Astonishingly, Matthew J. Jones "How to Make Music in an Epidemic: Popular Music Making During the AIDS Crisis, 1981–1996" is the first academic book on pop music's response to AIDS before effective AIDS drugs. There are reasons for that (more on that later), but it's a rich topic for research. Jones provides a fascinating history which sets a high bar for future books.
The title refers to the 1983 booklet "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach," co-authored by Michael Callen, subject of Jones first book "Love Don't Need a Reason: The Life and Music of Michael Callen" (2020). Callen had a huge impact on Jones and is one of the people this book is dedicated to.
Jones acknowledges this isn't a comprehensive study and that there are other papers and books about AIDS and music, many of which are cited here. This book analyzes several works and what they reveal about the era. It cites many works readers can follow up on, like Fred Maus' writing on references to AIDS in the works of the B-52s and the Pet Shop Boys.
Diverse approaches
The introduction offers a variety of music dealing with AIDS from this era. These includes LGBT musicians like Lynn Lavner's "Such Fine Young Men" (1983), Joe Bracco's "Friend in My Pocket"(1991), Romanovsky and Phillip's "Living with AIDS" and "Be on the Safe Side" (1988) and mentions of Callen, the Kinsey Sicks and the Flirtations.
Avant-garde works by Diamanda Galás, Laurie Anderson and Patti Smith are mentioned (Jones lauds Galás' work as "one of the most sustained musical engagements with the epidemic") and popular works by Prince ("Sign o' The Times"), Joni Mitchell ("Sex Kills") and Janet Jackson ("Together Again). A wide variety of music is discussed and for those wishing to explore the music of the era it provides amazing documentation.
The five chapters in the book are "Palimpsests" or cover songs, "Intertexts" works which quote other works, "Pedagogies" that educate the listener, "Conspiracies" songs which engaged or espoused conspiracy theories and "Testimonials" songs by musicians about the epidemic.
Palimpsests were the first musical responses to AIDS. When people started dying some songs were repurposed for memorials.
"Bette Midler's "Friends" (1972) predates the AIDS crisis by a decade, but when the first waves of illness and death struck gay men, who are legion among Midler fans, that song took on a new meaning. To riff on an influential essay by Walter Hughes, lines like "I had some friends, but they're all gone. Something came and took them away" seemed to be coming true""
Jones analyzes three works used to benefit AIDS research: "That's What Friends Are For" (1985), Coil's reworking of "Tainted Love" (1985) and "Red, Hot + Blue" (1990), with contemporary artists' versions of Cole Porter songs.
"That's What Friends Are For" was originally recorded by Rod Stewart in 1982. The version by Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight garnered a lot of attention and hit the top of the Billboard charts. The song raised funds for AmFAR and became the number one song of 1986.
Coil's "Tainted Love" predated "That's What Friends Are For" by a few months and benefited Terence Higgins Trust, the first UK AIDS charity. Unlike "That's What Friends Are For" and "Red, Hot + Blue" this video directly addressed AIDS, telling the story of a PWA dying from the disease (with Marc Almond appearing as the angel of death).
Jones analyzes videos from the "Red, Hot + Blue" project. David Byrne's "Don't Fence Me In" features a variety of faces "establishing the diverse faces of AIDS." In Erasure's video for "Too Darn Hot" Andy Bell is a news anchor with archival video of AIDS protests. For "So In Love" k.d. lang portrays a caregiver to an unseen PWA, evoking the role of lesbian caregivers in the epidemic.
Mourning muses
"Intertexts" addresses works "that combine familiar works associated with loss, mourning, and the celebration of life with newly composed music." Tori Amos' "Not The Red Baron"(1996), Madonna's "In This Life"(1992) and "I'm His Child" from the film version of "Angels in America"(2003) are analyzed. In Amos' song, which refers to red ribbons in the lyrics, Jones hears Chopin's funeral march.
"In This Life" samples Gershwin's "Prelude for Piano No. 2" and was inspired by the deaths of Madonna's friends Martin Burgoyne and Christopher Flynn. "I'm His Child" originally appeared in "Say Amen, Somebody!" (1983).
