Musical Ramblings: The Stranger Next Door
Aug. 30th, 2004 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hkellickThis may sound like a rascist post. It's not meant to be. It's just supposed to be a line or thinking/questions.
I'd like to get further into depth. Maybe all my facts aren't completely right or completely fair and I KNOW I'm only scratching the surface.
See.. living in Washington has sort of immersed me in a completely different culture than I'm both familiar and comfortable with. Back at home, if I went into a store, it'd play a variety of music from early rock to 80s rock to the top 40.. but very little rap. In Washington, most stores and restaurants play predominantly rap. It's always around.
And it makes me realize how used to "White Boy" music I'm used to. The closest to popular "Black" music I've been exposed to are things like Will Smith and Eminem.
And then it makes me realize how.. odd it is that we listen to such completely different music when our roots were pretty much the same.
See.. if you start with Rock and Roll (the 50s and 60s music): Elvis and Chuck Berry, The Big Bopper, Fats Domino.. REAL Rock and Roll.. it was predominantly Black music, but Whites sort of got in on the ground floor. In the 50s and, at least, early 60s.. Rock & Roll stole from.. well, everything: Country, Soul, Doo Wop. Listen to early 60s Soul and Rock & Roll and Pop and you'll hear variations on the same theme.
So what happened?
Well.. alot of things, I guess.
The first division between them was probably Surf Rock. Black music never touched that, but the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas and Jan & Dean were HOT stuff. Not only that, but it's clone: Hot Rod music (Basically the same thing, but with Motors growling in the background).
But even during the mid 60s when Surf Rock was at it's height, rock and roll, r&b and soul all sounded fairly similair.
Though, I guess, the British Invasion destroyed that. The Beatles DEFINED what White Boy Rock is now. You could probably call them the founders. Not the only major benchmark, but probably the first.
Think about it, though. Listen to Rock before the Beatles and Rock after the Beatles.
Well, OK.. there's another important event.. Ithe invention of Garage Rock (think the Velvet Underground or the New York Dolls), another completely White Music sound.
Garage Rock, by itself, isn't of huge importants.. the huge importance actually comes from it's Successor: Punk.
See.. the 70s.. well, of course, the 70s were filled with all sorts of sounds: Some artists were sick of the loudness and harshness of Rock and Roll and took the Soft Rock path, others took British Invasion and British Psychedelia to the next level: Hard Rock, Arena Rock. There was alot of Bubblegum in the air (Partridge Family). Soul and R&B got grittier and evolved into Funk which evolved into *shudder* Disco.
And then there was Punk.. completely seperated from the rest of the music, still underground, still raw and completely defining new American music.
Punk, of course, came out from underground and through magic transformation that I, personally, do not understand, transformed into.. New Wave.
For a split second, Black and White music sort of reconverged. Pop and New Wave together: Michael jackson on the top 10 with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper and Billy Ocean.
That lasted.. four years? five?
Because, also underground, funk and Disco were slowly being transformed into rap.
While the White Boys were growing their hair and playing Hair Metal, Rap appeared on the scene with fairly harmless party rap: Young MC and Tone Loc and such.
Of course, a "new sound", but more than that, a new attitude came out of Seattle in the 90s and Grunge and Alternative, a purely White sound came to pass. And while all the white boys bought guitars and tried to sing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the Black boys put their clocks around their neck and their baseball hats backward and started singing about life in the Ghetto. Harmless rap became Hardcore Rap and every black boy out there sang about slapping their bitchez and hoz and capping a cop. (OK, this may sound rascist. I sneer upon this movement. Bitches and Hos, indeed :p )
Grunge and alternative died and Rap was still going strong, teen pop and a new phase of bubblegum phased in and out and Rap was still going strong. Post-Grunge slipped into our radar and Rap is still going strong. Alternative Metal (or Nu-Rock or whatever you want to call it) phased in and out.. and Rap swas still going strong.
And even with the new Rap Metal bands: Linkin Park and Kid Rock and their music still sounds nothing like rap. The only "White Boy" who broke into Rap is Eminem and HIS audience is still predominantly blue-eyed blonde-hair boys, angry and bitter at the world.
