...in which the Rickipedian breaks deeply felt personal principle.

Rick Perlstein · 7 Sept 2026

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
If 'whiteness' has any affirmative cultural content, it lies in the jazz style rural white Americans invented in the 1970s and 1980s.

Their wordsBecause, if there ever was an actual affirmative cultural content to "whiteness"that didn't actually signify "not a member of a degraded caste", a concept of "white genius" that didn't make you sound like one of Stephen Miller's favorite accounts on X, it inheres in the style of jazz invented by "white" Americans from rural backgrounds in the 1970s and into the '80s.
Our reading
Most music writing in the internet age should consist only of a link and a brief recommendation.

Their wordsSeriously, I believe 98% of music writing, in this here age of teh Internet, should consist of a link and three words: listen to this.

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