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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)

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please show me where I'm "lecturing"? I think you too are jumping the gun and misreading in my comments meanings I never intended. If you don't know what I intended, you can ask.

I was clear that I thought you weren't being straight up malicious, but falling into a common honest misunderstanding. The reason I say listen more is because your responses make clear you have a somewhat superficial understanding of this topic area. You're expressing views on how other people should respond to racism you haven't experienced, and your specific advice on this point is not just unhelpful, but counterpr…

>> Or said more simply: try to refrain from telling black people what the best response to racism is.

I'm sorry but I really don't understand what you mean by this. What black people did I tell what the best response to racism is? Can you point to my comment where I did this, please?

Also, could you please show me where in my comments I'm "lecturing", as per your previous comment?

It's not very helpful to interpret my comments without quoting my comments, so I can see what you refer to.

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was clear that I thought you weren't being straight up malicious, but falling into a common honest misunderstanding. The reason I say listen more is because your responses make clear you have a somewhat superficial understanding of this topic area. You're expressing views on how other people should respond to racism you haven't experienced, and your specific advice on this point is not just unhelpful, but counterpr…

>> Or said more simply: try to refrain from telling black people what the best response to racism is. I'm sorry but I really don't understand what you mean by this. What black people did I tell what the best response to racism is? Can you point to my comment where I did this, please? Also, could you please show me where in my comments I'm "lecturing", as per your previous comment? It's not very helpful to interpret m…

You started your comment with

> 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

This is very dismissive.

Then in thread you follow it up with stuff like:

> So why didn't the black grassroots 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?

They did. You are simply ignorant of it. A large part of why you are ignorant of it is exactly because they were fenced away from the distribution channel by powerful publishers that ultimately only wanted reproducible results within predictable lanes. Because of the flaws of American society those lanes were very much racially defined.

This is what punk rock looked like in the 1970s. Note it was both racially integrated and willing to put a black woman in front: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6BHh_0pX_4

How did that very sort of new rock you demanded of black musicians disappear? Not because they didn't try, but because they did, and were fenced away from the means of reaching a mass audience vs the industry allowed white folk that played the same music, and even then white punk was fenced away in similar way (though not equivalent).

> Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?

This again comes across as very judgmental, and an utter failure to understand what the article was telling you. You are blaming black musicians for not prevailing in a genre that was overtly hostile to them, when the people hostile to them held all the power. Then you're just asserting your own taste about Rihana and Beyonce.

Strike the phrase "female even" from your future discussions on this topic. No matter your intent that's going to read really wrong.

And specifically about Beyonce, I don't really see how you can watch this video and then assert she ain't punk rock as fuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDZJPJV__bQ and that has nothing to do with compositional taste of the music. This is where black American music went exactly because of all of the issues the article is describing.

Jimi is celebrated exactly because he was such a rare achievement in that era. The true tragedy is there's 10k Jimi's out there that never got a shot because of race, no matter their interest or ability.

I'm trying to be charitable here, but so far all you've done is ** on black musicians you don't like, and then criticize the history of black music for not being what you naively expect. That's what I meant with my comment.

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

#213
post #108

I wouldn't have thought the article was very good, and the title is neither an accurate representation of what Dylan said, nor really what the article is about. But this thread is surprisingly pretty good! As a gloss on what Dylan is saying about race and the music business, this clip where David Bowie turns the tables on an MTV interviewer in 1983 is worth watching, in a high-tension sort of way. He's pretty impress…

Yeah, this is a really great video, thanks for sharing "woke" Bowie. As you say, he ages well, except for his molesting young girls in the '70s. There's at least two 15 year olds that admit having sex with him. I'm a Bowie fan but it's difficult to separate those unacceptable acts from the great things he did.

Getting downvoted for pointing out the fact that David Bowie raped teenagers.

Great job HN!

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

#214

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…

I’m more in favor of Septic Flesh over Rotting Christ these days when it comes to Greek metal outside the innumerable power metal bands that dominate mainstream European metal. Not sure if they’ll ever top Sumerian Daemons as a metal album but given Christos is also a very serious orchestral musician it’s a driving force behind the band today despite the even more orchestral side projects.

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

#215
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a really great video, thanks for sharing "woke" Bowie. As you say, he ages well, except for his molesting young girls in the '70s. There's at least two 15 year olds that admit having sex with him. I'm a Bowie fan but it's difficult to separate those unacceptable acts from the great things he did.

If that's true, you're right—that has not aged well. I meant that he has aged well as a performer, which is what that interview was. I've added that qualifier to my comment above. Generally though, I don't think it's that hard to separate. Everyone is a combo of good and bad–that's how humans are. It's childish to expect otherwise. The fashion of denouncing historical figures by anachronistic standards is especially…

I'd imagine plenty of people didn't rape 15 year old girls in the '70s even if it was more "acceptable" back then.

Using your fame to exploit young, impressionable women is pretty awful and was awful 50 years ago. Even if "everyone did it!"

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a really great video, thanks for sharing "woke" Bowie. As you say, he ages well, except for his molesting young girls in the '70s. There's at least two 15 year olds that admit having sex with him. I'm a Bowie fan but it's difficult to separate those unacceptable acts from the great things he did.

> his molesting young girls in the '70s Where is this evidence he molested girls? > There's at least two 15 year olds that admit having sex with him. That in and of itself isn't molestation. Love the hyperbole though.

You're right it wasn't molestation, it was rape as defined in the California penal code where age of consent was and is 18.

