen from a pop star.
And on Sunday, West was an agitator at a lethargic Grammy ceremony in desperate need of some agitation — and his trash talk was completely germane. West wanted to know why the Grammys consistently fail to recognize innovative pop music in its own time and he refused to sit back and watch history get written. It wasn’t polite, but politeness doesn’t bring change.
Dylan’s dirty laundry session on Friday night was a bit more mysterious. Like Michael Jordan delivering his unexpectedly sour Hall of Fame enshrinement speech in 2009, the bard seemed to be settling old scores, calling out songwriters who he felt had slighted him or just did lousy work. Here was this colossus of American song, exposing himself as an insecure human being, just like the rest of us. Still trying to win the game, a competitor to the end.
Ezra Pound once described literature as “the news that stays news,” and that idea might help describe Dylan’s enigmatic sense of artistic self. He’s always been headline news in his own mind, and certainly in the minds of his followers. For him, these old grievances appear to be very much alive. The scoreboard is still aglow and there’s still time on the clock.
So why are the rest of us so quick to scold these trash-talkers and their supposed erosion of civility in our fragile public discourse? Not only do we live in a time that expects us cultivate informed opinions on the entire world swirling around us, we’re also expected to vocalize those opinions on various social media platforms over the course of a single day. And in doing so, we end up talking so much trash.
Perhaps our anxiety is rooted in the fact that our trash talk is essentially meaningless. Feelings of inconsequentiality are one of the most harmful side-effects of the information age, and while we can all sign up for a social media megaphone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone besides our aunties in Minnesota are paying any attention. Our trash talk doesn’t carry the same weight as our heroes’.
In fact, trash talk only carries weight for a winner. The trash talk of a loser is nothing more than a frivolous outburst, an inability to tame throbbing feelings. But the trash talk of a champion is a rally cry.
That’s another reason why West’s and Dylan’s trash talk can feel so strangely rewarding. It reconnects us with the spirit of their music. Dylan is the great rock oracle, but his trash talk reveals that he’s as flawed and spiteful as anyone. It helps us hear the human being.
And West’s music has always sounded like the hissing airlock on a heart that beats louder and hurts harder than most. His trash talk flows parallel to his music in the direction of the truth.
And while trash talk doesn’t give art meaning, it is excellent at triggering arguments, rumors and gossip — the very things that give us purchase on art. Dylan and West must know this. They’ve made important work and they keep finding ways to steer us back to it. They want us to keep living with it. They want us to keep talking about it. They want us to keep reevaluating our position, over and over and over.
Their trash talk is a renewable resource.
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