I don't know where things are heading, musically, but I'll tell you this.. we'll never see eye to eye until we can bridge this cultural gap that seems to be only deepening and widening. Music is just an indicator. By itself, it tells you nothing of the Political and Socioeconomic forces of the time... but it's a really good indicator.
In the 50s, we stole Rock music from the Blacks and tried to make it our own, often turning their songs into our hits. We sung about Dancing and Twisting.
In the 60s, we stole from each other. We still sang about Dancing and Twisting and Surfing and Hot Rods, but we sang about Political change. We sang about what is right and what is wrong because we KNEW.
In the 70s, we blew past each other, going in completely different directions. They brought the party back, and some of us did that too, but were ignored and reviled (especially later) by the rest of us who were angry, looking for Anarchy in the U.K., Smoke on the Water and that Stairway to Heaven.
In the 80s, we came back together briefly, both of us wanting the world.
In the 90s, we divided again, both of us angry and bitter, we sang about suicide and pain. They rapped about Bitches, Hoz and Cop Killing.
In the 2000s.. well, we're only halfway there, but we haven't come together again yet. We're still singing our Angry White Boy songs (except for that brief shameful period when Teen Pop was hot) and they're still rapping their angry raps.
Sort of makes ya wonder what's next.
I'd like to get further into depth. Maybe all my facts aren't completely right or completely fair and I KNOW I'm only scratching the surface.
See.. living in Washington has sort of immersed me in a completely different culture than I'm both familiar and comfortable with. Back at home, if I went into a store, it'd play a variety of music from early rock to 80s rock to the top 40.. but very little rap. In Washington, most stores and restaurants play predominantly rap. It's always around.
And it makes me realize how used to "White Boy" music I'm used to. The closest to popular "Black" music I've been exposed to are things like Will Smith and Eminem.
And then it makes me realize how.. odd it is that we listen to such completely different music when our roots were pretty much the same.
See.. if you start with Rock and Roll (the 50s and 60s music): Elvis and Chuck Berry, The Big Bopper, Fats Domino.. REAL Rock and Roll.. it was predominantly Black music, but Whites sort of got in on the ground floor. In the 50s and, at least, early 60s.. Rock & Roll stole from.. well, everything: Country, Soul, Doo Wop. Listen to early 60s Soul and Rock & Roll and Pop and you'll hear variations on the same theme.
So what happened?
Well.. alot of things, I guess.
The first division between them was probably Surf Rock. Black music never touched that, but the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas and Jan & Dean were HOT stuff. Not only that, but it's clone: Hot Rod music (Basically the same thing, but with Motors growling in the background).
But even during the mid 60s when Surf Rock was at it's height, rock and roll, r&b and soul all sounded fairly similair.
Though, I guess, the British Invasion destroyed that. The Beatles DEFINED what White Boy Rock is now. You could probably call them the founders. Not the only major benchmark, but probably the first.
Think about it, though. Listen to Rock before the Beatles and Rock after the Beatles.
Well, OK.. there's another important event.. Ithe invention of Garage Rock (think the Velvet Underground or the New York Dolls), another completely White Music sound.
Garage Rock, by itself, isn't of huge importants.. the huge importance actually comes from it's Successor: Punk.
See.. the 70s.. well, of course, the 70s were filled with all sorts of sounds: Some artists were sick of the loudness and harshness of Rock and Roll and took the Soft Rock path, others took British Invasion and British Psychedelia to the next level: Hard Rock, Arena Rock. There was alot of Bubblegum in the air (Partridge Family). Soul and R&B got grittier and evolved into Funk which evolved into *shudder* Disco.
And then there was Punk.. completely seperated from the rest of the music, still underground, still raw and completely defining new American music.
Punk, of course, came out from underground and through magic transformation that I, personally, do not understand, transformed into.. New Wave.
For a split second, Black and White music sort of reconverged. Pop and New Wave together: Michael jackson on the top 10 with Madonna and Cyndi Lauper and Billy Ocean.
