Re: Long but relevant article

Date: 19 May 2003 14:59:44 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s
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email-address-deleted (Intheway1) wrote in message news:<email-address-deleted>...
> Scarlotti wrote:
>
> >The author attacks the practice of over-emoting by artists with vocal
> >craft in favor of "true" (off-key) over-emoting,
>
> Can you identify the artists with "vocal craft" that Rosen maligns?
I was speaking in a general sense. However, she names Whitney
Houston, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, R. Kelly, Destiny's Child,
and others.
> I do
> understand something of the basis for your reaction because the issue of empty
> histrionics was one of the more frequent criticisms made during your earliest
> Johnnie Ray campaign, but I am loathe to "imply" that you are somehow
> connecting Rosen's comments to an attack on the foundation of your musical
> worldview without more evidence.
Ha ha.
> >presents one of the
> >most idiotically reverse-racist histories of music I've yet come
> >across,
>
> Where? Are you denying that melisma entered American popular music from
> gospel/blues roots? Are you suggesting that Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday
> were fans of Gregorian chants or Indian ragas?
A) "...and a fixture of many of the genres that nourished American
pop, in particular the gospel music that Ray Charles, Sam Cooke,
Aretha Franklin and others carried out of the black church and recast
as secular soul and R & B."
The implication being that American pop was nourished primarily (if
not entirely) by black-only musical forms (Jazz and Blues are
apparently excluded because readers might consider them to be black &
white forms).
But mostly in the ridiculous statement that: "On the one hand, the
quavering voices of today's singers tell us something meaningful about
music history. The sanctified sound that migrated from the church to
the charts a half-century ago has proven unusually resilient.
Listening to hit radio, it is clear that the enduring music of the
1960's is not post-Beatles guitar rock but post-gospel soul."
As I'd already noted, this passage attempts to wipe out the
contributions of the Beatles and any non-"post-gospel soul" influences
(read "white") to popular music today.
> > implies that physical differences (one assumes in the vocal
> >chords) exist btw the races (why should Cher and Madonna be
> >"physically incapable" of repeating a vowell?),
>
> Rosen's premise is correct, Cher and Madonna are two examples of artists who do
> not possess natural vibrato, but have used studio techniques to imitate it.
There is a difference between vibrato and melisma (the former being a
tremble in the throat, the latter being the breaking a syllable into a
polysyllabic repetition. The first is a physical characteristic, the
second is merely a stylistic affectation. Yet Rosen distinctly states
that: "Even singers physically incapable of melisma have gone to
extremes to include
it in songs."
> Over the last seventy five years, the genres where melisma has been employed
> most predominantly have been been those with black roots (with a sideways nod
> to Jimmie Rodgers and the western yodelers who followed him). To somehow read
> into this a "reverse racist" angle is truly astounding. Your ability to find
> implications amazes me.
Not into the use of melisma, but into the claim that only black music
had any significant input into the development of American pop (see
above).
> > and champions a
> >movement to remake today's Pop into a replica of the "black pop" of
> >the 70s (not that today's Pop is anything worth holding on to).
> >
>
> I take it you are referring to this line:
>
> "Stars like D'Angelo, Erykah Badu and Macy Gray remind listeners that the great
> soul singers of the 70's were distinguished by the grain of their voices and
> their stylish syncopations rather than by cramming songs with hundreds of
> gratuitous notes."
Close.
I was referring to the line immediately preceeding it: "The neo-soul
movement, which enshrines the sounds and production values of 1970's
black pop, has also revived that era's less histrionic approach to
singing."
> If by "black pop" you mean the singing of people like Al Green, James Carr and
> Johnny Taylor, Rosen finds their relatively spare simplicity superior to the
> histrionics he sees on Idol, but please note that he also makes positive
> reference to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke as
> examples of artists who employed melisma to great effect.
I don't mean anything by "black pop" (note my use of quotes around it
in the previous post). The term was Rosen's.
As to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, et al., the author's implication
is that while the original soul performers used melisma well, it has
been destroyed once it was integrated into the mainstream.
Point being: Mainstream is garbage. Music (legitimate music) must
return to its black origins.
> I agree with the comment (Mark?) made earlier in the thread that 70s soul might
> not be the best thing to shoot for in terms of a halcyon era, but the musical
> values of that time do stand in pretty stark relief to those employed at
> present, and make a pretty fair counter-example.
>
> >I'm surprised that no one here has taken offense to her claim
>
> Rosen is male. I am surprised you were unable to imply that.
Infer.
I was unable to infer that.
> >that
> >neither the Beatles nor guitar dominated Rock have had any impact on
> >modern music (she strongly implies that their music has not
> >"endured"). Puh-lease!
> >
>
> Turn off the implication machine, Scarlotti. Rosen doesn't imply guitar rock
> hasn't endured, he states it flatly, but places it in the precise context of
> radio airplay. He says:
>
> "Listening to hit radio, it is clear that the enduring music of the 1960's is
> not post-Beatles guitar rock but post-gospel soul."
>
> Your divination of Rosen's intention completely ignores the limits he placed on
> his observation.
What limits? Hit radio? Weren't the Beatles and 60s rock "hit
radio"? What's "hit radio" if not Top 40?
I don't care how you try to slice it, Rosen is saying that the Beatles
(and guitar-driven rock) had no enduring impact on popular music --
and it's still a load of bs.
> And Rosen is right. If you look at the current Billboard Hot 100 chart, you
> have to go all the way down to #40 to find a guitar oriented track (and that's
> Santana, showing, if nothing else, that there isn't much new going on in guitar
> rock that is getting airplay).
>
> http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/hot100.jsp
I wouldn't recognize any of the songs on the list. But when I'm
flipping the dial on the radio, I still hear more than my share of
loud electric guitar noise.
> As for the claim that Rosen denies that the Beatles and guitar rock have had
> any impact on modern music, I must have missed that in the article, and would
> appreciate it if you would point the statement out to me. I think that no one
> has "taken offense" at the statement because the statement doesn't exist.
I repeat:
"Listening to hit radio, it is clear that the enduring music of the
1960's is
not post-Beatles guitar rock but post-gospel soul."
> Given that Rosen has championed such current guitar driven bands as the Flaming
> Lips and Super Furry Animals, I seriously doubt he believes the genre to be
> irrelevant.
I didn't see any Furry Animals in this article, and wouldn't know what
kind of music they do anyway. (I'm sure Bloomy's a fan, though.)
> Rosen, by the way, wrote a book on the history of "White Christmas." I read
> an excerpt on line a while back but can no longer find the link. Given the
> frequency with which the song appears in discussions here, someone might be
> interested in finding the book or the link.
That wasn't the article I'd cited that claimed WHITE CHRISTMAS was
racist, was it? ;)