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Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

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Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you feel that way. To be clear, I am not calling you racist (whatever that means exactly) and I am not calling that sentence racist, etc. But I have said racist things and held racist perspectives in my life; I'm human; I probably still do, unwittingly. I take that seriously - it hurts people, maybe more than anything else in humanity. (To make clear my position: I'll be damned if the scourge continues, on…

>> IMHO that sentence makes a joke of the article's points about racism, and calls them "boring and trite". Also, importantly it's an expression of feelings, not facts and reasoning. I understand what you are saying but I think it's an overgeneralisation. My comment said that the way the article frames the subject is boring and trite, not that the racism it is trying to point to doesn't really exist. I agree it does.…

Yes, early on the article made me think about a division in the music industry I didn’t think about specifically before. So far so good. ~50 pages later I had no more to show for it than a number of interesting tangents.

Why did rock die? Dylan? AARP? All but forgotten.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know metal was so big in Athens, Greece. Thanks. > So why didn't the black grasroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that comes from black artists for the last few decades? For me, that's like asking, 'why didn't Van Gogh ever develop something innovative, like the abstract artists, instead of painting in his popular…

> techno (yes, created by African-Americans in Detroit) if you define "techno" in a very particular way, that's true. if you define "techno" in the broader sense in which it is typically used, it was created by Germans in Dusseldorf, whose music is acknowledged by the Detroit scene makers as pivotal in their own evolution.

“House” is more likely the term that makes sense in that sentence.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lotta early-rock-history-for-newbs in there, I'll give it that. I think this is not giving the article enough credit. It's not just that people are "newbs" to music history, it's also that real music history is buried under manufactured-consent style industry narrative, which the article explicitly points out halfway through: > the rest is music industry history — something we need to make an discerned effort to di…

Didn't mean to suggest that they didn't do a fine job with what they did write. I did feel that the title overstated Marshall Dylan's role in it. As for the 'music industry history' quote ... couldn't agree more. The industry did and does a great deal of damage to popular music since it popped up in the 1930s to decide what songs appeared on 'Your Hit Parade'. I also wanted to take this chance to promote Montgomery's…

Ah, that was the intent behind that sentence. Makes sense, thank you for clarifying. I hope you can see how I easily misunderstood it without that added context though.

And for the record: it was clear either way that your comment was motivated by sincere love for music and the people who make it.

Thanks again for the links, I did not know the film

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#154

The article makes a very strenuous effort to make a point about something something racism in rock that sounds a bit boring and trite to my ears. After all, Bon Scott said it best years ago: In the beginning Back in nineteen fifty five Man didn't know 'bout a rock 'n' roll show And all that jive The white man had the schmaltz The black man had the blues No one knew what they was gonna do But Tchaikovsky had the news…

As a black English man who enjoys a bit of rock and metal myself I have wondered this myself. I have some theories, which I fully admit are half baked and quite possibly incorrect. However, I think that a lot of the culture around rock and metal is off-putting to a lot of black people. If you look at something like black metal and it's sub-genres, a lot of the culture and imagery revolves around satanism and European…

I feel like the satanism should give it more appeal, not less. The satanism in metal came from an anti-authoritarian place, and now that the west has become less Christian, metal has become noticeably less satanist. In particular I've noticed that bands that do still invoke this imagery tend to come from more religious places (e.g. Behemoth comes from catholic Poland).

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#155

> Whatever Hendrix was, he was the only performer capable of reconciling the broken, racially-charged, and dichotomized state of rock ’n’ roll. I guess the author forgot for a moment who Prince was when they wrote that sentence

BB King managed to stay somewhat relevant into the aughts as well, however these examples are quite the exception.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#157
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Old Town Road" Billboard kerfuffle was a great demonstration of the thesis of the piece: that the hard categorisations of music are racially driven.

Yep. If you listen to "hillbilly music" and "blues" from the 20s and 30s, or "rock" and "r&b" from the 50s or 60s, they are musically indistinguishable. The difference almost always solely lies in the race of the musicians or the target audience

I finally got around to listening to Led Zepplin I the other day...a couple of times I thought to myself "man, this sounds like the blues."

