Bridging Cultures Through Music

 After reading Beatrice Aaronson’s account this week in our readings there was several things I agreed with and several things I didn’t agree with. The topic of the dance floor bridging together different cultures is one that I do agree with. People are able to gather together and just listen to music and dance. The great thing about clubs is they are usually specific to the type of group they attract.  So if I like hip-hop and want to go dance to that type of music then I wouldn’t be showing up at a country line dance bar. So you always know ahead of time what your getting yourself into and if there are groups you don’t want to associate with you don’t have to.  And yes there might be an occasional fight but that is due to the consumption of alcohol.  It’s great to just go dance with friends and meet people at a club. People from all over the place and all different types of ethnicities come to just have a good time. The common focal point that brings everyone together is music. This is why I agree with what was  about the dance floor becoming the so called virtual reality. It doesn’t matter well at least at most places if you are black , white or brown. Dancing and the music that is played is not racially specific. The dance floor lets cultures interact with out having to worry about the outside world. Race doesn’t rule the dance floor the dance floor rules races. I have danced with girls from all kinds of backgrounds. And yet  as I would normally not congregate with them outside the club because I would stick out like a sore thumb at the club there are no boundaries.  This is why I agree with what Aaronson is saying because I have seen it with my own eyes. Music is a very powerful tool and when you include dancing with it there is really nothing stronger to break tension between groups. Some people go to the club to dance because they want to hangout with a variety of people  that in their normal everyday groups might not include. Each  group of  races has been generalized into what different type of music they like and like to dance to. Which I think is crazy. But as its presented to use whites are tagged with country and line dancing  and Asians and Europeans  are tagged with the rave techno music and Hispanics with the ranchera music and blacks with hip-hop. Now me personally love hip-hop and the different beats and artist but I also like a little techno. Techno is just different it is just different lines of sounds intertwining to create a song. Which I think is great because no two songs are alike. With hip-hop you get these young guys that want to steal the beats from songs that were real popular back in the day and just totally butcher them. But this is why I think dancing helps people get along  and lets different cultures interact.

Hated by the Press

When I think of a musician that has been portrayed in a negative light by the press over the years I think Of Ozzy. Ozzy has been  blamed for more criminal behavior over the past twenty years than any other artist in rock. During the eighties he was even blamed for coercing a young man to commit suicide. The young mans parent’s attorney  went to the lengths of saying  if you play suicide solution  backwards and at half the regular playing speed  Ozzy tells people to get a gun and shoot themselves. If this wasn’t the biggest joke I have ever heard of. I have heard the song more than fifty times and not one time felt like the song wanted me to kill myself. The family  drug this law suit on for months and Ozzy had to defend what he wrote and explain what he meant. After months he was let go with no charges but what happened  to our first amendment rights. Isn’t freedom of speech  just that free to say what ever you want. To the press it sure isn’t. After that incident   the press said Ozzy was a follower of the devil and should be banned from performing in the US. They attacked him because he was different. He wasn’t the Beatles or the Stones with their matching attire and very proper stature. Ozzy was a poor boy from England. He brought music that wasn’t for all the little school girls to enjoy. Ozzy brought a kick you in the face style of rock that not everyone approved of.  People hadn’t given him a chance ever since he bit the head off a real dove. This was in part to his future wife advising him to let a couple doves go to show he wasn’t  such a wreck loose. But the poor guy ended up bighting the head of the bird and further sending his career into a spiral with the media. But as we all see today  he is one of the most well known and well respected artist of his era. All the so called bad press just kept his name in the lime light and people kept wondering who is this guy and buying an album to see what all the commotion was about.  But even today thirty years later the press still tries to make him look bad or like a fool as they try and say he is a drug user and is hooked on drugs. Then a week later they print their front page story retraction noting that Ozzy was prescribed all this medicine by a licensed physician . Later to print how Ozzy was a victim of a drug pushing Doctor that wanted to keep Ozzy drugged twenty four  hours a day ,seven  days a week. But never the less Ozzy takes it all in good stride and still puts on a kick butt concert for all his fans, because he says he loves entertaining people. That sure doesn’t sound like a crazy killer to me but what do I know, I don’t work for the media.

Parental Advisory Thoughts

Record companies are responsible to a certain extent to provide the listener with the knowledge of what is on the CD or Tape. But to think that they hold the sole responsibility of who is buying the music is crazy. Maybe we should put some parental advisories on children instead. Maybe if the parent was more involved in the child’s life this wouldn’t be an issue.  But why blame the parenting when it is much more convenient  to blame someone who will never be in contact with your child like a record company. It’s sad  to say but the little sticker on a music CD or even a comedy  CD just makes kids want it more. I see it as telling people smoking will kill you . Do people stop no way they keep on puffing that stuff into there lungs. The record companies have it the worst I think. Not only does their music get ripped off by  people trading music online with millions of people, but then when they do what the law requires and advise people there are lyrics that your five year old shouldn’t be listening to on the CD people buy it and play it in front of the kids that was suppose to be protected. It truly is a joke. On a serious note, the other day I’m driving and see a mother with two cute little babies in the back of a car and she has some foul mouth rapper blasting in the car. I thought I was at a concert it was so loud. Now after reading this assignment I can only laugh and think of this lady  yelling at a town hall meeting saying her babies shouldn’t have to listen to such  vulgar music. Parental advisory stickers on the CD just jump out at a kid and say buy me. I think It is a little bit of reverse psychology myself. Since the beginning of time with Adam and Eve they were told do not eat from a certain tree. Well we all know how that ended up right and if you don’t well they ended up eating the fruit. If the music was such a problem they would sell it like movie stores sell porn. No one under eighteen right. And it would be all weird to go buy it because everyone one knows what’s in that area. But with music it is the exact opposite. The worst music is right when you come in the door’s of the store. It attracts the attention of all the people that walk in to the store as well as their children. And when little Johnnie Sue asks mommy can you buy me this and they say no  at that very section their tiny brain says we have to have it now.  So yes I do believe the record companies do what they are required to do and if people don’t like it then my advice is to get involved with your child and write your congressman. Stop being lazy parents and take care of your children.

