The show came on at 8pm and Jamie Fox needed to be bleeped out four times in the first ten minutes.
Then, he performed Blame It On The Alcohol while climbing out of a giant bottle of alcohol.
T Pain had on a chain that said "Big Ass Chain."
And then, if you watched more than thirty minutes of the show you recognized a few things. The juxtaposition of the O'Jays, New Edition, BVD with Kerie Hilton, Lil Wayne and Drake made it clear that there is a reason the camera wasn't panning the entire audience as word after word from Wayne's mouth was bleeped out.
But you know, none of that is too important. The real problem I have is that I can't get my moms to listen to the lil Wayne album. No, scratch that - I can't bring myself to play the album when I'm in the car with me. And while I think the new Wale joint is dope - when I went to recommended it to one of my mentors, in the back of my head I knew he wouldn't listen to it because there was too much profanity, and there were moments of disrespect.
But more than that, my favorite artist's thank the haters way too much.
So what's the point? I got to thinking as I pulled back from giving an older brother I know a copy of a cd of mine that the problem with Hip Hop isn't that the artists are troubled - whatever that means. I think that the love songs, that the Motown songs, the 80s - that the music was representing something better than the people lived. But that doesn't make since either. What makes sense is that the audience was rocking when the 80s groups came out. When Guy came on stage the entire crowd rocked, danced. No words got bleeped out. New Edition came out and Bobby Brown was still getting his dance on with the extra weight. He would have been straight if he kept his tongue in his mouth.
I just wonder if the excesses and materialism in our lives, in the lives of wealthy celebrities who can make light of the recession, has bled into the music so much so that it's losing it's relevancy. I'm sounding like a purist, but I'm wondering how much of a hypocrite am I for liking the beat to "I Just Wanna F- Every Girl In The World" and knowing that in a few years I won't be listening to music I like cause I can't play a whole song without teaching my son to swear.
Last comment - the awards were part awards and part dedication to MJ. I walked away thinking that whatever MJ was in his life - his music has this enormous range that says that you can write a song, sing a song and it resound and represent something more of what you want to be than, maybe, anything you do. That's a blessing, and something to be sad about - I guess.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Loved BET's willingness to gut the show they had planned and reconfigure it as a tribute to MJ. Janet's appearance was a touching surprise. The O'Jays segment was a dancing-in-my-livingroom flashback (even though Don Cornelius was a bit puzzling). The Lil Wayne performance was troubling. How can you sing a song about wanting to f**k all the girls in the world with those very young girls on the stage? The dissonance was disconcerting.
I didn't see a gutted show. What I saw was the show they originally planned with a MJ centered monologue in the beginning. And 5 poorly done MJ song performances. That was NOT a tribute to what Michael Jackson meant to music. They added a couple of performances to the schedule made a montage and called it a tribute show. It was embarrassing and at some points unwatchable. What BET executive thought it was okay for pre-teen girls to dance on stage while a performance of "I want to f**k all the girls in the world" was going on? What executive thought it was okay to perform a song where every other word needs to be bleeped live? In what way does that poorly planned, poorly executed show reflect any of Michael Jackson's work?
Atlantapril -
I didn't see Janet's appearance. doesn't mean she wasnt' there.
However, I recorded everything, painfully at times, but did not want to record any commercials.
Joe Jackson (the father) was there for some reason. Who knows why. (well, we all basically know. I mean, there was not a single effing tear in his eyes. Just $$-signs)
Janet did not show, nor should she have. Sheesh, her brother closest to her just died.
It's gonna be a rough and ugly road for the entire family. Everybody wants some money!!
The up-coming 'remembrance' tour???? Just a way for the family to suck up some money off of Michael. I would never go. Sick.
Just let him be. Have him have his peace. For crying out loud.
Janet did show and she thanked everyone for all of the love and support at the end of the awards show. I think we spend way too much time judging other folks' families.
I hear you... I have the same struggle sharing the art I love with the older generation because I fear it is too raw for them. But, in the words of the always immortal Carlin, 'Bitch, Cock, Motherfucker, Tits, Shit' and whatever the other seven words were.
We don't live in a polite world. Ain't a goddamned motherfucking thing sweet about the world we live in. If you've found some love and happiness, then wonderful, but the default state of this world is suffering and cruelty. I'll take art that is true over art that is wishful thinking any day. And yeah, with the MJ thing, we've only begun to watch the vultures circle. It'll get ALOT worse before it passes. I've already had to take one of my daily reads (Pandagon) off my favorites list behind some ignorant posts about Mike, and it won't surprise me if I break off more.