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#158

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I love Reich's early tape loops.. they were so ahead of their time. When I first hear them, I was stunned at how modern-sounding parts of them are. But I completely and utterly disagree with his view that "the purpose of music was for humans to play and sing together as a group activity" Music, and any other complex human activity (like visual art, or literature) is just way too rich and varied to have any one or def…

> Music, and any other complex human activity (like visual art, or literature) is just way too rich and varied to have any one or definitive purpose. This statement looks intelligent and interest but upon reading carefully says absolutely nothing. I don't even get what you are trying to say. Music is a group activity. Mozart played with orchestras, beyonce has scores of musicians to bounce off ideas of, Fela Kuti pla…

None of your examples: Mozart, beyonce, Fela Kuti, or Reich proves anything about the purpose of music as a whole, nor about the purpose of music for everyone.

Sure, some musicians clearly make music with others.

But some do not.

And for someone, no matter how learned or studied, even if they're a famous practitioner or a scholar, to dictate what music is for everyone is absurdly arrogant and myopic, to say the least.

If Reich has an argument to support his claim, he should state it, and his supporters should produce that argument, not point to him being a scholar, etc, as supposed evidence that he's right. That's an argument from authority and is a logical fallacy.

Different people have different goals and different aims. What meaning any particular person finds in an activity varies from person to person, and the wider and richer the activity is, the harder it is to make the case that there's only one right way to do it or that it means only one thing to everyone. Music and other arts are examples of such rich, wide-ranging activities.

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#159

I often reflect on the similiarities to that and how techno and house became EDM. When I started going to Midwestern raves in the 1990s they were literally some of the first fully integrated places I hung out in. Definitely some of the Detroit techno parties we went too, some of the first places where it was a majority Black space. EDM now is thought of as this totally white music, all electronic music really, by eve…

You know, techno parties (and illegal raves) like the ones you talk about are still happening, especially here in Europe. EDM is pure garbage and rife with narcissism.

you must be using a different definition of edm to me. according to the definition I accept, then our rave scene is a small corner of edm which literally is an umbrella term for all electronic dance music.

...i'd be interested to know what term you use for the latter?

Re: Bob Dylan lays down what killed rock n roll (2016)

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> IMHO that sentence makes a joke of the article's points about racism, and calls them "boring and trite". Also, importantly it's an expression of feelings, not facts and reasoning. I understand what you are saying but I think it's an overgeneralisation. My comment said that the way the article frames the subject is boring and trite, not that the racism it is trying to point to doesn't really exist. I agree it does.…

Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet! I'm not sure the interpretation of one sentence bears more examination (as I imagine you might agree). I think we would agree that there are various reasonable interpretations, which may be more or less apparent to different people, and that of course a comment on HN isn't scripture or a $100 million contract where every nuance is carefully authored…

>> Thanks for a reasonable discussion - about racism! on the Internet!

You're welcome. I'm happy you see it this way too.

>> Any Athens metal recommendations? The most creative, eccentric, Athens-in-particular-and-ignore-every-other-tradition musician?

Unfortunately, it's been ages since the time I was in a band and knew the scene and much of that time was spent abroad. I don't even know what happens back home anymore.

The standard recommendation is Rotting Christ, who have never been my cup of tea yet I did listen a lot to one of their recent ish records:

Rotting Christ - Rituals (Full Album-2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn972Pl88AA

Other than that, the country always had a thriving black scene. There are a few recommendations here:

https://www.last.fm/tag/greek+black+metal/artists

I even remember playing gigs with some of them back in the day, but I won't say which so as not to age myself :) Anyway Necromantia are probably the best known (other than Rotting Christ). I seem to remember really liking Varathron myself.

But remember it's black metal. Knowing the scene from inside, many took all the pagan and ancient-Greek stuff way too seriously from whence it's an easy leap to nationalism ...though I never understood how Greek nationalists could then become neo-nazis as some did. The nazis fucked Greece bad in WWII. How could a Greek nationalist admire them? Anyway, for example, Naer Mataron are the band of Giorgos Germenis, an MP of neo-nazi Golden Dawn (now outlawed). There's a lot of that in Greek black.

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