the
From Glam Rock…to Garbo….to Goats
the
HIP QUOTIENT
From Glam Rock…..to Garbo…..to Goats
the
From Glam Rock…to Garbo….
to Goats
When I was 6 years old, the lady who lived in the apartment above ours gave me a stack of old 45s she no longer wanted. One of my favorites from the bunch was, and still is, Marv Johnson's "Merry Go Round." Ever heard of him? Well, you should have, because he was the first artist to release a record on the label that would come to be known as Motown.
"Eewww, yuck. How can you listen to that stuff?" was the reaction of a female friend to my Tupac Shakur CDs back in the '90s. She echoed the view of many -- that the controversial rapper's lyrics represented violence and misogyny. Tupac was an artist full of contradictions. Like Bob Dylan and John Lennon before him (yes, John could be cruel), the rapper walked a thin line between love and hate. On one hand, he degraded and objectified women in his songs, calling them bitches, hoes and sluts. On the other hand he praised them - in songs like "Dear Mama and "Black Women" - and denounced rape and domestic violence. Yes, his lyrics could be ugly. I'm not condoning his behavior. But allow me to point out a few of the offensive songs written by some of our most beloved white artists.
If you look at popular music history of the 20th and 21st centuries, it seems that when a sound becomes stale, it takes about two to three decades for it to be reintroduced into popular music. From a sociological perspective, that makes sense, as the music that your parents were listening to as you went from womb to your formative years would lay the blueprint for your future musical interests. This is NOT to say we necessarily like the music that our parents listened to; rather, that the sounds of that music sneaked into our subconscious and will sneak out in our older days (and I am fully aware that music has often been used as a tool in the generational wars). The focus of this post is to examine the value of today’s neo soul movement by posing the question: are neo soul artists showing reverence, recreating or simply following a formula? An article by contributor Adam Kukic, host of The Coffeehouse on WYEP fm.
Jazz great Miles Davis experienced mixed reactions toward his role as a major architect of jazz/rock fusion. It was seen by some as a sellout of a master’s medium to a more “base” art form. Nevertheless, this new genre exploded in the mid-seventies, and is now considered essential music. What you may not know is that Davis’s one-time wife – a relatively unheralded singer/songwriter named Betty Mabry – introduced him to the rock/funk scene, and planted the seeds of fusion in his music. By contributor Mike Canton, host of The Soul Show on WYEP fm.
Guitarists love the ladies, especially those with long necks, shapely bodies, and melodic voices. Here are three love stories about legendary bluesmen and the instruments they adored.