And since I missed my chance to comment on the MJ thread before TNC (very justifiably) cut off comments, lemme be clear where I stand.
I don't think Michael Jackson ever molested any child. I think he was a very troubled individual, very possibly homosexual (which would make him the posterchild of the destructive power of 'the closet'). And it is no secret he had his childhood taken from him by a culture that demands the souls of those who entertain us, and he tried to buy a 'do-over' with his vast wealth. The presence of 'other kids' made this fantasy more real, and when he slept in the same bed as some kids I am sure he thought of it as the same as just another kid having a sleepover with some friends.
That being said, he wasn't a kid, he was an adult, and he should have damned well known better. His actions, while not what his accusers said, were innappropriate and irresponsible.
For some great reporting on the issue I recommend this article
Ok, now Imma stop because I just wrote a very offensive paragraph (and then deleted it) about how I feel about ignorant haters and I'm no longer writing productively. RIP MJ.
Carlin knew he was being edgy when he did the seven words routine. Somewhere along the line I got distracted from what I was saying - but it's not just the cursing. It's the insanity of having on a chain that says: big ass chain. It's the shamelessness of stepping out of a bottle of champagne to perform a song - and it's the lyrics, the cursing and the general town of the lyrics that says to me on multiple levels hip hop really ain't motown. I guess the thing is the world is not polite - but I love that I can play Lupe around my elders, and I love that I've heard Sonia Sanchez quote Rakim and I know that's because they don't curse on gp.
You bring up some good points and that article was great. Who really knows what went on with MJ and those boys?
Also, didn't R. Kelly actually video tape himself urinating on young girls? Didn't Woody Allen actually marry his step daughter?
There's an article in the Daily Mail that basically seems to confirm your thoughts on MJ. Via Andrew:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-gayness-of-michael-jackson.html#more
I've never understood people's reactions to swearing...I think the worst you can say about it is it's not polite, but other than that, I don't really get why people get so upset about it.
As for lil wayne singing 'I wanna f*ck all the girls in the world', would it be better if he said I wanna have sex with all the girls in the world? or I wanna make love to all the girls in the world? The issue in that song isn't the swearing, it's the objectification and degradation of women, and that goes far beyond the world of hip hop or swear words.
I personally like swearing...I may not like how lil wayne used it, but that's not the only way it can be used...I think it expresses a range of emotions that regular words can't. And I just think there are way bigger and better things in this world to get upset about.
But my larger point was this assertion, which may be false, that a lot of the music in the past represented the artists giving moments through music where they were better than themselves. Moments that let us listen to the music and think that we could be better than we were. It's not just the swearing.
It's what I'm calling the lack of those moments that you take with you when you're fifty, the lines from songs that ten, twenty years from now you'll be asking your folks - man you remember when.
But in a way I'm being melodramatic. Time will let me know if I'm right. For now I say cop the Wale.
So it isn't about the swearing? I think that was my point.
These songs are pathetic to listen to because they're pathetic to listen to...not because of the swearing.
Listen to any good comedian, and you'll know swearing can be used for really effective means.
And Wale who just did a song with Lady Gaga?
Just some random thoughts from the show:
If Lil Wayne, TI, Cash Money etc. is considered Rap music, I no longer listen to Rap Music. I just can't support it. Its like my honey from "I Used to Love HER" lost her mind, her education, her common sense :P and became a crackhead sucking whatever for quarters on the block. "Yeah I had to drop her cause she caught on the plastic and I just couldn't stop her"
It was sick but not at all surprising the way Joe Jackson went up there to pimp his new project.
Hair extensions have officially jumped the shark...was there any real hair in the house!? :P
There should be a rule about wearing leather in the summer.
Maxwell was tight. Gonna buy me that CD.
Like I've said before, if you depend on the mainstream media complex for your hip-hop you should just hang it up and listen to Burt Bacharach from now on.
There is incredibly diverse, complex, and substantive hip-hop being made every day, but it doesn't get played on the radio. Matter of fact, I haven't turned my radio dial to a rap station (or modern rock for the same reason) for probably a year or more. I just stick to classic rock and jazz stations or NPR.
