Greener Pastures, New Home

Great opportunity to write at the radio station, so that's where all my non-class related posts will be posted.
Here is my first one: Wolf Blog

Falling into the Abyss. Analysis of Chapter 12 of Blues People

Separatist had had it. No longer would they risk their lives fighting for a country that wouldn't accept them. They deserved equal treatment, but remained separate. Their only solution was to embrace this separation and form their own culture, better than the whites, more advanced, and much cooler. Black culture turned away from their fellow lighter-skinned humans and formed a cultural identity that is still felt presently. Embracing the life they lead as underrepresented, unappreciated,  people without the commodities of a suburban lifestyle is still a common theme in successful rap music. One of the most decorated rap album of the 90s, Nas's Illmatic, raps about the struggles black people have growing up in the ghetto and his bleak everyday life. 50 years later blacks are still trying to remain separate. And us white people, us squares, we walked ourselves right into this mess.

After years of oppression, what group wouldn't give up and rebel? They formed an underground movement known as bebop, an artform created to be more intellectual, more complex than all the music that white America had stole from them. Black musicians weren't being rewarded for their accomplishments, they were having their accomplishments stolen from them, and white people took credit for their success. The answer to this was bebop, a technique so advanced that whites would not be able to replicate the sound. A code that was only understood by those who had dealt with the suffering that caused the music to be made. And bebop has taken on many different forms since then, no longer bebop, but just as prevalent. Black people are still cooler, the only difference now is that white people want to be a part of it. Me included, looking back on middle school with embarrassment as I left my high-class neighborhood to go to school dressed in baggy pants and my favorite Eminem sweatshirt. What a role model! I told my Mom she should call me "white-chocolate" and got excited for the next Ludacris and Nelly albums. Generally, this confused people not associated with the culture of my middle-school (where all, or at least most, of the white kids wanted to be "gangsta") they wondered where I connected with black culture, but wasn't it just a middle school kid trying to be cool? This may be true, but it is not understood, "wankstas," as they are called, are the mockery of jokes and movies (Mailbu's Most Wanted).

50 Cent's song represents general attitudes toward white people trying to assimilate into black culture, most importantly rapping. "You ain't a friend of mine, (yeah)/ You ain't no kin of mine, (nah)." 50 Cent outlines the hostility towards the wanksta movement, white people aren't kin, at one point they rejected his race, so now he will do the same to them. Rap has been formed into an exclusive genre mainly for blacks and the one successful white rapper, Eminem, is who is seen the most if one was to google image "wanksta." This left my former self a very sad, chubby white kid with an Eminem shirt and way too many pairs of pants from Anchor Blue.

"Are you ready?" White people mocked blacks, taunting that their uncivilized ways weren't ready to enter white America. Well, our rejection has come back to bite us, black people still no longer are fully assimilated into white America. And not only are they not ready, they don't want to anymore. The effects of bebop and the powerful movement it created is still being felt in modern society as white kids feel trapped and a need to rebel, using rap as the medium to do so. Only they can't embrace this culture without being mocked. Just as at one point a black person would be mocked for trying to enter the "prestigious" white community. I've since given away the cd collection I accumulated in middle school, bye, Dutty Rock, Word of Mouf, Jackpot, Get Rich or Die Tryin'. My complexion is much more confortable with the Radiohead coming out of my speakers. 

Grumblings

Ready at the keyboard, like a vicious animal stalking it's prey. I was going to get these Paul McCartney tickets.

Several refreshes later and an unbearably long wait sends me to a page telling me that the tickets for this event are sold out.

