New Wave of Classic Rock.

All I'm seeing here is racism, guys.

A euro-centric view is the right one?
 
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I remain firmly of the opinion that bands should strive to find their own original voice, not rehash the past. Which I firmly believe why rock stopped being exciting and rebellious in the late 90's and audiences shifted to more dangerous musical style. Classic rock is classic for a reason, it's in the past. When you're more concerned with trying to color within the musical lines you're not exploring new territory.

I appreciate these sentiments. It's a younger generation trying to find their own voice in these times. Each generation has been known for finding their own musical voice, creating new styles of music.

However, I am also a firm believer to look to the past so that we can learn from it. Not to long for it as if it were better, just to learn from it. We also show honor to those who were our forefathers of rock by building on what they had previously built. Not so as to change it, but to imitate it.

As we grew up, that is how we learned new things. We listened and observed, and then carved out and travelled new paths of our own. Once we had learned correctly, what we had learned we got "under our belt," and gradually became the adults we are today.

In this manner, what our respectable forefathers did receives honor. You do not need imitate something that had little or no merit, or does not serve a greater purpose...

Yet, it's appreciated that many of us will question the reasons why we should learn from the past. I personally feel that if we do not learn, we are doomed to repeat it...again and again...
 
All I'm seeing here is racism, guys.

A euro-centric view is the right one?

Funny, I didn't see any racism at all.

I saw a cultural judgment about a genre of music, injudiciously expressed in a way that risks injudicious accusations of racism, by making a negative aesthetic judgment in a sentence adjacent to a sentence containing the word "black" (which was in the prior paragraph).

Now, not being God or a mind-reader, I don't know Zedhed's heart and intentions, so, I'm not in a position to informedly defend Zedhed from accusations about his heart and intentions.

But as I understand it, the original claim he made was:
(a.) there are some white kids in his area (which is not the USA) who're trying to imitate a black gangsta image;
(b.) the music those white kids listen to (presumably whatever a white kid thinks black gangstas listen to) is, in Zedhed's opinion, "shit."

Item (a.) is unsurprising to me, and I see no reason to dispute it, unless we think Zedhed is mistaken, and the kids in question were trying to imitate a different "gangsta" image, one not associated with 80's and 90's street culture from majority-African-American portions of U.S. cities. But unless those kids were all wearing zoot suits, I suspect Zedhed correctly identified the costume these poseurs were wearing.

Item (b.), then, would seem to be the crux of the issue. Is it okay to identify a genre of music associated with an American subculture which happens to feature a lot of kids whose ancestors were from Africa, and say that when some different kids (whether Euro or Hispanic or Asian or Australian Aborigine, I don't care which) listen to music from that genre for the purpose of imitating it, the songs those kids select as being representative of gangsta culture are often Pretty Bad Music?

I think it is okay, provided that the reason for judging those songs Pretty Bad is, "They have no rhythmic variation or thematic interest in any of the accompaniment, no evidence of artistic craft in the instrumentation, no knowledge of harmony or melody, are tiresomely overcompressed and rife with a style of engineering which was already hackneyed back when Tone Loc was popular, and rely solely on the artist's voice and delivery to be distinguishable from every other same-BPM instance of the genre." I think that's fine.

Conversely I think it would not be okay, if the reason for judging those songs Pretty Bad is, "Somewhere, a dark-skinned person might have liked them."

But do we have any reason to suspect that Zedhed's judgment was based on that? Maybe it was, but I have no reason to think so.

Come to think of it, I also have no reason to suspect that Zedhed isn't, himself, the color of an ebony fretboard...although I suppose demography alone makes that less likely than him being some other shade of the human kaleidoscope.

But I do have good reason to think that, in 2021, when one person goes out of his way to assign racist motives to another, that fact usually tells you nothing about the accuse-ee, but the accuser is typically a college-educated white. 🤔

Aaaaaaand, I guess everyone now has good reason to think, from how I write, that I'm a pedantic bore. Sorry. It's congenital. But I'm a well-intentioned bore, if that helps.
 
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Where do you think those standards come from? Who wrote the Prager article and what biases do they have?

Cmon.

An Indian-ancestry guy, married to a Venezuelan-ancestry girl, wrote the second one. He says so. Why do you ask?

Or was it the first article (I guess it's okay to use that term for a video-essay?) that you're asking about?

The problem we have, in discussing the relative merits and quality of particular works-of-art, is that SOME of it is subjective, but not ALL of it. Some of it is objective. That's nuanced, and we humans are not very good at nuance.

