Where is the dangerous white music?
Gary
3,982 Posts
Of course black music is scary and sexual and violent and bad for my kids. You know what I'm talking about. As a white parent I'm already naturally afraid of that. But like my parents before me, I need to know what white music is going to cause my kids to do drugs, worship satan, or turn gay.
The satanic panic in the 80s was some real shit. Parents were shook. At the turn of the century we had marylin Manson... But now...?
Obviously this is a little tongue in cheek, but is rap music really the only music left that parents are afraid of? Even country music was morally "dangerous" once and now that's the softest shit in the radio.
The satanic panic in the 80s was some real shit. Parents were shook. At the turn of the century we had marylin Manson... But now...?
Obviously this is a little tongue in cheek, but is rap music really the only music left that parents are afraid of? Even country music was morally "dangerous" once and now that's the softest shit in the radio.
Comments
I was going to say ICP. I mean, you should be worried if your kid starts guzzling down that weird soda they always talk about.
Battle Rap' though...........
I think Ke$ha probably poses more of a danger to today's youth than any Nordic Metal band.
Yeah, but that shit is right out at the margins and staying there. No serious danger of a "who will save the youth of America?" threat emerging from anything like that.
Personally, I think it's time to abandon this notion that music's most noble and important function is as an agent of change or a vessel for righteous anger or whatever boomer/punk rock bullshit people still want to project on it. Chuck D pointing the finger at black radio over the weekend for its supposed complicity in Ferguson was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. When someone like him starts using that shit to grind his own personal axe - "Black America is fucked because Hot 97 don't play our records" - then it's over. No good trying to blame it all on Chief Keef or cultural appropriation. Nor is it the fault of Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus, because performers like them have always existed. Sure, music and art are more commodified than ever, but that hasn't stopped great art from being created, nor will it in future. No, what's changed is that people have begun to realise that standing around holding hands and singing Imagine isn't going to stop death-worshippers from flying planes into skyscrapers, any more than, say, shouting along to RATM or Boots Riley has a hope of preventing your elected representatives from selling off your own country from beneath your own feet.
The people still waving the flag for this crap would never dare admit that it's just hopeless nostalgia for that point in their lives when music was the thing everything else revolved around. The world can't be decoded like that any more. It's no longer simply a matter of The Man trying to prevent Tha Kidz from Rockin'. Grow up. Let that shit go. The people who truly care about changing shit are out there changing shit. Join them, or don't. Just don't sit around whining that there's no longer a suitable soundtrack for all that empty talk about changing shit. Even if there was, I'm not sure all that many people would be smart enough to recognise it anyway.
Thank you. I would actually take the argument a step further and say that this:
has always been true. The music that has accompanied movements and times of great social change has always been just that - an accompaniment, not the actual catalyst for the change.
To reiterate, I'd argue that it never really was, and that aspect of it was as much a childish distraction as it was anything else.
While I don't necessarily disagree with you, i feel like that was somewhat off-topic.
I don't think Gary was wondering what music was going to inspire his children to fight the man, but rather what music was going to lead them into teenage wasteland.
Though personally I was looking forward to reading "I Was A Teenage Juggalo" by Gary Jr one of these days...
This is all tied to rebellion as a rite of passage via image, not necessarily music. The first generation of modern popular culture parents were afraid of gyrating hips and tight jeans.......then came "long" hair that touched the collar, which evolved into hippies.....each step in the evolution had to be a little bit more outrageous....push the envelope. Heavy Metal.....Punk.....Rap and the many variations of all three acheived this. But the danger wasn't in the music, it was in the image of the person delivering it. Each generation can now look back and recognize how silly it was that their parents felt that way. Come 2014 the parents of kids today were raised on images that pushed the furthest limits of parental shock just this side of, and in some cases including, breaking the law. So what the fuck are you going to consider "dangerous" today? Richard Pryor saw the end game in 1977....my theory is that some generation in the near future will rebel against their parents by being suit and tie wearing Conservatives.
Come to think of it, that does scare me!
Yeah, upon further reflection, perhaps it was. But those two things still seem to go very much hand-in-hand as far as I can gather. In any event, I get a little tired with the general assertion that the importance and worth of music ought to be measured according to how much "fight the power" rhetoric and sloganising it contains. It all ends up getting co-opted one way or another, so how much does it really matter? Much as White Man In Hammersmith Palais was otherwise one of the Clash's most politically naive songs (and still possibly my favourite, despite that), the line about turning rebellion into money rings as true now as it ever did.
Political castration seems to be rife in these paranoid days of A**ange, Sn*wden and d*m.
Something too sexual or wrong-sexual? "If she were my daughter, I'd..."
Hmmm... Maybe Cyrus and her twerking actually perceived as dangerous in many parts :ayo:
Gaga and her gay-friendliness?
Who is George Michael applauding these days?
It has been suggested by a number of people (Hov included) that what really outrages America (and perhaps the wider world to an extent) isn't so much that Miley's appropriating aspects of black popular culture, but simply that she's embracing black popular culture in the first place (even if that does largely constitute buying up all the Mike Will beats Rihanna already turned down).
You'd think after Elvis and The Four Scousers, they'd be used to it.
What is missing is not teen music.
What is missing is parents who are afraid of teen music.
Whatever, dude, blah blah blah...because when a social/political movement of some sort does finally formulate beyond all of this brainless consumerism going on, it will have its own soundtrack. That's guaranteed. And that music will then be important for its message and not just for its ability to turn heads/sell product. Yeah, the landscape is extremely bleak right now. But taking an if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em attitude toward channel zero, instead of sticking to your guns on what you appreciate about music in the first place (when PE was popular, you sure weren't complaining about message rap) = weaksauce to the fullest.