The twisted reality of music

Since as far back as I can remember each generation puts down the fallowing generations type of music. Watching the history channel not long ago I saw a special on Elvis. People that were not young enough to be in the crowd that praised this icon said he was the devil. The critics said he should not thrust his hips like he did and had nothing but bad reviews for him. This all coming from a group who listened to big band music and visited burlesque shows. This thought process has gone on for years and isn’t a new thought pattern. People have a hard time with not only change but something that represents something totally different.  I can remember my grandfather telling my dad turn that crap off when he was listening to bands like Ozzy or Iron Madden. I also got it from my dad years later when I would listen to rap or hip-hop. People of other generations try to say that the younger generation has a negative influence on the behavior of the listening audience. I have to disagree because music is not just an outlet for people to express themselves but a way for people to connect. Music can bring people of totally different backgrounds together for one night to watch a performance. Over the years there has been many people that say just the simple fact of listening to rock will kill your brain cells. I mean laugh like I did by all means but these so called Doctors were serious as a heart attack when they said that. People must just take music for what it truly is at its purist level and stop adding things to try and prove their point whatever it maybe. Now there was a song called cop killer that came out some years back that had a large impact on society here in the U.S. Ice T’s song talked about killing cops and how it made him feel so on and so forth not to go into to detail but the suburbs had a meltdown when it was released. After listening to the song myself I had no desire to go out and kill a cop or anyone by that account. But as it was probably not appropriate to talk about killing a cop there was a song that dates back farther than that but in the reggae culture performed by non other than Bob Marley called I shot the Sheriff.  What’s the difference in these songs? They both talk about killing a cop. Maybe because the rap version had more obscene language for Capitol Hill. Maybe if it were performed by Willie Nelson people would have just written it off as crazy Willie does it again. But because and the rap industry was still growing it was taken as a direct threat to all cops and that Ice T was telling the listeners to kill cops. People have twisted reality in ways that best suits there cause and someone could say I’m doing that now with this blog, but with a clear conscious mind I can say that I have never been influenced by any type of music to do drugs or any conduct that is not law abiding. When reading what Paul Cobley wrote that punk music should be filtered I thought of communist Russia. Punk rock yes is out of the ordinary and the kids dress different and they color their hair different wild colors but it’s this great thing called expression that makes all music great. How many times has a Senator been caught tied up in some hotel room with some dominatrix or in a outfit that looks like a baby and being treated like a baby. Maybe the mommy and daddy should worry more about who they vote for and who is running this country more than if the sex pistols are spitting on the crowd or even on little Johnny Sue’s ipod. Music has no impact on society in a negative way but does provide solace on the fifty-mile commute you have to and from work a daily basis.

Peoples Delusion of Rock and Music

    I have mixed emotions that young people today are over indulged in music and that nothing alien to music is not taken seriously. On one hand people today have more access to music via the “IPOD” and any mp3 player. Now if this technology would have been available fifty , a hundred or even two hundred years ago would this still be stated.  The comments made by “Bloom” in chapter two of “Music and Culture” , that state “ nothing else excites them” is a little far stretched. To me it sounds like Bloom is in fantasy land. Bloom makes it seem in his statement that the youth of today is basically controlled by music. Yes music is a very large part of our society but why? I think a good answer is because our everyday lives from the age of ten to twenty are filled with not only growing up and dealing with changing hormones but the level of stress that is applied to the individual.   
    It’s as if we are zombies controlled by music according to Bloom. Music does appeal to one of our senses and we do feel music in the sense of enthusiasm. If a romantic song is on and we are with our girl or guy then yes it does stimulate the mood. And yes if a fighter or soldier listens to some gangster rap or some death medal yes it does make them get amped up for the occasion. But at the same time a composer by the name of Mozart was blind and deaf. His famous symphonies with all that they were, was composed by a person who could only feel the vibration.  I feel that Bloom didn’t have much of a social life  and he looks at youth and all the electronic communication and lack of personable communication that going on and watches all these ways to people are listening to music and thinks they are controlled by it.
    I think the exact opposite of the youths today than Bloom. I feel that people between the age of  ten and twenty are more open to expressing themselves now then ever before. Music just  helps ease the mind and body from the daily grind. I myself have a passion for Football. Yes I listen to music to pass the time sometimes but I do not require music to function. Football is something I love to do and has been a big part of my life for the last fifteen years. Bloom makes it seem as if music in itself propels the world in its daily activity. To me Bloom has explained and shown examples of the effects of the television. He is so concerned about the education and how music interferes with that but maybe that’s because he has never owned a T.V. You talk about people that get mummified, have you ever tried to talk to a ten year old when they were watching T.V.  He says that music has more of an impact than that of the television.  But all day long there is sexual content in cartoon, moral questioning language and he says that its controlled by the right and left of the government.
    I really can’t believe in the final paragraph of the essay that  its says  rock music  leads to premature ecstasy like the drugs with which it is allied by.  I think he has a personal vendetta against rock and demonizes it because of personal dislike not  by any factual evidence other than personal opinion.