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Reading some of the posts here lately, thinking about the signs of our culture slipping into the cesspool, and the general lack of values or discernment that we are capable of displaying. It must have been all the drugs this generation's parents did in the 60's - the gene pool seems to be damaged.MM
Follow Ups:
Our inability to control the advance of technology is much more damaging to our society than drugs.Necessity used to drive invention. Now, invention drives necessity.
Food for thought.
- Charlie
Mike, there is a long tradition of bemoaning the current state of affairs. For the last several years, I've been interviewing applicants for college and my overall impression is extremely positive. Cheer up!
Yeah, let's go back to the 40s where blacks and whites can't drink from the same fountain, I won't even mention what we were doing not long before that. No, even better, let's go back far enough to get into a time when women were considered their husband's property and couold legally be beaten for their indescretions. No wait, I think we'd be even better off going back to a time when you could be killed if you did not ascribe to the religious beliefs of those in the majority of most any society on earth.Let's face it, despite cries of the sky is falling, we've been getting more civilized as a society over the last few hundred years not less.
I really didn't want to get into a sociological critique here, Nobody. I was making observations about individual values - values that I see a widespread absence of in many facets of life, and specifically in a boorishly childish thread that was posted here. Now that you've brought out how advanced as a society we have become though....Sure, on the surface that all looks fine, but we allow so many of our children to fall into the slavery of drug addiction, we engage in systemized infanticide and call it the right of "choice" of a woman because she would be inconvenienced by a child. Our "leaders" pardon child molesters, drug dealers, election buyers, etc. for cash. Our public education system is a disgrace. There are those who succeed and excel, and contribute to society, of course - but there is also a growing underclass of society that is developing. In popular culture we are celebrating style over substance, with the style we celebrate becoming increasingly more decadent. Trash talking and posturing have replaced sportsmanship (I used to love the superbowl as a sporting event, now it looks like a haloween party!). Yes, I guess the evidence that you point to would suggest that we are getting more civilized as a society, but are there values and accountability to support that on the personal level? Without those, without decency and respect, personal character, courtesy and consideration for others, moral and ethical dignity - without genuine value on the personal level, the political package that holds all of those civil advances that you mention is held together by a thread. When the thread breaks, the package unravels. It's happened before. Do you really think we are the pinnacle of societal development, the ultimate end, an eternally progressing political and sociological evolutionary solution? Don't let the fact that we are advancing politically distract you from the social decay that threatens that veneer.
Believe it or not, I'm an optimist too... but I don't like the signs I see.
MM
Everything I've said about rock n roll, every word I've posted about the barbarism of American society, is true.The society that produces and celebrates rock is the same society that, as Oliver Stone's "Nixon" said, is the darkness reaching out to the darkness.
It's a society that is violently contemptuous of improving its nature, of refining its sensibilities, of aspiring to higher principles. Rather, wallows in the mud of the most destructively primitive sensations and proclaims them necessary and sufficient for its moral sustenance and its very existence. Rock own.
Again with the overblown rhetoric- "the barbarism of American society."As I recall, Germany, the home of the most sublime classical music in the Western canon, built extermination camps- and this was before the existence of rock music.
The more recent mass murders in Cambodia and Rwanda may truly be seen as "darkness reaching out to the darkness".
By what exact measure is America, in comparison, barbaric?- except perhaps that many people buy pop music records that you don't like. What silliness.
By barbarism is meant the character, sensibility, mentality, and aspirations of our society.But, if you want to throw in crime, let's see:
--15 year-old kid shoots up the whole school in San Diego
--Let's not forget Columbine
--DAILY reports of murder, rape, and assault in Chicago (I'll let you fill in the blanks for NYC, LA, Miami, etc., --Oh, and don't forget the murder capital of the USA, Gary, Indiana
--DAILY reports of gang slayings, including the executions of young
children hit by "street sweepers" (those would be AK-47s, Uzzies, etc., incase you're innocent enough not to know)--DAILY reports of parents and caretakers brutally torturing and beating their children to death, including the woman who froze her little boy to death last week, the boyfriend who beat a neonate to death, etc., etc.
