> Well, it's worth pointing out that the video I linked to, of
> the band Doug mentioned, New York's Cro-Mags -- is about 20
> years old. I suppose there were some folks in the late 70s
> still complaining Chuck Berry's 1950s "Johnny B. Goode" was
> "too rough/aggressive"/etc. or something from 20 years
> previous, too -- but those folks were rightly seen as being
> sort of, um, well ...
I am not exactly against jolting the audience a little bit, albeit I am admittedly stuck in the Pink Floyd/pothead reggae and, once you mentioned the NYC scene, the Laurie Anderson/Bongwater era. I never developed a taste for the heavy metal/punk/rap stuff - albeit I admittedly liked some of that stuff that my kid played when he lived with me.
As I said on this forum before, my problem is not with any particular music genre, but with the saturation of the US popculture with attention grabbing, bombast and noise. Not just loud music, but intrusive ads, flashy or provocative appearances, staged dramas, hyperboles in public speech, people constantly bombarding me with demands for attention and money - everything at the highest possible pitch and bombastic, while the nuance, the pause, the understatement, the subtlety, and the silence all but gone. It is like with booze or dope - at first it thrills you, but after a while you find it exhausting and boring, all that you are left with is a big hangover, and all that you want is being left in peace and quiet, and alone.
Not long ago I posted some comments about the film _Paradise now_ by Hany Abu-Assad http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445620/ which I liked precisely for possessing qualities that most of the US "popkulcha" is profoundly lacking - the nuance, the subdued understatement, the subtle hint. Mike Leigh's (a Brit) films, especially _Vera Drake_ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383694/ possess the same quality of telling a story that others would naturally turn into a melodrama with the stiff upper lip, if you will. _In this world_ (also a British production by Michael Winterbottom http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310154/) is yet another example of telling a harrowing story in a very minimalist, detached, almost stoic manner. Or for, that matter, _Cries and whispers_ by Ingmar Bergman http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/ in which minimalist understatement is superbly used to achieve a highly dramatic effect. I hope these examples can illustrate what qualities of cultural message I have in mind when I say that they have been crowded out by the bombastic US-style "popkultur."
Wojtek