Please, for the love of God can hip-hop heads cut the "if artist X is hip-hop, then..." ominous statements out of their fucking lexicons? Yes, Common is dope. "I Used to Love HER" is a great song and metaphor. And yes, "I Wish I Could Fuck Every Girl In the World" is frivolous to say the least. But have you actually listened to a decent sample of Weezy's stuff? Never mind his sick mixtape stuff, you can even listen to his unabashedly Top 40 shit. How can you be mad at "A Milli"? How? The beat is INSANE and he spits fire:
"Like a menstrual/bleed through the pencil/and leak on the sheet of the tablet in my mind/Cuz I don't write shit cuz I aint got time"
He is clearly an exceptionally talented simile/metaphor beast. Have you hear "I'm Illy" off of TI's last album? The song is a fucking masterpiece, complete with operatic/gregorian chant beat and sick delivery. Its not all or nothing people. You can call someone out for stupidity/bad judgement/sucking on one occasion(see: Nas' abysmal "You Owe Me") while still affirming their intelligence/good judgement/talent on another (see: All of Illmatic).
On the plus side, the Death of Autotune video was pretty dope. One of the few times a music video actually made me like a song even more.
Death of Autotune was dope.
Didn't catch the awards but I listened to some clips later. One thing caught my attention.
Jame Foxx said something like "Michael Jackson was a BLACK man. He belonged to us, and we shared him with the world."
A little narcisstic, ya think? Its like Jamie is saying by virtue of his race he had some personal stake in selflessly sharing Michael with the world. Gag. What really bothers me about it was that was exactly the attitude that Michael had to grow up with. People constantly tried to us his talent for their own personal gain. And now Jamie is doing the same thing after he is dead.
Let's see. We had 40 year old Jaime Foxx singing about getting drunk, and riding raw. T-pain wearing a diamond and platinum necklace that could fund a public school for 2 years, and Lil Wayne giving the call to young men to use women basically for masturbatory purposes. Wow. Any of you dudes have daughters? How should my daughter reconcile this with her self image?
Michael's music did begin to feel sterile in the later years, but is this progress? Not that entertainment always has to be value added with a parable, but let's at least admit that media and culture are inextricably joined, and kids are socialized more through this interaction than any other. Ready to turn in my cool card, and not even gonna miss it.
I second that emotion. I have a teenage daughter. I want to be open-minded, but I can't reconcile that with the attitude towards women in a lot of this music and the imagery that goes with it. I know it's all over the culture now, not just in hip hop, but that genre does seem to be one of the biggest offenders.
I really don't have a dog in this hunt. But let me say there will always be differences between generations about music. Jazz and blues were considered subversive and dirty in the flower of their heyday. Rock and roll, punk, and so on. But this conversation reminds me a bit of the complaint Steve Harvey had with contemporary music that was similar to one made by the novelist Henry Miller, whose writing still seems filled with nasty decades later. Miller (speaking about the sexual revolution) said, "oh we had just as much sex in the old days, but there was a lot more love involved."
If Debra Lee had spent as much time on her hair (which was whipped) as she did on the Awards show it would have been quite the production. Too bad she didn't as it was a hot mess last night.
Having taught in an inner-city public high school for the last two decades, I will simply say that the disgusting misogynistic music my students pump into their brains for hours every day simply builds a mental ghetto inside their head, and helps to keep them physically in the ghettos they go home to each afternoon.
It empowers an anti-intellectual, hateful, and violent world view. Every time I go to a funeral for one of my kids and look out over the sea of memorial death t-shirts, there's some photo on the shirt of the kid in the coffin throwing signs and scowling.
Just like 'Lil-whoever.
Word.
I would never in any shape form or fashion have my mother listen to lil wayne.
Dwayne - you nailed what's wrong with too much of this stuff, and the narcissism and utter cluelessness of a lot of the "artists." And don't put your embarrassment and discomfort with this on the older folks - believe me we can handle it. I don't listen to much of this music because it bores the shit out of me, not because it's too "heavy" or "profane." That's just me, but I think it' speaks for a lot of folks who grew up on music that, at least in our perception, has more depth and complexity and speaks to a broader range of human experience. The core of this post is the thing about your kids and that's really about you - in a good way.
"I fear it is too raw for them." Nah....it's too "processed commercial narcissitic shit fronting as 'raw'." Big difference. When Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and even George Carlin did their stuff, it had some relevance and context. Now, at least so far as the incessant profanity and dumb compulsive sexuality goes, not so much. Pretty boring. Pretty thin.
"when he slept in the same bed as some kids I am sure he..."
