Broadness of Genre
- Thread starter BroKen_H
- Start date
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
What, on my own ?
I don't dispute that the notion of "Black culture" is entered into by many, possibly most {most, I couldn't say} Black people. But you're talking about the US of A. I wasn't. And that was my point. When someone, whether Black, White or whatever speaks of "Black culture" or things "that White people do" or the way "Asians carry on", I
because the broadness of any people goes way beyond narrow definitions of a nation, even a big one. As it is with music. Family and Yes were broadly progressive rock. There the similarity ends.Tull were remarkable for the fact that they inviegled the flute within a hard rock setting.
The first time I heard of Jethro Tull was when I was 16, back in '79. I was reading Tony Palmer's "All you need is love" and in one section, he quotes the writer Lester Bangs who was being dismissive of them. He said something like "they were laying down their heavy metal sturm and drang." At the time I had just gotten into Deep Purple and had seen in the Rock on annual A-Z of Heavy metal that Purple were considered one of the premier heavy metal bands and I loved the music on the two LPs of theirs that I had so I assumed Jethro Tull would be the same. A few months after, I got Tull's "Heavy Horses" and I was, for the first two or three weeks ever so disappointed. I wrote in my diary that it was "gypsy rock" and I was murderous. Nothing heavy at all !
I did grow to love it though and consider it the high water mark of all things Tull. Some of the stuff on their earlier albums like "Stand up" and "Benefit" are hard rock, veering on early heavy metal. Well, some of their live stuff was. Martin Barre was rather underrated as a guitarist.
In that A~Z I mentioned, Van Halen were in it and "Women & Children first" is as heavy as much of the heavy rock of the 70s. There were 30 bands in that A~Z and I ended up with albums by 26 of them. Still got them.
That's very admirable of you to feign colorblindness, but the reality is there are clear lines between the races in all areas of society and most of it is perpetuated by the individual groups. I don't know how yall operate in the jolly ol UK. I have to assume that Americanized black culture is very popular over there as well. Really, the only ethnic group that can't get away with being blatantly for their "own kind" is anglo white people. You could run around promoting and celebrating black heritage and no one cares. People cheer you on. You're embracing your rich culture. Same with asians, jews, hispanics, etc. If I run around celebrating my whiteness, I'm labeled a white supremacist bigot. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that most of the western world is very white-centric and I was born with a societal advantage by being a white male. Every day that I'm left alone by the cops in my cushy suburban life while I check my investment portfolio is white pride day. I get it. But the double standard is real, it's flipped against whites now, so anyone that cries about race issues gets a facepalm from me. The president of the USA is a slick black dude with a muslim sounding name. The highest profile players in sports and pop culture are black. Asians dominate tech and the medical industry. Hispanics are everywhere in politics. STFU now people. To further that point from my own personal perspective, my ancestors were nowhere near the US during slavery, the civil war, or any of the 1800s. They were eating calzones, drinking wine, and probably involved in organized crime in Sicily while that mess in the US was going on. My family didn't arrive until the immigration boom of the early 1900s, and even then they weren't allowed into NYC and had to go all the way around to New Orleans to be treated like dogs. So for me and my people, I don't feel responsible for anything, don't owe anyone anything, and have no white guilt. Where's my fucking reparations?What, on my own ?
I don't dispute that the notion of "Black culture" is entered into by many, possibly most {most, I couldn't say} Black people. But you're talking about the US of A. I wasn't. And that was my point. When someone, whether Black, White or whatever speaks of "Black culture" or things "that White people do" or the way "Asians carry on", I
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fat_fleet
Swollen Member
What, on my own ?
It would take a nation of millions to hold you back.
Genre tags are easy for me. "Noise". Done. Unless it's some lame site doesn't offer it as an option. Then "Other". IRL, people always ask what I mean by noise...
Sometimes I call it Punk Rock, just to piss off Greg.
Lol. Yeah, you're like one of those guys that uses "punk rock" as a safety net for playing bad, sounding bad, and basically just fucking around with noise. Who cares? It's punk rock!
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Nice speech.
I am anything but colourblind. I think the sort of liberal version of colourblindness is refusing to deal with the reality about us. I profoundly believe in loving human beings. I also think loads of groups have suffered a shitty deal at the hands of some other group, be it nationally, racially, religiously or gender wise. Britain is a fantastic example of that. Many here have been shat on over the centuries. But that's another debate for another time.
