Re: Do you like American music? I like all kinds of music.
> Sure, but that was indicative of *all* VBritish music? What about Nick
> Drake, drawing on English pastorla folk traditions, in turn influencing
> bands like The Lilac Time and Belle & Sebastian. The Beatles outgrew
> their rock'n'roll roots pretty quickly. I'm not saying all English music
> isn't American influenced - certaibly stuff like John Mayall, The Animals
> etc. were. But there was plenty of stuff happening in the UK which wasn't
> American influenced. Fairpor Convention, The Incredible String Band ....
> Early Pink Floyd. The Bonzon Dog Do-Dah Band.
I'm not saying any of that isn't cool (well, Belle and Sebastian isn't cool).
I love space rock and Pink Floyd is one of the founders of that.
It's all just different takes and spins on rock and roll. The music
is there for everyone to put their own stamp on. The way it has evolved
is in no small way a debt to English creativity.
And pop music is a very personal thing, so we tend to be biased towards those
performers we identify with the most. Who seem most like us.
The band from my block, or with a personality like me, taking
on the world for me. One of the coolest thing about the form is
that anyone can do it with almost no training.
But back on subject, who is on the cover sleeve for "Shoplifters of the WOrld Unite"? A song about musical shoplifting? Elvis?
> That's what I'm saying. American music didn't spring from nothing.
Nothing springs from nothing. But every now and then a new genre emerges. Genre as opposed to subgenre. (There hasn't been a new genre
that I know of since about 1979, unfortunately, and the world is waiting
with baited breath for someone out there to sieze the opportunity.)
Take pizza. There's a million different recipes
for making it. Everyone can put their individuality and culture
into their recipe. Maybe someone loves some California recipe
which puts pinapples on, I don't know. But pizza is
Italian, and always will be. And Italy is just really great
in coming up with some pretty righteous kinds of food in general.
Even though they wouldn't have had the noodle without China,
they put it with marinara sauce.
It's not an accident rock and roll and several other
music genres were created in America. You look first at the roots of it, in blues, hillbilly, and gospel,and then you look to the emerging freedom of youth in the mid-20th century, when the notion of a "teenager" came about.
>The
> hillbilly montian ballads can be traced back to the folk traditions of
> Eastern Europe, France and England. Black music came, in part, from Africa
> and the Baptist Church. The roots of rock are too mixed to be attributed
> to one nation. America is the post-modern Roman Empire. it as taken a lot
> of disparate elements and made something from them. But to attribute that
> thing *entirely* to the US smacks of the sort of narrow minded cultural
> imperialims which annoys so many non-Americans so much.
But don't you see, you're making my case. America is the most diverse
country in the world, with blends of cultures from the whole globe.
You combine that with various factors, good and bad, at work in the culture, and
results emerge. Rock and roll *is* America; in it you can see
almost everything which defines America.
You just don't want to acknowledge that American culture gave the world something pretty damn cool. Imperialism?
People can't seem to get enough of it.
I love this idea of "imperialism." A saw a story out of Afghanistan
last week. A store, after the liberation of Khandahar (sp?), put
up a big poster for Titanic, with LEo and Kate embracing.
A crowd gathered like moths, mesmerized by Kate's bare arms and the lustful
pose. People want the stuff; we're not forcing it on them. Sure,
some holy types were grumbling that it was obscene, but that was a store owner
putting up something he knew people wanted to see.
> Bollocks. I'd wager there were apple pies before America was colonised,
> too
> Bollocks pt. II. What about Stereolab? The French thing isn't a gimmick
> there. They're influenced by Krautrock too, which has *non* antecedant in
> American music.
> Their "Life" trilogy ("Modern Life Is Rubbish",
> "Parklife" and "The Great Escape") are important
> albums which you shouldn't dismiss so easily. Again, Barret
> era-psychedelia, music hall etc. combine to make brilliant ppop music.
> When Blur turned their bck on their English roots and embraced Americana
> was when their creative decline started, INHO. Have a listen to those
> albums ... they're brilliant.
They're important? I usually hate stuff people call "important." But I'll give them a further listen. From what I've heard, they're not bad; just
not something which stood out to me.
> Your point, your arguments, and your strange fixation to tell everyone
> here how big and clever your country is.
My view on English culture is that their writers were one
of the biggest influences on how human beings think and feel.
Which is something a helluva lot bigger than rock and roll.
> I never said it was. Like I said, I'm not English. I love both English and
> American music equally. I just don't like the sort of chest-beating
> jingoism that says America is the source of everything.
Not the source of everything.
Just...most things in the past hundred years. = ) "The best and worst
of everything" as Leonard Cohen puts it. That's the way I see it.
Okay, France shares credit for movies. Which happens to be the biggest art form of the 20th century.