How are you so sure, since you tell us "We don't live in a polite world. Ain't a goddamned motherfucking thing sweet about the world we live in" ???? I think you're doing your own share of wishful thinking.
I'm not sure of a goddamned thing about Jackson except he was obviously weird and struck me as pretty empty and clueless, but frankly I don't give a shit. I just want his sorry dead ass off my Teevee, because among other more important things the Iranians are actually doing something to change their world and this mindless, obsessive drivel labeled "news" - with even Jesse "Where's the camera?" Jackson rattling on about "seconod autopsy", blah the fuck blah - is enough to make any sane person puke. Michael Jackson didn't account for much, certainly not on a worldscale of epic events, when he was alive - decent pop, cool choreography, great dance moves - everything else was hype - and idiots like Jamie Foxx can't make him matter more now that he's gone. ("We shared him with the world?" Shut up Jamie before everyone is even more dead certain you're an asshole than they already are.) May MJ rest in peace. Which means folks who loved him as an entertainer and folks who for whatever reasons weren't as impressed or were repulsed by his persona should all STFU. If fans want to fill their iPods with his stuff to remember whatever good old days they had listening to Michael, fine. But we're witnessing something very sick and repulsive - and it's not just the media and the "haters", it's also the defensive, obsessive fans who need to get a grip. Frankly, the fans are feeding the media frenzy, not folks like me to whom he wasn't a very impressive contributor to "great black music", nor a compelling person (except in the way a traffic accident is compelling.)
Incidentally, I saw some bloviator on MSNBC this morning state that part of MJ's importance was that he was the first black pop star embraced in the Middle East. If that's true, on the culture front that's very, very sad for the Middle East and for us. (Some of you might recall the interrogation scene in Syriana.) MJ was a creature of the US entertainment empire, not an ambassador for the best of America in the spirit of (laugh only if you're an asshole ignorant of cultural history) Louis Armstrong, and many, many other great music figures. (I'll give him props for the corny but utterly well-intentioned "We are the World", but his image was downhill from there as, apparently, was his whole life. That was a quarter of a century ago and has barely been mentioned in the obits or linked to by fans - the latter for understandable reasons if you've got any taste in music.)
Hope none of this was too raw...
It's pretty raw, but I hear you to an extent. There's a peaceful revolution being met by brutal force going on in a country that's of grave importance to us. That should be top priority.
But it's too hard for us on the whole to understand that. Either most of us don't want to take the time to learn what's going on, or the MSM has decided we can't possibly know what's going on. There was a headline on HuffPo this weekend that said something like "Jackson's death may doom Iranians." That's an unbelievably sad headline, but it says a lot about us.
The "sick and repulsive" thing I find about all of this, is that the same media that is lifting him above the Iranian revolution is the same one that stalked him and tore him down when it suited them to do so.
Well, for one thing, I'm the one who said the comment about the world we live in not being sweet, not Dwayne.
For another, I think you vastly underestimate the effect MJ had on us as a nation and on the world. It's not about him, as much as it's about the people he affected and the difference that made in their perceptions and attitudes.
Also, I think you are making the same mistake alot of people make when it comes to today's music, and thinking that what the mainstream shows is all there is. Forget Jamie Foxx and try out Anthony Hamilton. Then listen to some Talib Kweli, who curses profusely, and tell me that today's music doesn't have as much 'depth and complexity' as the older stuff.
And for comedians, Chapelle's work, to me is some of the most insightful comedy ever made.
Sorry I shifted gears without making it clear who I was responding to.
I love Dave Chappelle - I was reacting to the stuff about Lil Wayne, etc. Also was focused on "mainstream" because this was about the BET show. I know there's always going to be some good music, but the context of black music has radically changed - in some ways very much for the better in terms of artist remuneration, but also much more commercialized and IMHO a much bigger "asshole factor" - or at least "I don't give a shit if I'm percieved as an asshole" factor. (There have always been assholes.)
" I think you vastly underestimate the effect MJ had on us as a nation and on the world. It's not about him, as much as it's about the people he affected and the difference that made in their perceptions and attitudes."
Possible - but you'd have to explain that one to me sometime when I'm not on sensory overload with total fucking morons repeating something to that effect on my TeeVee to the exclusion of any other news and backing it up with nothing but repetition and bromides. Right now it seems like the difference he made was to make people stupid...but I'm MJ'd out for quite a while now. Probably for about as long as it's been since his music was interesting.
