--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> This hostility towards rap - what artists you all
> talking about?
> There's some really great stuff around - why get all
> cranky about the
> crap?
I do not want to speak for others, but here is what I wrote on the subject:
"My beef is not really with the genre itself, some of which seems interesting, especially when it fuses with reggae, but with how it is being used in this country's culture: a silly regression to adolescence that seem to dominated the US pop culture and use music (not just rap, but rock in general) for its in-your-face shock value - as an obnoxious noise and an expression of male aggression rather than an art form. The same thing can be said about dress - as "Pornification of America" piece in Boston Globe posted earlier to this list suggests. It is understandable when adolescent boys and girls do that, but it becomes truly pathetic when adults, chronologically in their forties and fifties but regressing to the mental age of 14 embrace this form of cultural values and behavior."
And then added: " It is like with food. When all you can have is bland hamurgers on buns, a little bit of spice can travel a long way, and more spice can get you to culinary heaven. But if you overdo and all that you have spice and no beef - that makes you puke - and a bland hamburger on a bun start sounding like an interesting proposition.
Same with culture. A little bit of dada amidst victorian stiffness traveled a really long way, and the bohemians who acquired that taste got themselves into cultural heaven. They became cultural heroes. But this worked as long as bohemianism and counteculturalism was just a tiny dash of spice, and exception available only on special occassions. However, when everyone jumped on the bandwagon grew llong hair, put baggy cloathes on and started chanting the few same tunes - it became nauseating, like a flock of sheep. Today, you can see more variety of dress, taste and life style in the corporate ranks than in the s0-called counterculture where everyone wears the same baggy or slutty garb and hears to the same tunes that sond like a carbon copy of one another."
I think it is quite clear from the above quotes that I am not criticizing any musical genres per se, but the infantilization of the US culture and the fact that a lot of seemingly intelligent people seem to go with that program quite happily. I thought you were on the same page, no? Or does it depend whose thugs are being involved?
Wojtek
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