--The pregnant mother in suburban Chicago who was not only murdered but had her unborn child crudely cutout of her womb with a kitchen knife
--The burgening Neo-nazi movements throughout America, the continued
flourishing of the KKK, oh, hey, let's not neglect McVey and Kazinsky.You're right!!! What silliness!!! America is such a warm, loving, compassionate society. Rock own.
Really, Neward, you should look at the latest Uniform Crime Report. Most violent crime is way down for the last 10-15 years, despite hysterical cries about modern song lyrics. Obviously, the increased speed of media cycles brings us more REPORTS of atrocities, but that doesn't mean things are actually worse now than in previous times.America's always been a barbarous place. Take this letter from 1500: "A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand." That's our foerefather Christopher Columbus doing the writing.
On a more musical note, some wildly popular lyrics from Democratic Party songbooks passed out by the thousands at rallies in 1864:
"NIGGER DOODLE DANDY" (to the tune of Yankee Doodle)
Yankee Doodle is no more,
Sunk his name and station;
Nigger Doodle takes his place,
And favors amalgamation.CHORUS:
Nigger Doodle's all the go,
Ebony shins and bandy,
"Loyal" people all must bow
To Nigger Doodle dandy.The white breed is under par
It lacks the rich a-romy,
Give us something black as tar,
Give us "Old Dahomey".CHORUS
Blubber lips are killing sweet,
And kinky heads are splendid;
And oh, it makes such bully feet
To have the heels extended.CHORUS
(Note that there was apparently no Parental Advisory sticker attached to song books back then.)Things really are better now, Neward, and the music's better, too.
Intolerance is evil.
Not only is intolerance evil - it is what causes society to crumble.To relate to another post in this thread, intolerance was what kept slavery going all those years. Same with segregation, and womens rights, the holocaust (I could go on). All of it is due to intolerance of others.
When intolerance is permitted to escalate to a large scale we have the horrible things I mentioned above occuring.
Change is good. Many people may not think for the better, but with no change we have to innovation, we have no progress.
To relate this to the thread, Neward is totally intolerant of anyone who does not like his style of music (old music). Nothing is wrong with liking old music, but the intolerance to anything new is antiprogress.
I personally listen to equal shares of classical, jazz, rock (in most forms) and some new age/electronic kinda stuff thrown in as well. I despise the current pop trend (Backstreet et al) but I would never rag on somebody for liking that stuff. What you like is what you like. Music exists to give people an emotional rise. If Ms. Spears can do that for people (my 11 year old twin cousins for example) more power to her. If you dont get a rise out of listening to certain music, dont listen to it, but allow others to enjoy it at the same time.
I think I am rambling at this point so Ill hush up now :)
I am a late arrival to this conversation, but it did not seem to me that Neward was being any more intolerant than others are of him. He made a judgment and expressed his opinion. That is not intolerance, itis free expresseion of ideas, a time honored right in this society. If he starts killing those who disagree then he will be guilty of intolerance.
You mistake current popular for new music. Actually, I listen to loads and loads of new music by living composers and performers. This include very much alive classical composers like Richard Danielpour,
Daniel Asia, to a whole boatload of jazz composers/players, to impromtu radical improvisors who play for peanuts at various clubs.The idea is to think outside the box. The box is boring. Commercial pop/rock is mostly trash, including the current bad-boy darling of the media, Eminnem.
The idea is quality, dead or alive.
But I guess my point is there is quality in some of the "popular" stuff. You just need to find it.
Neward, maybe try a good college radio station. They'll often play anything new that's not in the pop mainstream. Some of it is great, some excreble, but at least different. There are just as many creative people now as in 1780, their music just doesn't get distributed very well. I've been finding a lot more neat new rock stuff now than ten years or so ago.Sturgeon's Law is correct. 90% of everything is crap. This goes for ALL types of music. Classical music does have an advantage here in that much of the really bad stuff, even if popular at the time it was written, has been filtered out over the years. How many boring rip-off Vivaldi wannabees were there that we've never heard of?
