Wong Critical Review #4

Wong takes an unconventional, but insightful tack by focusing on the musical consumption habits of a friend, and relating that to identity construction, especially in terms of race. Her powerful and valid statement, "Reception, consumption, and audience remain undertheorized in ethnomusicology and performance studies," serves as a jumping off point for this approach.

However, I take issue with the way she talks about music. It's very dispassionate; she presents ideas of music as nothing but politically charged noise, and says herself, "As an ethnomusicologist, I don't think it is ever 'the music itself' that attracts or compels - music has no agency of its own, people do..." This, probably somewhat deliberately and somewhat accidentally, pidgeonholes Rod's musical history to be solely about racial environments. While this helps serve her purpose of discussing Asian American identity construction, she glosses over some other interesting things going on - the correlation Rod proposes between being a student and being interested in more complex music, and the significance of his repeated use of phrases like "when I don't want to think" when describing his radio listening habits. I suppose it would be hard to examine all facets of his musical influences.

On a separate note, this Guinness World Record for Worst Ending goes to this closing sentence: "In focusing on quotidian experience through the intimate pleasures of musical sound, I hear Asian Americans doing serious identity work while getting down and rocking out." The record was previously held by the movie "Wanted".