I immediately head over to stubhub, where I see SEVENTY-TWO tickets already on sale, only a couple minutes after I got shut out. This makes me question the entire structure of ticketmaster and current ticket buying processes. This has become a big enough issue that it should have enough weight to make ticketmaster turn to paperless tickets (tickets that, when bought, are assigned to your name, and your name only to be picked up the day of the show. Preventing scalpers and those types). Is ticketmaster not changing their methods because the scalpers are helping them profit? Shame on them, if so. I wouldn't even be surprised, these are the same jerks who I paid a total of $45 for 2, supposedly, $12 tickets. Charging me a facility charge, a convenience charge, and an order processing fee, thanks a lot.
Ticketmaster could make a huge move by changing to paperless tickets, showing they put the fans #1.

Until then, I will continue to grumble.

Update: Just 3 hours later there is 705 tickets available on stubhub. I'm glad 705 people who don't even want to go were able to get tickets, but a real fan couldn't even get 2.

The Music and the Egg

I cringed after reading chapter 6, my brain tied up in the tightest of knots trying to figure out the age-old question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Or in the case of Chapter 6 of Starr and Waterman’s American Popular Music, what came first, the music or the culture?

The tussle between music and culture begins with swing music’s influence; swing impacted everything from “dance styles” (obviously) to “architecture” (less obvious). Swing was designed to cater to a larger audience, or was the larger culture pressuring music to cater to it? As America became integrated at a depressingly slow rate, it needed music to unite it, music was no longer for the whites or the blacks, it was for all Americans. Swing was the chosen genre, accommodating mixed audiences in large ballrooms, ballrooms with modern designs, representative of the progressive tone of the times. However, swing music did take the improvisation out of the emerging jazz culture, swing was strictly regimented with pre-written down sheet music and rarely any time to go off on a solo. This post Black Tuesday audience had probably had enough surprises, though, like, “Hey, all the money that was once in your savings is now gone, surprise!” It begs the question did culture ask for a structured music, a stabilized form, just as they hoped their lives would return to? Swing music created business, something badly needed in these depressing times, swing ushered in the New Deal era and it’s “government institutions, labor unions, and big business,” says Starr and Waterman. Peoples adjustment and comfort with these new structured lives, organized by government and big business grew comfortable, and in love, with this new genre of music that allowed them to forget about life off the dance floor.

The emergence of country music seems more clear-cut on the “what came first?” debate. Men left their lives, wives, children to fight in the war against the Nazis and America needed a song to celebrate these acts of valor, someone to cherish their lost loves one and support those still fighting. America gave the nod to country music to fulfill these duties. Country music had “themes of sentimentality, morality, and patriotism” the prefect ingredients to remedy the members of battle in a world war. The answer seems simple, before the war country was called “hillbilly music” neither respected, nor popular. During the war it accrued a third of the music business’s earnings and was a favorite to troops overseas. In these battle stricken times, the country was in need of something they could listen to that would be conjure thoughts of supporting troops, dispelling evil in Germany and getting the boys back home safe so the country turned to country. And like swing music, western music was typically “associated with movement, independence, and the future.” Like Bob Dylan said only…30 years later, “the times they are a-changin’” and they continue to change as culture begs for the next new genre to reflect their values and practices (what does that mean about our current generation as songs about partying infiltrate our airwaves?)

Culture asks for music and the industry obeys. While a myriad of genres are constantly floating below the mainstream the culture will decide what hits it big, depending on the current values of the culture. We see a constant synthesis of values pushing at one another, culture needing music to soothe it, or a genre so big it can’t go unheard and changes the values and cultures of it’s listeners (for better or worse, I’m looking at you, ICP). Now that that’s cleared up, back to the more important issue: Chicken, egg? Egg, chicken?