Of course I get, as Neward does about popular music, annoyed with popular food, popular movies, architecture, fashion, etc.....
Neward,Let's not forget what is a cause and what is a symptom. No one has ever persuaded me, on a macrocosmic level, that we culturally are going to hell. It's been said too many times. As a Village Voice liberal, I know that society is much more conservative than the popular culture bashers would suggest.
It is important to remember that the mass of Americans don't think about Rock. Rock or rap or what ever, is their music. It is our cultural "folk" music and if "rock" turned into "polka" 99.9% of the masses would be happy to split hairs on accordion riffs. The people you have argued with are a minority. (i.e. they probably really care about what they listen to) For most people it is the back ground music of their life. They don't care.
The question is who drives culture? (An excellent David Bowie discussion should take place now )
Is it the far out musician, or the consumer looking to channel some cool. That is before they put on the suit and make money.This is really a huge subject and I would be happy to hear your ideas. Culture in general is not what we buy at the Record store. It has always been driven by a minority - later picked up by the majority. This may be different in our consumer society I suggest a session with Herzog's Casper Hauser .
Gregg
I didn't say we were "we culturally are going to hell", though I can certainly see how some might draw that conclusion from my posts. I, too, have heard it many times, ad nauseum, beginning in the late 60s when I was in grammar school but nevertheless as very socially aware. The cry of impending doom seems to be the hallmark of two groups: the uneducated (including college attendees who never learned anything) and the ultra-right. Both could use a solid education in history.Societies almost never quit and die when its observers and critics predict. Classical Rome for hundreds of years after its social critics had pronounced it dead. Similarly, America has been headed for the pit every single decade since the 19th cent. That includes the party-on decade of the 1920s, which afterall, produced Prohibition as a last ditch effort to stave off he imminent wrath of God.
If there were any periods during the 20th cent when doom seemed truly inevitable they occurred during the Great Depression, whose starving despair was not limited to American borders and which incubated the monstrous terror of fascism; and during the 60s, again a global phenomenon, which rudely shot-put a repressive and iron-fistedly conformist society out of its complacency, with concomitant social unrest.
Still, both periods produced invaluable artistic riches and cultural achievement that inform our society to the present day. We survived and flourished. However dire our circumstances may seem at present to the uninformed, my money'll be on progress. That does not, however, excuse social forces, currents, and tendencies which are inimical and destructive.
I see it as self-evident that we're experiencing a cultural nadir. Without cataloging here the mountain of evidence, I might simply point out the difference between the writing style and content of our weekly news magazine, "Time", "Newsweek", etc.; previously both repositories and well-springs for informed, enlightened thought and good language usage, now reduced to the smart-alecky style of a rock magazine.
Music, far from being a minor diversion, has gained a powerful role as a social force. As such, it plays an active part in the on-going cultural degeneration, rather than merely reflecting it, which it also does quite efficiently.
I have been reading, with a fair amount of interest and fascination as well a little amusement, the recent discourse that has been developing on Music Lane regarding music of the past & present and the so-called modern decline of Western Civilization. Much of this has been spurred by on by a core of posters, most notably Neward with a specific focus on rock & pop. Neward is a certainly a very intelligent and eloquent fellow and probably a pretty nice guy to boot, even if more than a few folks seem to be insulted by his occasionally confrontational style. Neward did recently post a fairly concise statement that clarified his actual stance in an attempt to point out that he has no intentions of insulting but rather stirring debate. It was well said and I'm with him on his general level of sentiment to some degree, but I feel compelled to respond to a couple of statements in his post as an eclectic music-lover who is continually involved in the exploration of the subterranean levels of musical genres.So Neward, if yer reading this...let me just make a few comments here.
> > > > "It's not so much that I feel that classical music and jazz (which I love) are superior to other styles of music, but that popular styles, their performers and listeners, are so content, so enraptured, so utterly commited to keeping their music in the merde filled sewer.