"Pedagogies" shows how musicians educated the public about AIDS. Some songs were from the gay community, like Callen's "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic" (1983) and Automatic Pilot's "Safe Livin' in Dangerous Times" (1984).
Others come from pop artists like the Village People, who released "Sex over the Phone" (1985) and Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't to Take Our Clothes Off (To Have a good time)."
Some were geared towards women, like Gwen Guthrie's "Can't Love You Tonight." One, "Let's Talk About Sex" by Salt-N-Pepa, made the top 20 of Billboard's charts (and was later reworked as "Let's Talk About AIDS").
The chapter hits its stride discussing the "Red Hot + Country" project. Jones reveals it took two years for the project to happen and discusses the reticence of the musicians:
"Whereas its predecessors included explicit messages about safe sex, drug use, HIV testing and then current treatments, "Red Hot + Country" deftly two-steps around the very words "HIV" and "AIDS." This silence in a Red Hot production is remarkable."
Useful idiots
"Conspiracies" is aggravating but useful. Front and center is the Foo Fighters concert in Los Angeles in 2000 that featured AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore (1956 – 2008) from Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, which pushed AIDS denialism.
Conspiracy theories in hip-hop include "Meet the G Who Killed Me" by Public Enemy which quotes from conspiracy theorist Dr. Francis Welsing (claiming AIDS was first described in 1969) and includes homophobic lyrics like "Man to man, I don't know if they can; from what I know the parts don't fit."
The chapter wraps up discussing the 1996 Red Hot hip-hop album "America Is Dying Slowly" which transmitted misogyny by excluding female artists and tracks blaming women like "No Rubber, No Backstage Pass" and "Stay Away from the Nasty Hoes." Add inclusion of conspiracy theories about the origins of AIDS and this album was one hot mess.
Other voices
The most powerful chapter is "Testimonials" which includes songs by people with AIDS, HIV-negative people speaking for the HIV-positive ("ventriloqual testimonials") and third-person testimonials. Jones notes few musicians were willing to own having AIDS in the '80s and '90s.
Those who did included Michael Callen, "Guiding Light" actor Keith Christopher whose posthumous album "Naked Truth" was released in 1998 and country musician Doug Stevens, whose song "HIV Blues" was on his 1993 album "Out in the Country."
What made ventriloqual testimonials powerful was well known musicians singing about people with AIDS. This helped spread both empathy and information. One example is Elton John's "The Last Song" from 1992 about the reconciliation of a man dying of AIDS with his father.
Another is lesbian Mary Gauthier's "Goddam HIV" (1997) in which Gauthier inhabits the voice of a man dying from AIDS. The song captures the sadness, loneliness and frustration of PWAs from this era simply and directly. One negative example is Reba McEntire's 1994 song "She Thinks His Name Was John," in which a woman contracts AIDS from a one-night stand whose name she can't remember. The song indulges in victim-blaming and stigmatizes the woman.
Pricey resource
"How To Make Music in an Epidemic" is packed with information about music and pop culture. As someone who lived through this era, I found it extraordinarily informative. It is a welcome addition to both historical and pop culture books.
However, there are a few things about it being an academic title that bear discussing. The book is written with musicologists, musicians and music historians in mind, so it is an academic text. Even so the vast majority of the book is accessible to the lay reader. Jones mentions that he was actively discouraged from writing on this topic in the introduction:
"A professor I knew and admired in graduate school once worried that writing about the topic of music and HIV/AIDS would be career suicide. 'You'll never get a job,' they said and expressed their opinion that I ought to write about something, anything else. I did not take their advice."
It's upsetting that this is happening more than 40 years into the epidemic, but explains why it took so long for a book on this topic to appear. Since the generation who initially faced AIDS is now aging it's timely for this to be discussed now.
The major problem with the book, however, is the price. As an academic title from Routledge, it's well beyond the budget of most readers at $190 in hardcover (although it is available for $161.50 from the publisher and the ebook is considerably less at $33.99).
The price is a considerable barrier and will also prevent the book from being acquired by libraries, all the more shame, as it is an important book.
Matthew J. Jones' 'How to Make Music in an Epidemic: Popular Music Making During the AIDS Crisis, 1981–1996,' Routledge Press
www.routledge.com
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