New York Blog

Um, yeah...it definitely made me look twice.

actually, i would say that this cover was intentionally racist, and it clearly shows the true colors, so to speak, of the village voice. seriously, you have a man getting run over, and a title that says "BLOOD ON THE TRACKS"!!! if that does not conjure up some ugly images from our country's history, you have some SERIOUS fucking problems. but then, that is sadly the state of our society. hopefully awareness will grow.

How about ageist, too? Look at that thing Dylan is riding. The whole visual metaphor is also stupid for its assumption of rivalry between musical artists who more than likely respect each other quietly.

C'mon, VV, stop being peppy little jackasses. Your inflammations are, frankly, boring.

These bleeding heart do gooders can't wait to pounce on anything and call it racist. Do they know Blood on the Tracks was an album name? If were all to be color blind how can that be racist. Maybe the complainers who see color are the racists.

voice sucks - racist old guys hate black music, except when played by whites

Voice Media is run by a bunch of "hard drinking Micks and Swedes" anymore who blanche out and eliminate minority staffers. Why do you care? Maybe if you had a black person in the building wh wasn't sweeping up, they could have told you how offensive and insensitive the cover was. But you don't.

While the cover may allude to racism to those for whom lynchings and other racist events in this country's history are still fresh in the mind, this does not mean the cover inherently depicts a act of racism. There's a huge difference between any "unintended" racism of the cover and the mentioned ignorant frat-boy blackface parties. And it's a scooter for crying out loud! More intellect and less from-the-gut assessments is needed on the part of Mr. Perna.

Why is The Voice amplifying racial insensitivity? Let cooler heads prevail.

If I was the editor, I'd expect to be sending resume's to Field and Stream.

It's not the racist part of it; it doesn't always have to be race when there's a white guy doing something to a person of color. Instead, it's just violent. We get enough of that shoved down our throats daily.

Yeah, the cover sucks. Definite echoes of racist imagery. And what's with the exaggerated hooked nose on Dylan? WTF?

It's simply a stupid idea for a cover. Ugly and dumb, even from just a cover-designer's perspective. The concept in and of itself is not racist, simply because the TV On The Radio member happens to be black. Whatever racism is found in the illustration is brought to it by whoever chooses to see it. It's implied by the very history of racism, not the artist. What should have happened is that the editors of the Voice should have taken a second look at it, and realized a) it's an ugly, stupid cover concept, and b) some may find racism in it, even though we wouldn't intend it, therefore - let's come up with another concept. How about, let's say, Bob Dylan with a torn electric plug between his teeth, or Dylan with T.V. antennae coming out of his head. I dunno, anything...

I'm offended at all this offensive offense. This material is materially questionable in terms of it's integrity. Clearly appearance and mode of transportation is something not to be taken lightly or mocked; REGARDLESS OF THE METAPHOR!

All this hate mongering reminds me of a song:

"Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

It took me a minute get the intended pun. My first thought was ageist, not racist. But, I get that too. However, I am not offended. I am not inspired either. A better alternative would have been Dylan on a segway perched atop cookie mountain. IMHO

The cover art is not racist, just dumb. Dylan didn't run over TVOTR's leader, the Voice's pathetic excuses for criticism did the job. After over a year of glowing press, (why, I can't figure out... TVOTR sucks!) to give the #1 spot to Dylan's mess isn't just a slap in the face, they literally got run over by a train... of racist reviewers.

Regardless of whether the cover can be construed as racist (an argument tailor-made for discussion in the Voice--hmmm, I smell a conspiracy), it's obvious and just plain not funny. Dylan is old? Really?! The Pazz and Jop folks seem as amazed that Dylan hasn't yet collapsed into a pile of dust as they are about anything on his latest record. And many of the contributers seemed downright annoyed that they had to still consider him a viable human entity at this late date. I guess longevity ain't cool, but I'll bet Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, etc. would hand over all future royalty staements for some of it.

Racists are always deriding people for lack of reason when people bring up questions of racism because it's just so damn easy to hide racist thoughts and attitudes. Racism is not always right there on peoples sleeves for everyone to see. Again, It's sooo easy to just keep the dis-belief, dis-trust, dis-interest, disgust, hate, and politically dirty jokes 'to onself' or 'amongst themselves'.

I am simply glad TV on the Radio called this racist, whether it is or not because soo much racist shit comes down the pike from these leftist/progressive posturing old media assholes it's just not funny. Generally, Americans and Europeans are just fucking racist and indifferent to questions of racism to the core. There is nothing we can do about it but wait it out in quiet dignity.

