Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1992 12:00:43 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Monday morning sarcasm, round 2

From:         Rick <MMLRICK@UBVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Standards "diva"-eation

> And what prompts a talented singer/songwriter to put out an album of standards
> if it's not quite in their league to do so? Are they all Sarah Vaughan
> wannabees? Should we blame Linda Ronstadt? Rickie Lee Jones? Elvis Costello
> (in the country mode)? Am I asking dumb questions? Will you ignore this post
> altogether?

Yeah, this is something that always bothers me too, as it seems to come with
an attitude that rock'n'roll is an inferior art form. (I'll address this in
rather greater detail below.) The idea seems to be that your noisy adolescent
caterwauling is just something your record company forces upon you, and that
left to your own devices, you'd be the next Betty Carter or Frank Sinatra, eh?
Well, that's total bullshit (especially in the case of Sinead, who can't carry
a tune in a slop bucket). Sinatra was extremely popular in his day, considered
every bit as hunky for his time as Billy Ray is nowadays (albeit a much more
gifted singer and interpreter), and it's only time and the nostalgia factor
that rank his repertoire, as distinguished from his performance, as Art. If
Sinead only had patience (I know that's asking a lot), she'd find her stuff
categorized as Art by 2005, with the first doctoral theses analyzing her work
due to be defended by the graduating class of 1997 (unless some grad student
reading this now decides to make a liar of me sooner :-)

From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Classical Top Ten

> Morley, "April Is in My Mistress' Face" --the above was a lie; we got to have
>                                           2 madrigaux.

You sure that's not an L.L. Cool J. tune?

> ... this is because it is a well known fact that Bach is the summit of
> western music & after Beethoven, it ceases to exist. If you don't believe
> me, just ask Hesse or Spengler (-:  Besides, you have to have a hundred
> musicians to play these later johnnies--where's the fun in THAT?

Gee, somehow I never considered the personnel requirements for the Quartet
for the End of Time all that onerous...

From:         crispen <crispen@EFFTOO.BOEING.COM>
Subject:      Re:  singing

> Yup, and when you open up your instrument case, there's always a
> surprise inside!  Sometimes you find a Stradivarius and sometimes
> you find a $99 violin from Sears.  That could explain a lot about
> the way Axl Rose acts.

Yes, I always felt he warranted some explaining. But I think the problem
has more to do with not having an instrument to waggle around. In the Zappa
book, Frank speaks of the musicians' phallic postures with their guitars, and
their sub-Fellini symbolism. A heavy metal musician without his simulated dick
is at a severe competitive disadvantage, and that causes compensating behavior
like beating up photographers (the camera being an obvious yonic symbol :-)

From:         "(Jeff Beer)" <ujwb@UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>
Subject:      Re: dolphy

> Most of Blanchard still is a Wynton clone, but occasionally he breaks
> out of it.  He covered Ornette's Lonely Woman, so at least they know
> there is more to jazz than being a bebop nazi.

Big deal. Everybody and his brother covers "Lonely Woman;" it's Ornette's
"Round Midnight."

When I go see a "real" jazz band, and I'm in a feisty mood, I always request
"Play something by Monk that isn't "Round Midnight." What invariably happens
is "Blue Monk." :-(

From:         "Leonard Watkins" <ISTS024@UABDPO.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: CMA

> (i can't believe you don't like blues)

Why not? As a friend of mine used to say, "If I only knew three chords, I'd
have the blues too!"

You also seem to harbor this notion that rock'n'roll, because it's the popular
form of our time, is inherently inferior art. Which is certainly an easy idea
to get, judging by what's on the radio and eMpTV, but I have grown to think of
any blanket condemnation of a genre as a sign of intellectual laziness. Judging
the entire medium of rock'n'roll by Poison is as unfair as judging all country
by Billy Rae, or calling Ten Years After the apex of blues. There's a lot of
people using rock forms and trappings to do interesting, thought-provoking work
with passion and intensity, co-existing with the soulless money-grubbing hacks.
Listen to the music, and ignore the labels, why don'tcha?

From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Early Music English & Italian Voice & Viol Concert in MA

> If it's before 1600, it's bound to be good  :-)

Yeah, why don't we ennoble the Iraq carnage by referring to it henceforward
as the Fifth Crusade?
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