Saturday morning. Let's fuck shit up.
.
I'm gonna rant
Why?
Ya fucking serious? Are you capable of actual thought? Are you fucking pissed off? And I don't mean your butthurt alt-right quasi-Nazi neo-fascist snowflake whinging about how the libtard dems aint respecting the criminal cunt in command. I mean Mike Muir "What the fuck is going on around here?" pissed off.
I'm gonna be pissed off. Because I can't watch Saturday morning cartoons and eat Quisp and even if I could I wouldn't because corruption injustice, lies, and inhumanity takes away and my appetite and makes me want to get biblical.
Speaking of biblical...
Massive respect to Bob Vylan. Seeing them onstage at Glastonbury? Talk your shit. Preach. It's funny that the media talking heads and politicians who are outraged and disgusted by Bob Vylan leading chants of "Death to the IDF!" had nothing to say about Israeli hooligans rampaging through Amsterdam assaulting Dutch citizens, police, anyone looking Arab, and chanting "Death to Arabs" As a matter of fact the media immediately reversed the narrative, portraying the crimes committed by Israels as "antisemitic" assaults and likening it to pogroms and turning the criminals into victims.
By the way, nice semsntics, Israel. The Israeli DEFENSE Force. "We aren't committing genocide and ethnically cleansing Gaza. We're defending ourselves!"
You can't criticize Israel and the Zionists, that's antisemitic!"
So if I say "Fuck the KKK and Proud Boys!" I'm being racist? When I say priests shouldn't be pedophiles I'm being anti-Christian? When I say ISIL is evil I'm being an Islamophobe? The only way criticizing the continued violation of international law, crimes against humanity, and genocide perpetrated by Israel is antisemitic is if every single Jewish person fully supports the Zionist agenda.
If you look at facts it's not nearly as complicate as western media tries to portray it. An apartheid system that illegally seizes and occupies the property of just one very specific demographic. A regime brazenly killing civilians in a nation that has been in violation of international law since its inception.. It's like trying to say the U.S. and Canadian and Austrian and Brazilian and etc attempts to annihilate indigenous populations is "a complicated and delicate matter".
The only thing complicated is the cultural and social dance required to normalize and ignore atrocities.
Let's look at the history of music to get some perspective on the "American" soul. Yeah, I'm being serious.
In the early 20th Century there were minstrel shows. White people in blackface portraying black people as childish simpletons. To reassure themselves that black people were still firmly under the bootheel. Because if you can get away with mocking someone you clearly have control.
"Jazz" comes around in the 1920's. Not jazz the way you're thinking, but there were black musicians involved. Dixieland and Big Band, almost exclusively performed by white musicians co-opts the culture and, because it's white people playing it, gets acceptance.
Crooners and extraordinarily white sounding singers dominate the mudic in the late 40's and early 50's. Of course young people weren't all that thrilled with it. Bebop and modern jazz bubble in the underground. Blues cooks away in the south. Rock and Roll starts forming as early as the '40s (Props to Big Mama Thornton) but doesn't get big until Bill Haley, Gene Vincent, Elvis, Buddy Holly. Who are...white.
Huh.
Rock and Roll is immediately labeled degenerate, devil inspired nigge* music. Ensuring that teenagers would listen. But Elvis goes into the army, Buddy Holly dies, and segregation and racism guarantew that Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard are marginalized. In the early 60's rock is...Neal Sedaka. Paul Anka. The Everly Brothers. Back to the most bland and boring shit.
The Beatles are a problem when they appear. They're British. The U.S is inexplicably anglophile (Inexplicable because Britain is the only country to ever invade the US and is tied with Germany and Iraq for number of wars with the US). The Fab Four are also very white. Nobody is mistaking them for black. Moptop is about the best insult anyone comes up with.
The hippies are socially aware. Early SJW's but they still largely ignore black artists like Arthur Lee and Love, Ike and Tina Turner, Sly and the Family Stone. Oh sure people knew about them, but look at the charts. Even the protest singers of the folm scene are exclusively white. Thank goodness Jimi Hendrix comes along. He's proof that Rock and Roll isn't a complete co-opting of black culture.
Right.
So Jimi dies and the general white population goes back to listening to almost exclusively white performers. Until disco rises up. Despite its immense popularity its insulted, belittled, and assailed by the media, music industry, and all those people who subconsciously see any form of black culture as unacceptable unless it's dominated and controlled by white faces.
The mid 80's to early 90's are dominated by hair metal and electro-pop. Michael Jackson had to become undeniably massive just to get a video on MTV. Funk has gone back underground. Hip hop is like early blues, cooking away outside the mainstream.
Boring and formulaic hair metal does not thrill the kids. Cue the entry of grunge. Cue the rise of gangsta rap and mainstream hip hop. White kids ride around cranking NWA and BDP and Ice Cube. While other white kids ride around cranking Nirvana Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and STP. Parents are confused about which they should hate more.
Hip.hop becomes Rock and Roll. By which I mean it's no longer monolith. It develops genres. This makes it harder to isolate and neutralize. So lets look at country. As in music.
Early country is called "western" music. Western as in cowboys western. It develops into a fairly diverse genre, incorporating bluegrass, folk, pop, and rhythm and blues. It's the white alternative to rock. It also gets so formulaic that it gives rise to the outlaw country of Merle Haggard, Johnny Caah, Waylon Jennings, Glenn Campbell said Willie Nelson.
By the 1980's country is not cool. It's your parent's music. Then Garth Brooke shows up and, well, even he admits that what he was playing wasn't really country. It was country themed pop. It was formulaic but all pop is. It was very safety white though.
When Brooks stops touring nobody of similar stature arises. The thing about country is that there are very clear divisions. Between "real country", "traditional country" "pop country" and now "new country". Or as I call it "C-Pop"
Country is probably the least "authentic" form of modern music. Nashville isn't dominated by musicians, it's dominated by performers. The top "artists" don't write their own songs. They're chosen for appearances and the ability to assume a false twang when they sing.
How did I get from Bob Vylan and Israel to C-Pop? Easy. I was listening to Bob Vylan and then got out to fuel my truck this morning and the truck stop was blasting C-Pop through the outside speakers. C-Pop is incredibly repetitious. Musically, vocally, and lyrically. There's almost nothing to aurally differentiate between performers. The music is arena pop now. It's undeniably white. It's so lacking in any soul or honest expression that I find it aggravating almost the instant I hear it playing.
Bob Vylan is pissed off and sincere and unafraid to make a stand. The closest C-Pop gets to that is Jason Aldean making a racist video while singing a song that doesn't, even in the smallest way, reflect his life experience. C-Pop is huge because it's bland, unchallenging, simplistic and incredibly white. It reflects a country in denial.
Britain produces Kneecap, Bob Vylan, Ren, The Snuts and yes they're not chart toppers (here in the U.S especially) but what do we get in the U.S except a musical extension of that willing ignorance. Run the Jewels aren't even universally known among hip hop heads. Rebel Diaz is even less known. Macklemore actually addressed Gaza, but where is the culture in general? Who is the new Rage Against the Machine? Who is the new Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan?
Hind Rajab is still dead. George Folyd is still dead. Our constitution is in ruins. Who's calling out and keeping the word alive? Who's making sure that this shit will change? Childish Gambino's "This is America" was a huge talking point. For a month.
I get it. Gotta be careful. Gotta think about that career. Can't afford to get canceled for speaking the truth. You have a platform but you got bills to pay and toys to buy and someone else can tackle that whole "morals and ethics" thing, right?