They resist any attempt to evolve, improve and grow" < < < < < <
To a large degree, yes this is true, but only on the superficial, highly commercialized level driven by marketing and cannibalistic-consumerism. This represents such a small percent of the musical world and digging beyond this, there are legions of toiling musicians creating wonderful and amazing musical hybrids that are, in acutality, driving the development of modern creative expressions of the 'pop & rock' realm (though I hate the term 'rock' as it really means nothing at this point). To one who is not overly concerned with these styles of music, I doubt they will ever discover or even appreciate this side of the music.
> > > > "Pop/rock COULD be more than it is. Over its lifespan there have been isolated moments that've pointed the way. But, these have been suppressed, ignored or forgotten" < < < <My point being, it is more here and now - to those who care to seek.
> > > "none have any concept of moving their "music" forward, of demanding more from it then its never changing 4/4 rhythm, its 3 dumb chords, or its severly limited range of expression." < < < <
It is fairly hard to argue with this in many respects, and this simply opens another realm of debate. I should note, however, that musical expression revolves around much more than structure and proficiency. Texture, space and that ever elusive 'It'...that inherent soul and injection of the artists consciousness into his creation. Though I can marvel as well as the next musical enthusiast at the near-telepathic interplay of a finely honed jazz combo, I can also gain much musical satisfaction from the emotions and subtle yet pervasive dynamics that can be conjured through the use of textural devlopment and juxtaposition of simple, well placed elements. With regards to the musical expression of so-called 'rock'...yes it is anything but delicate and refined, but looking beyond the simple 'kick in the ass' guttural satisfaction of the more obvious strains of rock, there is a broad field of music on display using the traditional dynamic stylings of rock in unique contexts and with an ability to convey innovative and individualized styles of expression of their own.
> > > "Over its lifespan there have been isolated moments that've pointed the way. But, these have been suppressed, ignored or forgotten. Rock/pop (and I include all sub-genres in this category, from the anti-musical chanting known as "rap", disco, heavy metal, AOR, MOR, cowntry, etc., etc. ad nauseum) listeners refuse to demand more from it. It's practitioners, so called musicians, remain for the most part musically barbaric. They seem congenitally incapable of grasping even the most rudimentary priciples
of music" < < <
Yes there have been isolated moments, but I believe there are many more that have occurred and are here now that you are simply not aware of. Yes, it is unfortunate that listeners refuse to demand more from it, but this really is what has lead to the sad state of affairs regarding modern popular music. I believe the gentleman who posted previously about the insidious influences of mass marketing is fairly spot-on and his "kill your TV" mantra is not entirely rhetorical (as long as I can still watch my films on the tube, considering the sad state of affairs extends to the realm of popular cinema as well, unless you live in a large city...and I do love TV's narcotic effect for late night sedation). But please Neward, don't broadly generalize by equating "simple" or "untrained" as "barbaric" for adopting a stance such as this is quite rigid and, by my estimation, rather narrow-minded and will invevitably paint you into your own hermetically sealed box. I strongly feel that an infinite universe of musical expression is ready to be tapped into which does not necessarily rely on thematic/structural complexity or even technical expertise. Yes these are solid platforms of musical development and necessary within certain musical contexts, but only *certain* musical contexts.Dream on...enjoy the sounds.
Firstly, I'd like to express my pleasure at talking with someone who describes himself as a Village Voice Liberal; or a liberal anything, for that matter, during a period of time that seems increasingly populated with Rush Limbaugh wannabes of varying degrees of militancy. I'm damned tired being harangued by rightist crusaders with no regard for factual verity and apparently genetically programmed to reduce everything to Christian bible myth.I couldn't agree with you more about the fact that pop/rock has become the sonic backdrop of people's lives. It is, in fact, that very point that causes me such concern. The wholesale adoption of pop/rock isn't accompanied by an appreciation for other musical forms, and certainly not by even the most minute awareness of rock's profound limitations and brutish style of expression. Many people, especially gen-x-y-z, are barely aware of ANY style beyond their preferred pop/rock flavor of the month. I suggest that such was largely not the case in the 60s and especially the 70s, when the average listener was exposed (via the medium of AM radio, and to no small extent, the variety show on television) to a far larger selection of music styles, even within pop itself.
