Monday, November 28, 2011

black like me

So, Andrew this week goes off on why your taste in music sucks, and his does not.



Not a straight person in the US knows who Kylie even is, and she is Madonna in the rest of the world...


Today a reader tells him why: We don't like pop because we're black ... sort of. At least culturally. Think of the major American-born music forms:

Jazz? Comes from the blues.

Rock n' roll? Just rhythm n' blues, played by white kids. From the blues.

Country? Yup ...

... originally "country blues," to distinguish it from "city blues." Eventually became a new thing, with guitars from Hawaii, fiddles from Ireland, etc. Jimmy Rodgers, Asa Carter, Johnny Cash - all learned from black guys how to play their music.

Bluegrass? Good god, man, where's the banjo from?!

The first American popular music was minstrelsy, literally white guys "blacking up" to play "plantation songs."

We don't like pop because it has no blues in it, no gospel, no CHURCH. It sounds flaky and unserious. It doesn't speak to that part of our souls named "Africa." So we sit patiently through "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," waiting eagerly for "Back in the USSR" ...

4 comments:

b said...

What a pompous asshole. Is that Andrew Sullivan?

And you, for once, are thinking too much.

Music is about personal taste. "America doesn't get pop?" That's just a really stoopid thing to say.

There are plenty of people in the US who consume pop music quite happily. In fact, I'd be willing to guess US teens and adults spend a helluva lot more on it per capita than their friends across the pond.

Techno and electronic aren’t integrated here? He's hanging out with the wrong people, apparently.

Radio has been hijacked…by something OTHER than pop? Really, Andrew?

I almost just called him a douchebag. But that would have been vulgar.


Hate R&R and country as much as you want, suck on that pop, dude, but do realize that it's just your taste. It doesn't mean that American's don't "accept" pop music into the cultural mainstream.

God, what a dumbass.

Kyle said...

Hey, I'm not thinking too much, I did not write any of this.... just passing it along.

TheCrankyProfessor said...

Are you suggesting that Pop Music is COMMUNISS?

b said...

Oh. You didn't write all that stuff about black church? I knew it didn't sound like you...except that you didn't use quotation marks, so how was I to know?

Did you see this from my rant on 3WS? It gets worse:

M Bouffant