Think about this, when was the last time you went up to a brown man in a social context and introduced yourself because you were sincerely interested in that person? Is is it because you don't things 'have changed' that much and minorities are still 'the same'. Whatever, you think 'the same' is? If you find yourself thinking that way THAT is racism.

TV on the Radio is so bomb. I love thier music and have downloaded 5 of thier tracks. I mean how many fucking interacial american bands (Black and White)with some measure of exposure do you ever fucking hear about anyway?

this blog reads like a how to manual for pseudo intellectual, passive aggressive, self-absorbed shit headedness. The bigger issue at hand here is how these two desperately shit laden albums are being discussed in ther first place.

People see what they want to see. I saw the cover, then read the accompanying blurb. I took it at face value, and didn't even consider it to be "racists". Mind you, if the blurb was about corporate/economic racism against black folk, the people complaining now would be sending kudos instead. And yes, I'm a black American.

i agree with the complete disconnect between the headline, the description and the cartoon, which made for an awful cover. you'd think dylan clobbered TVOTR when actually they made it onto more ballots than Dylan...perhaps a more clever and less potentially offensive cover would have been Bob Dylan holding up a cover of the village voice showing TVOTR winning the poll with a big-ass grin on his face a la Truman vs. Dewey.

The filthy racists who take issue with this cover need to join the 21st century. Learn to accept human variation for what it is. Stop seeing 'race' everywhere you look. Get over yourself Mr. Perna. You're a human not a 'race'. Just like everyone else (but a bit more illiberal).

i think it is freedom of speech, i think it is racist.

if you know anything about the history of racism in this country the accusations about racism in the cartoon are not at all “over the top”

Readers were making comments about the inappropriate cover before the letter from the TV on the Radio guy was published. Since so many people think it was racist, there has to be something to it ---don’t ya think?
The VERY first thing i thought about when viewing the cover was that James Byrd incident in which a black guy was dragged behind a truck, particularly because of the really bugged out eyes (which could be interpreted as him being dead) Those type of eyes are also common in black face caricatures of african americans around the turn of the century.

Also the headline “Blood on the Tracks”. yes I know it’s from a Dylan abum, but if you think of the meaning of the words with the picture you come to a frightening realization that some peope could take it to mean that it’s the black guy’s blood is on the tracks---which makes all sorts of allusions to lynchings and killing of black men. In a sense that was the metaphorical message of the cartoon.

While its probable that this was not intentional, it’s amazing to me that no one in the Voice newsroom could see how the illustration could be misconstrued. THIS IS WHY MORE AFRICAN AMERICANS NEED TO BE IN NEWSROOMS.

yet another reason that artists should just do their art & shut the fuck up about everything else...that Voice cover was racist? How so? Substitute Dylan running over, say, James Blunt: would anyone be complaining?

It's like those who claim the word "niggardly" is racist because it's got the word, y'know, "niggar" in it[?]; can we stop being ignorant AND stupid now? Pretty please?

you people are pathetic.

there are real fuckin issues out there and you choose your issue to be a cover of a music poll that may or may not be deemed racsist.

people are run over every fuckin day, regardless of what color they are. sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. who cares.

the real issue, here at least, should be that both tv on the radio and bob dylan suck. end of story.

IT IS!!!!! THE PAPER IS! AND IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN! BUT YOU ALL DO VERY SUBTLEY! YOU KNOW ITS LIKE THE OLD SAYING ABOUT THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH! THE SOUTH OF OLD YOU KNEW WHERE YOU STOOD! NY....WELL REMEMBER BENSONHURST, LUIMA(STICK IN BUTT) AND THE LATEST SHOOTING OF THE SOON TO BE MARRIED BROTHA! DONT ACT LIKE YOU DONT KNOW!!!

PANTHRO SAYS CHILL OUT AND WHO THE FUK CARES ANYWAY. EVERYBODY ON THIS MESSAGEBOARD JUST NEEDS TO GET LAID MORE. HONESTLY WHAT A BUNCH OF SNIVELING LAMES THE LOT OF YOU ARE. PANTHRO THINKS THAT PEOPLE NEED A BETTER RELEASE THAN BITCHING AND MOANING ABOUT BORING NON-EXISTENT RACIAL BULLSHIT. THUNDERCATS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is over a month
late, but what the hell. The cover is flat-out ugly; racist
as well as anti-semitic. What really
disturbs me, though,
is that the cover seems to have been created simply for a pun. Said pun being not "Blood on the Tracks", but "Tracks on the Blood". "Blood"
being an old school
euphemism for "black",
remember? Nobody won
anything on that cover.