We get even worse at handling such subtleties, the moment someone opts to take offense instead of listening and inquiring further. (And that happens all too often, because it's very tempting: The enjoyment of Taking Offence anesthetizes us to the dark sides of our own motives, by allowing us to get into high-dudgeon against some member of an Outgroup who isn't wearing the same gang colors as we are. It's where we get the stereotype of the small-minded preacher railing against The Other in bad 80's movies...although I personally thought Lithgow brought admirable depth to such a character in the original Footloose.)

As an example of the mixed objective-subjective nature of things: In my previous post, I recited some pretty common criticisms of certain kinds of hip-hop. It wasn't hard to do so because they're true observations, and as regards those particular musical details, they do describe real, objective weak points in a lot of hip-hop tracks. Those are things that hip-hop ain't good at.

So, does that mean it's a bad genre overall? Well, that leads to the question: "Bad for what?"

I can think of some movie soundtracks that would have been (to borrow a term from Zedhed), "shit" if they'd opted for Handel instead of hip-hop. I'd hate to see the genre vanish. But I wouldn't use more than one (atypical) example from the genre if I was trying to teach a kid in Level 2 Music Theory voice-leading, or, the proper use of a Neapolitan chord. 😆

So, it's somewhat relative, but not completely relative, when we judge music. Context matters.

The context Zedhed referenced was that of one group culturally imitating another. (Perhaps badly?)

I think I'll leave it up to others to analyze whether, in that context, the songs they were listening to were good, and if so, good for what?

(But if anybody cares about how I would answer that question myself? ...well, here's a hint.)
 
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Where do you think those standards come from? Who wrote the Prager article and what biases do they have?

Cmon.
You haven't offered any intelligent response. Apparently you haven't viewed the content. They are both very well presented, entertaining, informative, and logical videos to help inform you.

"Cmon" is not a rebuttal. It is a fall back response meant to distract.
 
You haven't offered any intelligent response. Apparently you haven't viewed the content. They are both very well presented, entertaining, informative, and logical videos to help inform you.

"Cmon" is not a rebuttal. It is a fall back response meant to distract.

Cant say I watched those links at work.

If someone could summarize the culture one for me did it place any above the rest?

Happy to see this discussion hasnt relegated to namecalling etc, btw.
 
[back on topic]

Once again, what's old is new. Here's to hoping my unreleased album of songs from 2004-2009 sounds fresh and innovative when I release it. :tonguewink:
 
Cant say I watched those links at work.

If someone could summarize the culture one for me did it place any above the rest?

Happy to see this discussion hasnt relegated to namecalling etc, btw.
Right on man. At least you are civil. Thanks.
 
What about Black music makes it "less than" to you?
All I'm seeing here is racism, guys.

A euro-centric view is the right one?

What the hell is this world coming to?.......seriously?

I don't know what you see, but I see predominantly African American folks playing hip hop and most of them are trying to out gangsta the last guy.

It's the music that I don't like, and if it were predominantly white folks playing it, I still wouldn't like it.

BTW, I see the blues (the basis for all the music I like) as African American music, so I'm not going to rise to your 'woke' bait dude. Wow, what a narrow mind and tiny world you must live in.

I'm so glad I live in a country where racism isn't bought up just because someone has a differing point of view.
 
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Been checking out Nick Perri & The Underground Thieves. Some good tunes, strikes me as good music for the car.
 
Just finished watching Dirty Honey open for Black Crowes.

I think you guys in this thread would dig them.

They sound a bit like AC/DC meets Bad Company meets Aerosmith.

I've been never heard them before tonight and they have solid tunes and musicianship.
I actually discovered Dirty Honey prior to that thread (thanks to youtube suggestions). They're a solid band and totally makes sense to open for the Crowes.
 
Just finished watching Dirty Honey open for Black Crowes.

Great band...I hear them on the radio and crank it when I do.

Another band that I really like that sounds 'old-school' is Airbourne...they are reminiscent of AC/DC but man, they are one of the best bands I've seen in a club in years. They just rocked with a massive, in-your-face groove. A real meat-and-potatoes rock band.
 


Elvis spent most of his CNN on-air time during the rain delay of last night’s NYC Concert hyping this new release of his classic breakthrough album with the Attractions This Year‘s Model (OG master tape) with his voice replaced by various Spanish-speaking vocalists from around the world.pretty cool
 
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