I think that we're talking at cross purposes. My point is simply this, using Black people merely as an example; there are Black people all over the world, in the Americas, the Caribbean, Australia, across most of Africa and latterly, in many parts of Europe. The way many people on all sides sometimes speak of "Black culture", one could be forgiven for thinking that there is one homogenous mass of "culture" to which all Black people ascribe. And it's bollocks. The Aborigines are not the same as the Kenyans are not the same as the dudes in Detroit are not the same as the various different tribes in Nigeria are not the same as the groups in Guinea~Bissau. I could make that observation about pretty much any grouping of people that have moved from one rooted point. It's just an example to make an analogy.
I was simply pointing out that musical genres are the same. Little Richard's music was very different from Elvis' which was very different from Jerry Lee Lewis who was very different from Larry Williams. But they were all broadly, even in the 50s, rock'n'roll. In heavy rock and progressive rock, the differences alongside some similarities are even more marked. I mean, the term 'heavy metal' was first applied in the 60s to the Byrds ! Lennon thought "Ticket to ride" one of the first heavy metal records !
At this point in the game, genre names are a useful initial pointer but they mean less than they did 30 years ago because genres have absorbed and expanded.
R
RAMI
Guest
I wonder if black people from Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, etc.....appreciate being called "African American". It's like calling all white people "German Americans".
I'm not talking about third world jungles and australian deserts. I said western society. That's you and me.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
That's why I said we're talking at cross purposes. My initial point, the one to which you initially responded, was about the broadness of various racial groups, which is in response to, an analogy responding to, BroKen_H's OP about the broadness of genre. I was never talking about only the West. That would hardly support my observation. And all along I've not been talking about only the West, but the world. That's why that is another debate for another time, if we live that long !
That's why I said we're talking at cross purposes. My initial point, the one to which you initially responded, was about the broadness of various racial groups, which is in response to, an analogy responding to, BroKen_H's OP about the broadness of genre. I was never talking about only the West. That would hardly support my observation. And all along I've not been talking about only the West, but the world. That's why that is another debate for another time, if we live that long !
You successfully lost me now. This is what I get for engaging the grimtroller.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
BroKen_H
Re-member
It is kind of funny how we play that game. I hear people all the time refer to any Hispanic as "Mexican". Even if they're from Spain of Argentina. I've always gotten a kick out of "African, Asian, Native, Pacific Rim, and Hispanic" Americans, but we're Caucasian. We aren't Americans. How absurd! Why, if every other continent has it's own "American" don't the whiteys get to be European American. Seriously, most here came from UK, Germany, France, Holland & Scandinavia...
And I guess this is human nature to oversimplify to hide our insecurities and ignorance. Thus Baroque, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, etc are all bunched into "Classical" unless you are a connoisseur of these styles. Dixieland, Improv, Cool, California, Acid, Bop, Fusion, Modal, etc get classified as "Jazz"; same. All the diversities of rock rounded up into one genre, unless you like rock music. Etc. We just don't care about others' areas unless we are a part of those areas.
And I guess this is human nature to oversimplify to hide our insecurities and ignorance. Thus Baroque, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, etc are all bunched into "Classical" unless you are a connoisseur of these styles. Dixieland, Improv, Cool, California, Acid, Bop, Fusion, Modal, etc get classified as "Jazz"; same. All the diversities of rock rounded up into one genre, unless you like rock music. Etc. We just don't care about others' areas unless we are a part of those areas.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
When I was young {60s, 70s} you had "Black" Americans, "Italian" Americans and "Irish" Americans certainly. And people did speak of being first or second generation and would then say where their parents or grandparents had come from. You still see that in certain biographies.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Sometimes, one has to wonder who exactly defined the genre in the first place; the artists in question or some writer ? Glam rock being a case in point. The only thing that united most of the artists in glam rock was the fact that they dressed funky and in a lot of instances blokes wore make up and put a bit of glitter on their faces at a time when men didn't do such things unless they wanted ridicule. There's no such actual genre of music as glam ! Everyone from Kiss to T.Rex to Bowie to Mott the Hoople to the Sweet to the Rubettes to Hello to Suzi Quatro to Slade to Armistice was pegged as glam rock ! Many of them weren't even in the same genres.
XploZiveToyz
All American Un-American
Palindrome or Ambigram?