To some extent I agree with you. "They don't care." They, the none-music-specialist majority, to a some degree passively accept whatever cultural fodder is fed to them, Soilent Green style. This may be due to the powerful influence of childhood. Most of us have strong emotional connections to music that we grew up with.
The kids of the past generation have been growing up with nothing but rock. No meaningful exposure to jazz, classical, folk, broadway, etc. Nothing but some subgenre of rock. Nor is this depravation limited to lower strata of society where access to socio-cultural largesse frequently doesn't exist. As a college educated father proudly told me, he was extremely gratified that his 3-year old was jumping up and down and whirling like a dervish to the strains of Metellica, ACDC, Pearl Jam, and the like, which regularly loads into his 5-cd-changer, set to infinite repeat. A walk down Anystreet, America reveals that parents at every social level inundate their offspring with an exclusive diet of pop/rock.
Previously, schools offered some degree of music education, thereby expanding musical awareness in youth, even if only a little.
At least there was some choice. A Kentucky 6th grader might have listened to the rich melodies of Dvorak's 9th and instead preferred the strains of Hank Williams, Sr. But, he made a choice - that's important. And, the choice was made on the basis of familiarity not only with musical styles outside his culturally circumscribed community, but with some awareness of the quality of the greater world of art outside. As a high school senior (a football jock) said to me in 1973, "I've heard Beethoven's 9th symphony, and it's great music; but I prefer Alice Cooper".That's a choice, while unfortunate, we may nevertheless respect. It demonstrates an awareness of the both the limitations and the intrinsic superiority of each musical style. One of the icons of rock put it quite well: "It's only rock n roll, but I like it". The operative word is 'only'.
When two people meet, and stay together for a while, sure they will find out some themes of mutual interest: maybe both like Faulkner, Mozart, are interested in cosmology, on good wines, bonsais, good cars, some aspects of science or philosophy,... Then, if they are three, what both the three can share and enjoy talking about will be somewhat restricted, as may be one of them is a teetotaler, or isnīt interested in cosmology...; let them be four, and Faulkner, bonsais, or Mozart will be excluded... The rule is, that the number of common interest issues is inversely proportional to the number of people in the meeting: this is a well-known fact, repeatedly pointed by not few people along history.And now we arrive to the crucial point: how many are we, when we are a multitude? And, especially when we come from so many different origins, as is the case, especially in the US, that melting pot of cultures? Uninformed optimists would think that we would all benefit from each otherīs different points of view, and sure it would be so, if we were a dialoging culture; but our society is more competitive than dialoging, so instead of a synthesis, what we obtain, in the best of cases, is a kind of sincretism (some name that tolerance) and so few really shared interests...
Now itīs easy to see that, no matter how cultivated we can be at individual level, as a bunch we end up talking about women, cars, football, dirty politicians, etc.
And, in what to music respects, itīs what takes the least effort to follow what predominates: basic rithms, almost no elaboration, easy -and silly- tunes, poor text,... And, if you add to that the interest -vested or declared- of the people in the industry on making money as fast as they can, by selling to as many people as possible, and the not to be neglected power of propaganda (marketing, they say), then hereīs some powerful reason for things being as they are.
I know all this is pretty obvious, but it puts so many things under a clearing perspective, that I couldnīt avoid bringing it to this forum. Please forgive me if you find it boring.
Best regards
Marketing was the root of all evil when I was a tot, and methinks it still is.They (the marketers) seek to ruthlessly promote their own agenda, which is not culturally refined, but rather geared towards monetary gain.
Borrowing a line from "Frontline" the marketers are in a feedback loop with the "mooks" and "midriffs" that spuns each other into lower and lower degradations.
What makes this all go round is of course money. The root of all.
What makes this more pronounced now than say 200 years ago? Mass communications. The ability to reach literally millions simultaneously.
The cure? Kill your TV.
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