(AP Photo/Stephen Chernin)
David Carr was not a music writer, per se, even though he commented quite a bit about music. As the New York Times’ Media Equation columnist and head media critic, on the paper’s staff in some capacity since 2002, what he seemed to do effortlessly was paint larger pictures: around the burgeoning Montreal music scene, the rise of EDM festivals, and putting kindred spirits like his faves the Hold Steady and the Replacements in extramusical context. Since his sudden death last night at the age of 58, he’s been eulogized as a journalist’s journalist—as a writer, he took huge bites of everything, he was not interested in self-preservation and his curiosity and gratitude is evident at every turn in his work.
Here’s seven of Carr’s notable New York Times works on music.
Memories of the Replacements, a Band That Could, but Didn't
Carr loved the music—namely the punk rock—of his native Minneapolis. He wrote about the now-reunited band’s Rhino Records reissue Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? in 2006, mulling the band’s legacy.
"The Replacements' influence is writ large, with or without a reissue. Sensitive rocker boys like Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day picked up guitars and made important records after hearing Mr. Westerberg tilt his head up into the mic and chase away the ennui by filling a room with possibility." Carr continued, "Much of the legend was built in cramped barrooms all over the country, but most often in Minneapolis. As a live act the Replacements were the ultimate crap shoot, taking stage foolishness to the level of beery performance art."
A Believer Packing Beer and Guitars
In 2012, Carr described Craig Finn’s solo debut Clear Heart Full Eyes as "a reach beyond the mosh pit. Instead of howling about misspent youth against huge, churning guitar riffs, he ruminates on the wages of adulthood, musically enveloped in a cosmic, plaintive version of Americana."
SXSW: Band of Horses and Broken Social Scene
As respected as Carr was for his lofty declarations on music and media, he was not above quick-and-dirty observations for on-the-beat blogging. Reporting on Band of Horses from South by Southwest in 2010: "Certain bands see doors and run through them. Like their musical brethren in My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses is not sheepish about grabbing what’s in front of them with both hands. Playing a huge house is just working with a larger P.A. system; the band clearly has something to say."
Carr had the rare opportunity to pull back the curtain on the reclusive Young, and his clear understanding of his work served us all well: "The band’s music with Young is built around a long-running sibling argument between Young and Old Black, his painted-over Gibson Les Paul guitar. Young, born in 1945, is the older brother to Old Black, made in 1952. Through the years, Old Black has been souped up, tweaked and rebuilt, but it has never been replaced as his musical partner. When he plays it, he often looks and sounds furious."
Cold Fusion: Montreal's Explosive Music Scene
Carr profiled the Montreal music scene in 2005, right after the release of Arcade Fire’s Funeral, placing it in a modern Alternative Nation narrative.
"The American pop music scene has frequently depended on cities at the edges of the cultural map to provide a much-needed shot of originality. Seattle, Minneapolis, Austin, Tex., and Athens, Ga., have all served as temporary pivot points, churning out bands and defining the sound of the moment. Even Omaha had its 15 minutes not so long ago. The momentary consensus seems to come out of nowhere - as if someone blows a whistle only those in the know can hear, and suddenly record executives and journalists are crawling all over what had previously been an obscure locale. So which American city is the next stop on this fickle, itinerant history? It's a trick question for the time being, because the answer seems to be Montreal."
In a video-commentary series with New York Times film critic A.O. Scott (Scott wrote a touching reflection on Carr’s career), Carr held court on EDM festival culture, citing its roots and misogynist impulses.
"To me, it’s club culture on steroids," he said. "It’s about 140 beats a minute rising to a predictable level where everything will go ‘Boom!’ And the ecstasy—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively—will spread all over. The women at the shows are incredibly sexualized. The DJ stand is dominantly male. And women, it seems to me, are human accessories or jewelry like the baubles that many people put on to go to these things… The impulse of the rave seems so democratic, to start with... What used to happen in a warehouse with some guy who had two turntables is how hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in production."
In another 2012 entry in The Sweet Spot video series, Carr flicks on a lighter, acting out a lonely pre-social media form of mourning a beloved musician.
"Whereas now, you can go online and build a big campfire. You can find other people like you. Just as there were will be bouquets of flowers gathered around wherever that star was. Now we’ve got places where someone can blow a whistle on the web and what happens is we’re able to come together in an online Kaddish."
As lionized as Carr has been—and rightly so—and as much as he is portrayed superficially as tough and weathered, even crotchety and old, it’s easy to forget his silly side. This video (at around 1:40), shows Carr chairdancing to Donna Summer’s "Last Dance".
Carr puts his hand over his heart, perhaps in a flash of remembrance of his youth, transported back. "It’s almost [as if] music is right next to smell in its ability to trigger memory, to put us in that place," he said. "How many times have you been riding along in the car, happy as a clam, wrong song will come on, and, baby, you are sad. You’ve got the blues."
For us, the news of Carr’s passing is that saddest of sad songs. And now we’ve all got the blues. Rest in peace, David.