IMO, the mistake here is believing that MJ's death has somehow preempted substantial discussion and coverage of whats going on in Iran.
That already was not taking palce on your TeeVee.
If it wasn't MJ, it would have been Sanford affair coverage 24/7.
One thing I find kind of amazing since I didn't grow up listening to hip-hop is the amount of pressure on artists to be high brow or have some socially positive message in the music. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I think we should cut the genre a little slack.
From the late 70s until the early 90s, there was pretty much no pressure on mainstream rock to be intelligent or progressive. You could find it in the punk community of course, but that died pretty quickly and was kept on life-support through the underground band of the 80s (The Replacements, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., etc.--profiled in the book Our Band Could Be Your Life). Think about it, the good old days of hip-hop, or what many consider to be the good old days, occurred at a time when Poison, Motley Crue, and Bon Jovi were huge. We do write off those bands as cheesy now, but there's not the same sort of animus towards them as materialistic rappers get now.
I guess what I have trouble with is saying that hip-hop on the whole has been completely co-opted. Probably my favorite episode of the Boondocks is the BET episode, where they basically say that the network is a conspiracy against black people. I wouldn't go that far (besides it's satire) but I wouldn't want rock/alternative music to face harsh judgments based on the MTV video music awards (although now that show features more rappers, maybe a sign that, yeah, it's pretty mainstream now).
I think I just realized why materialistic hip-hop gets criticized more than it's counterparts in pop and rock. It seems to me that aside from a pressure to be more artistic, there is also the belief that it feeds into stereotypes. Nirvana kinda fed into the belief in teenage angst, and 80s metal fed into the belief of Reagan-inspired white person excess, but the stakes seem to be so much higher when you apply the same idea to hip-hop. That, to me, is unfair, but maybe it's reality.
The other bit is that you have earlier Hip Hop artists that get a really bad reputation for stuff that is *hugely* socially relevant and very intelligent. Look at how Public Enemy was perceived in their time, while metal bands that were every bit as formulaic, misogynistic and violence-worshiping as the people Dwayne is talking about today mostly got a pass.
But to quibble, though you list him as an example, IMO Bon Jovi is an exception to the rule of metal bands being violent and misogynistic, I glossed over him in the 90s, but I knew a lot of people who liked him (all women!) and upon reacquaintance his stuff is not embarrassing to listen to or sing in the way that most of the metal of that era is.
That's a fair point on Bon Jovi. My aunt is a superfan. I guess the reason I included them was because I don't see their music as particularly deep or socially conscious.
"In fairness" Bon Jovi and Sambora just put out a "Stand By Me" music video in Farsi with an Iranian singer.
"Poison, Motley Crue, and Bon Jovi were huge. We do write off those bands as cheesy now, but there's not the same sort of animus towards them as materialistic rappers get now."
Frankly, I think there was as much disdain from folks who started paying attention to rock when it was Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc. - I wasn't ancient yet in the '80s and those guys were dead to me, although I grew up even when I was little loving Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and then on through Dylan, the Stones, etc. Bon Jovi might as well have not existed, for anyone who loved great rock and roll when, at least it seemed, the music mattered. The deal with my annoyance at the state of black music these days is that black music was always a source for something great - it was where anybody who gave a shit about great popular music would always look for iinspiration and genius. I blame it on commerce more than anything else - and "artists" becoming saavy marketers first and foremost - but that's not true anymore IMHO. Black music is just as likely to suck as the rest of it. Beyond the questioin of the music, as far as the impact on the culture of youth goes, see the comment by crossdotcurve above - very disturbing. Most black kids don't have as much slack to fuck around as a lot of white kids do, so the impact of this culture on inner city kids is more significant than how Lil Wayne is playing out in the suburbs. Hard to just dismiss that as unfair to Lil Wayne, which of course it is - all the way to Lil Wayne's bank.
Ummm... I haven't read all the comments so apologies if this was already covered, but you managed to butcher a couple of names in your post:
Jamie Foxx
Keri Hilson
BBD
Just thought I'd share.
IF there were a BET Awards 25- 30 years ago, you would have seen:
- Rick James singing about weed ('Mary Jane', 'Below the Funk (Pass the J)') and fuggin ('Superfreak', 'Give It to Me');
- Prince up there in a trench coat and panties singing 'Head', 'Do Me Baby' and 'Sister'. Backed by his girl groups doing songs like 'Nasty Girl' and 'Sex Shooter'
- Representing the 'ladies', Evelyn 'Champagne' King would have performed 'Love Come Down'.