That lasted.. four years? five?
Because, also underground, funk and Disco were slowly being transformed into rap.
While the White Boys were growing their hair and playing Hair Metal, Rap appeared on the scene with fairly harmless party rap: Young MC and Tone Loc and such.
Of course, a "new sound", but more than that, a new attitude came out of Seattle in the 90s and Grunge and Alternative, a purely White sound came to pass. And while all the white boys bought guitars and tried to sing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the Black boys put their clocks around their neck and their baseball hats backward and started singing about life in the Ghetto. Harmless rap became Hardcore Rap and every black boy out there sang about slapping their bitchez and hoz and capping a cop. (OK, this may sound rascist. I sneer upon this movement. Bitches and Hos, indeed :p )
Grunge and alternative died and Rap was still going strong, teen pop and a new phase of bubblegum phased in and out and Rap was still going strong. Post-Grunge slipped into our radar and Rap is still going strong. Alternative Metal (or Nu-Rock or whatever you want to call it) phased in and out.. and Rap swas still going strong.
And even with the new Rap Metal bands: Linkin Park and Kid Rock and their music still sounds nothing like rap. The only "White Boy" who broke into Rap is Eminem and HIS audience is still predominantly blue-eyed blonde-hair boys, angry and bitter at the world.
I don't know where things are heading, musically, but I'll tell you this.. we'll never see eye to eye until we can bridge this cultural gap that seems to be only deepening and widening. Music is just an indicator. By itself, it tells you nothing of the Political and Socioeconomic forces of the time... but it's a really good indicator.
In the 50s, we stole Rock music from the Blacks and tried to make it our own, often turning their songs into our hits. We sung about Dancing and Twisting.
In the 60s, we stole from each other. We still sang about Dancing and Twisting and Surfing and Hot Rods, but we sang about Political change. We sang about what is right and what is wrong because we KNEW.
In the 70s, we blew past each other, going in completely different directions. They brought the party back, and some of us did that too, but were ignored and reviled (especially later) by the rest of us who were angry, looking for Anarchy in the U.K., Smoke on the Water and that Stairway to Heaven.
In the 80s, we came back together briefly, both of us wanting the world.
In the 90s, we divided again, both of us angry and bitter, we sang about suicide and pain. They rapped about Bitches, Hoz and Cop Killing.
In the 2000s.. well, we're only halfway there, but we haven't come together again yet. We're still singing our Angry White Boy songs (except for that brief shameful period when Teen Pop was hot) and they're still rapping their angry raps.
Sort of makes ya wonder what's next.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-31 06:32 am (UTC)Public Enemy revolutionized rap and all the gangsta rappers that came after them (N.W.A. and their ilk) took a great deal from Public Enemy.
Chuck D and Flava Flav may not have been the worst or the worst and I won't suggest they are, but they opened up the door for those who became it.
I don't have anything against all rappers, nor rap/hip-hop/r&b as a style, but the message inside of it. I don't know how the rap I do hear in supermarkets and stores and restaurants compares to what's "mainstream", but I DO know that I was sittin in Subway just this weekend listening to some sort of New Top 40 station and the song Kristen and I sat and listened to was all "Bitchez" and "Hoz" and "We in the club are gonna get Sex".
Blah.
My post barely touched the surface of the music scene. I failed to mention alot of things (including the birth of Electronica, Ska, the return of Latin Dance, the return of Swing)
I'd probably need an entire LJ devoted to it to honestly do it right, but I feel my point that "White" and "Black" music have diverged rather far from each other despite having the same basic roots is not unfair.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-31 07:38 am (UTC)If you completely ignore Public Enemy's message, yeah, maybe they opened the door for black men to be able to be angry in public. But (a) that's not such a terrible thing, and (b) you really have to understand what they were angry about.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-08-31 07:58 am (UTC)Also, I'm not solely blaming Public Enemy for opening the doors to Gangsta Rap. I think if nothing else, Two Live Crew deserves a special place in the hall of fame for that. But I do believe Public Enemy at least opened the doors somewhat.
Also, Happy Birthday.