He raped two 15 year old girls. And likely many more that haven't came out publicly.

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

#217
post #72

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…

That's not true. Afropunk was a response to the question you pose. White people stole the rock from Black kids the way Ancient Greece stole the Hippocratic Oath from African culture. It is almost the same. Today, it's almost impossible to know Bo Diddley, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and other Black pioneers created rock in almost it's complete form. "History is written by the winners", they say, and our cultural memory is…

The roots and spirit of hip hop have always struck me as the exact same as punk - out of urban poverty and exclusion resulting in anger and lack of respect for the system (although the irony is that the Norwegian black metal scene was entirely a bunch of the most affluent privileged kids on the planet but their anger was over systemic control too). Today I see artists like Big Frieda as having beats and tones hardly different from what makes up a lot of extreme electronic music. Losing a lot of the credit for popularizing twerking must be disheartening on top of it. The whole New Orleans sissy bounce scene struck me as a strange term - it’s owning the identity of the musicians as endemic to the genre. I don’t recall any other sub genre popularly labeled with the musicians’ gender identity ever.

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

#218
post #99

I think that the narrative of last twenty years has been a re-blending of genre in a way that is not fully appreciated. While you can certainly find plenty of music that fits the mold established in the 60s, 80s or 90s around you also find much more at the top of the charts that challenges those categories. Right now the top 10 Billboard chart includes Lil Nas X and The Weeknd, neither of whom fits comfortably in the…

> And if you look at what is happening on Bandcamp or Soundcloud or YouTube or wherever else young people are trying new things you see a tremendous heterogeneity of inspiration and not a lot of concern for where the sound fits in. One way I have heard to mentally categorize things: What is the stereotypical musical instrument of that generation/genre? For jazz and the silent generation it was the saxophone, maybe ot…

>Today? The laptop

The laptop is really just a tool to host different virtual instruments.

The "instrument" most easily associated with the past 15-20 years of electronic/pop music making have been Wave Table synthesizers like NI Massive and Serum.

Remember Skrillex? Those screeching sounds and basses are using Wavetable synthesis (from NI Massive in particular).

A big part of the reason it's harder to associate a particular instrument with newer electronic genres is because it's FAR easier (and more common) now to program your own patches (essentially a preset instrument) for your songs.

The DX-80 mentioned in the next section was VERY difficult to create patches for (even for it's time) so when you hear it in a song, it's almost always the included stock patches.

>The 80's was the electric keyboard and synths, kinda.

You'd associate a few types of instruments (and synthesis types) with the 80s but the reigning one was FM Synthesis, in particular the Yamaha DX-80.

Give a listen to some stick DX-80 patches and you'll immediately go "Yep, that's the 80's"

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

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Or said more simply: try to refrain from telling black people what the best response to racism is. I'm sorry but I really don't understand what you mean by this. What black people did I tell what the best response to racism is? Can you point to my comment where I did this, please? Also, could you please show me where in my comments I'm "lecturing", as per your previous comment? It's not very helpful to interpret m…

You started your comment with > 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 This is very dismissive. Then in thread you follow it up with stuff like: > So why didn't the black grassroots ever sprout an analogous new rock scene, instead of turning towards the mainstream, big stage, light show, for-profit music that com…

I'd like to remind you again of HN's guidelines about trying to respond to the strongest interpretation of others' comments. Not because it's a rule that must be blindly followed, but because I think that it's a sensible bit of advise that promotes reasonable and useful conversation.

Of course I'm bringing the guideline up because I don't think you're responding to the strongest interpretation of my comments. I think you are instead responding to a very weak interpretation that only suits very low-quality debate where the point is to claim a moral high ground, rather than to learn anything new.

A few examples. You say that the following sentence is "very dismissive":

> 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

You don't say who it is dismissive against. My comment is dismissive - it is dismissive of the article, not any other person or group. In your previous comment you were concerned about my stance against black musicians. My comment above says nothing about black musicians, or black folks in general.

You say that the following comment comes across as judgemental:

> Why Rihana and Beyonce, rather than a new Jimi Hendrix? Female, even. Why is Rock 'n' Roll pretty much dead to black kids, nowadays?

You don't say against whom my comment is judgemental. My comment is judgemental against Beyonce and Rihana, because I don't like their music. But you are concerned about my behaviour with respect to all black musicians. You have to make a great big leap from Beyonce and Rihana to all black musicians, for example Fela Kuti would probably be unhappy if you compared him to Beyonce. Maybe not.

Finally:

>> And specifically about Beyonce, I don't really see how you can watch this video and then assert she ain't punk rock as fuck:

I'm afraid on this, I'll have to disagree. I see a bunch of people, men and women, shaking their asses. That's not my idea of punk. My idea of punk is young anglo kids getting wasted and pretending to be rebellious. You pointed to the X-Ray Spex. Punk of their era was 80% male, 99% white. I don't even begin to see how Beyonce shaking her money maker is punk, except of course that the famous punk rock bands of the '80s famously went for the money grab in their later years.

Edit: to avoid further confusion, I should point out I think punk is and has always been 99% rubbish. Same as pop.

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

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I’m more in favor of Septic Flesh over Rotting Christ these days when it comes to Greek metal outside the innumerable power metal bands that dominate mainstream European metal. Not sure if they’ll ever top Sumerian Daemons as a metal album but given Christos is also a very serious orchestral musician it’s a driving force behind the band today despite the even more orchestral side projects.

My long absence from Greece is at fault. Septic Flesh would have been a recommendation if the little grey cells were working properly.
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