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Posts Tagged ‘pop music’

Scott Graves

Rock Is Still Dead

by Scott Graves

It used to take decades and even centuries of cultural transmission by storytelling, theater, ballad, and a general diffusion of knowledge by processes unknown to bring myth and legend into being.  That may be another way of saying that people once had brains, and then came television, Video’s killing of the Radio Star, and the genteel cultural virtues obtained through 24/7 media immersion.

People once heard, told, acted out and retold these tales, taking active roles in creating visions of life and its possibilities in imaginative ways, instead of flopping on couches with a Monster Burger in one hand and a Bucket o’ Suds in the other, passively awaiting the predetermined outcome of one steroid-based extravaganza or another. This says something disturbing about the contrast between ancient and modern civilizations and the ways the perception of reality can either be generated by humans or imprinted upon them, unless you’re the CEO of an international fast food conglomerate or a viewer engaging in a fierce wind-breaking competition during a broadcast’s inevitable male-enhancement advertisements or rain delays.  (more…)

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Posted May 12th 2009 at 3:13 pm in Entertainment | No Comments

Tim Slagle

Response to Ben Shapiro’s ‘Rap is Crap’

by Tim Slagle

I just finished reading Ben Shapiro’s Rap Is Crap and I can’t let it go.

I am not a huge fan of rap music. It is not the top rack choice on my iPod, and yet, I can appreciate its contribution to music and pop culture. Very few of the top 40 songs today don’t have at least a small rap section in bridge of the song.  It has now been over thirty years since rap made the leap from the inner city streets to the top of the pop charts, so it’s not going away anytime soon.

All of Ben’s complaints were once said about rock and roll: lack of melody and harmony, overemphasis on rhythm, vulgar, overly sexual lyrics… Rock and roll was also called a corrupter of youth and predictions of it’s quick demise abounded. There were record burnings and organized protests against this Satan music, and today, footage of these protests are viewed comedically. Do we really want this stigma attached to Republicans any longer?  Are we tired of being the punchline yet? (more…)

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Posted Mar 29th 2009 at 2:28 pm in Entertainment | 2 Comments

Mike Baron

Ugly Pop World Drives Beauty Underground

by Mike Baron

The disconnect between beauty and popularity in music has never been greater.  Where once America sang the Beatles or Motown (”The Sound of Young America”), today the music industry is severely fragmented.  Gangsta rap.  Speed metal.  Trip-hop.  The major recording companies whine about declining profits even as they pay Mariah Carey $18 million not to record.

Unanimity of public opinion over popular song has passed.  Music, which used to unite, now divides.  Eminem and Ludacris would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.  We live in an antinomian age where it’s hip to defy conventional wisdom long after every vestige of conventional wisdom lies in tatters.  Where Keats’ Grecian Urn once proclaimed, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” today’s antinomian consumer proclaims, “Whatever,” in a voice oozing ennui. (more…)

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Posted Feb 27th 2009 at 2:05 pm in Entertainment, Reviews, Video | 89 Comments

Debbie Schlussel

Isn’t the Gushing Over Pop Music’s Fave HAMASnik Getting Old?

by Debbie Schlussel

Is it just me . . . or are you, too, getting tired of the mainstream entertainment media’s gushing over HAMAS mule Yusuf Islam a/k/a Cat Stevens a/k/a Stephen Georgiou?  Whether it’s FOX News’ uber-liberal faux-movie-critic Roger Friedman or today’s USA Today, which features a gusher by longtime music writer Edna Gundersen, the attempts to whitewash this extremist with a guitar get stale and tiresome.

If ever there were a time to re-birth Moon Unit Zappa’s “gag me with a spoon” from the ’80s, this is it:

David Spero, Yusuf’s manager, sees maturity, not a radical personality change. “Cat Stevens was the voice of a generation, and Yusuf is a voice of that same generation grown up,” he says. . . .

After nearly drowning off the coast of Malibu in 1976, the singer turned to Islam and found “a message to the human heart” in a copy of the Quran his brother gave him. “It didn’t have any connection to politics or global issues or the continuing turbulence in the Middle East,” he says. “That wasn’t the issue.”

HAMAS Money-Mule Yusuf Islam a/k/a Cat Stevens & Family

(more…)

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Posted Jan 12th 2009 at 1:32 pm in Celebrity News, Entertainment, Media Criticism, Politics | 29 Comments