            

My Life, as Guided by Jews

          

            My life has somehow been profoundly affected by Jewish culture, a culture that, as an Atheist (raised- Christian), the only part I have stake in is the insane jealously of my closest friends that I’m not involved in their cultural traditions. Jewish immigrants began their magic helping shape the music industry. Acting as many integral participants in this crazy business, reaching from composers and performers to publishers, and promoters. Eventually, they created the hit songs, referred to in Starr and Waterman’s book as a “standard,” the song that every artist, producer, label, A&R guy, etc. hopes they are lucky enough to stumble upon. A perfect song that hits the market at a perfect time. A song that’s influence and joy affects generations. A modern “My Blue Heaven.” Jewish immigrants crafted these songs, creating an AABA refrain that strikes the heart of many, and crafted the industry that let these songs circulate and affect millions of people. Almost a century later I come to Los Angeles hoping to make it big as an A&R rep somewhere, anywhere, striving to one day find my own “standard” and look upon the people positively affected by this song, while I laugh all the way to the bank, and reside in the plush hills of Hollywood. “Beverly Hills, that’s where I want to be!”

            ‘Talkies,’ too, were partly the work of Jewish people (they were the characters!). Jakie Robinowitz hits the screen singing his jazzy melody, and the rest is history. Silent movies slowly faded away and now we have full color, full multimedia movies, featuring huge actors. More important to the point of this class, huge publishing companies vying to have their songs featured in the next big Hollywood hit. Fortunately, our entertainment no longer features the degrading effects of blackface, something that The Jazz Singer was able to avoid for much into the movie before falling to it’s marketing ploy. Most importantly, pre-blacking up for his role Jack Robin was all business; it was the most important thing in his life, above his father, his mother, and his girlfriend. After the shoe polish hits Jack’s skin and he looks in the mirror, he suddenly becomes introspective. Torn between breaking his mother’s heart and the biggest break of his life. Through his blackface introspection he ultimately decides he should be with family. (Thankfully he miraculously makes it back in time for the show. I wonder, why didn’t he just do that from the start instead of being all dramatic? Actors.) Professor Kun noted that many blackface actors would use blackface to ponder their own individual meaning, or of being white, a culture that didn’t have many practices other than bringing down different races. We see this process take place in The Jazz Singer. Maybe Jack Robin should just go see his Rabbi instead of degrading and entire race? I sure wish I could.

Starr and Waterman Chapter 2

Bland

The music that was played and distributed by the mass of white Americans, dance was stuck in a rut where it was merely a display of superior properness, and linear movements in geometric shapes. For this culture The Waltz was almost too crude for their superior scruples. The Waltz, a dance that featured precise steps and (deep breath) holding hands! The strict dancing could be seen as a result of the music coming out at the time. The dance that was “focused more on uniformity and restraint that improvisation or the expression of emotion” (26 American Popular Music, Starr Waterman). That’s the waltz. Definitely not an embodiment of cool like the black styles of music and art were at the time. Music in the new industry eventually became stealing what was hip, and making it not. Or seen in this quote, “a new genre of music arises within a marginalized community and then moves into the mainstream of mass popular culture, in the process losing much of the rebellious energy that gave rise to it in the first place”—bland (22 American Popular Music, Starr Waterman).  The musical style at the time reflected the structure of American culture, brass bands, made up of former war musicians. The bands promoted nationalism, structure, and the American army, while this was happening, African music promoted dancing, syncopation, and differentiating rhythmic structures through improvisation.

Bland

Coincidentally, the name of the African-American who wanted to enter the ranks of the white music business. Bland was a black man trying to enter a business ruled by white songwriters stealing black’s music. Bland was raised in a middle-class home and dreamed of having the same level of success as his white counterparts. Sacrificing his cool—bland, he was.

Bland is not the word for what was happening to black communities while minstrels entertained fellow whites by what they fantasized as black culture: stupid, uncivilized, unworthy. Disgraceful is a much more fitting word. Blacks were treated unworthy of whites respect or their recognition of them as humans and not just animals. But really they were tired of being so bland and didn’t want their era of rigidness to come to a stop. They did the best they could to suppress black people and their communities, but we know that eventually their indignation would not succeed in holding down a proud community. Their wits matched, the ultimate irony is the cakewalk dance. While whites thought they were ridiculing black dance they were only further popularizing the dance propagated by blacks to make fun of white people’s prude dancing. Not only is that bland, that’s embarrassing.