Posted on 09/05/2015 1:42:01 PM PDT by OddLane
Contemporary African-American music—especially rap and hip-hop—has become synonymous with and notorious for its suggestive and explicit lyrics. Women are often portrayed as sex toys, violence is glorified, denunciations of law enforcement are routine, and middle-class upbringings go unacknowledged, lest they undermine the artists’ street credentials.
The huge commercial success of casually sexual, scatological, and even nihilistic music feeds an impression that black music has always exhibited such qualities—a cultural narrative dating back at least as far as the advent of Elvis Presley, who, it was said, sexualized popular music by incorporating “Negro” influences. In his classic book Black Music, the poet LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) captures the thinking well when he disdainfully quotes his undergraduate philosophy professor’s observation, “It’s fantastic how much bad taste the blues contain...”
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Came right on time, 1 generation from the Great Society.
Times change, standards change.
The song “Sixty Minute Man”, by the Dominoes, was very suggestive and scandalous for its time, back in 1951. Of course now lyrics are explicit and not just suggestive.
Originally done by the Isley Brothers, I like the Average White Band version better, but the thought that they’d put out a song concerning the responsibility of “Work To Do” would probably be unheard of today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jhX_IzwlCs
You can skip the ad in 5, 4, 3, 2............
Oh, and for you guitar players out there, pay attention to the solo. Friggin’ good stuff.
How about when black music was just good? Kool and the Gang, Chic, Diana Ross, the Ohio Players, Bill Withers, et al from the 1970s were and are a million (or more) times better than any so-called black “artists” today.
The Motown artists of the late 1960s had talent and made excellent music. The (c)rap “artists” have no talent, and the noise they make is not classifiable as music.
I was thinking of Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Box Tops, Smokey Robinson....
Good tune. I’m not as impressed as you by the solo tho.
The Box Tops were all white.
So was Stevie Ray Vaughan, but he “got” Black music from before Motown (which was itself great). And it was great.
Here are two songs this article makes me think of:
Love Child, by the Supremes, in which a gal tells her guy she’s not going to be doing you-know-what because she doesn’t want her child to be a deprived “love child” like she was. This is one song that has very serious lyrics that I think most folks miss.
Also, Crying in the Chapel (by I don’t know who, sorry!). This is a song with serious lyrics that I missed for the first million times I heard it. I never realized until a few years ago that it was a song about religion and coming to God. I always thought the guy was crying in the chapel because he lost his girl or something.
It was written by Artie Glenn-for his son Darrel to sing. Popularized by Elvis Presley.
i don’t know about conservative, but at least in the 60’s and 70’s it was still music...
Trouble Man by Marvin Gaye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usl-h5f-8W0
Best personified by James Brown’s “I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself)”
Perhaps they meant The Four Tops.
I think you’re right.
The funny thing about the Box Tops is that Alex Chilton sounded nothing like his Box Tops voice when he was with Big Star.
I’ve been spoiled playing and recording with Neil Zaza!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.