- For the 'grown and sexy', Ronald Isley would have been up there moaning throught the last 3 minutes of 'Between The Sheets' ('I love the way you receive me', huhhhh!). And of course, Marvin Gaye hits the crowd with 'Sexual Healing'.
Would your 'mentors' have wanted to hear those songs and performances too? Hell, I haven't even touched some of the chitlin circuit, Johnny Taylor/Clarence Carter stuff that was getting played in my house.
Look. I believe the rawness of some of the stuff on the radio needs to be toned way the hell down. But us young old folk (mid 30's to mid 40's) need to cut that 'glory days' rose colored glasses view of the music we grew up on too.
None of those are nearly as profane as "I want to F every girl in the world" featuring 12 year old girls dancing on stage.
Good point, SJ. I also agree that sometimes we (young-ole folks) reminisce a little too hard. But last night... was like... being at a sure nuff funeral. i mean, from the opening... who let Uncle Ray Ray and them do that performance. Everybody showing their rehab bruises, making us cringe before the darn show could barely begin. Jamie's comic relief reminded me of that cousin who turns pain into something bearable, but at the end of the night, you go home and pass out like a six-year-old who played outside allll day.
Another thought... sometimes you have to let the young'uns embarrass themselves or us so that we can stop pretending that we don't know what they are doing and how this crazy world is affecting them.
TaNehisi, give the cds to your mentors, and ask them where do we possibly begin... to make a change? just a thought.
Maybe not.
But that doesn't change the fact that those songs and video presentations I listed could easily be considered profane and not something I'd want to play for my mentors, which IMO was what the OP was lamenting.
What's telling about the differences IMHO is that your "mentors" would have likely been listening to most of the music you referenced - maybe not caught up with Prince yet, but definitely the Isleys, Johnny Taylor, Marvin, etc etc.
Also, you left out Millie Jackson...but of course she was marketed as "adults only" back in the day. Some of your mentors probably would have had some Millie cuts stuck in the back of their album collection at home and would have been embarrassed to play it for you.
That show was pathetic. Absolutely, positively, pathetic. And, that's the clean version of what I want to say, cause I don't want to be banned.
The BET is not exactly high brow entertainment. Personally in light of the circumstances I think they did a decent enough job given the time. The Man is the greatest Pop Star of all time & arguably the strongest influence on Pop & R&B of the last 25 years besides the genre of Hiphop itself. I'm sure come Grammy Time we'll have all kinds of drawn out tributes. I'm partial to the "celebrate the life, don't mourn the death" view of things and I think Jamie Foxx best embodied that.
Frankly, I think there was as much disdain from folks who started paying attention to rock when it was Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc. - I wasn't ancient yet in the '80s and those guys were dead to me, although I grew up even when I was little loving Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis and then on through Dylan, the Stones, etc. Bon Jovi might as well have not existed, for anyone who loved great rock and roll when, at least it seemed, the music mattered.
Yeesh! Has someone checked your expiration date yet? You smell sour!
Have you checked Bon Jovi's expiration date - I think it was a while back. Honest to god, I don't know anybody - even folks who were teenagers then - who gives a shit about Bon Jovi and most people I know listen to a lot of music.
But he seems like a nice guy...
I wasn't defending Bon Jovi's honor in particular, just commenting on the old & bitter notes of your vintage bottle. But now that you mention it "Livin' on a Prayer" may be the best song of all time, depending on how much you've had to drink & whether or not it's a karaoke bar.
You're not exactly a genial type yourself. Check the mirror.
Greetings, all...
"Look. I believe the rawness of some of the stuff on the radio needs to be toned way the hell down. But us young old folk (mid 30's to mid 40's) need to cut that 'glory days' rose colored glasses view of the music we grew up on too."
You know, I think that's a good point, because lately, I've found myself saying "the music back then was". or "the music back then didn't say" or "didn't do" such and such. However, I'm not sure how true that was. I listened to (and stil do) to a wide array of music, from rock, country house, R&B, etc., and a few songs that come to mind that were quite explicit "Hot Blooded" by Foreinger was one... "I Wanna Sex you Up" by Color me Badd was another. So I'm just saying that perhaps the songs weren't as "squeaky clean" as we like to think they were lol.
Having said that, though, I won't even play a lot of the "aminstream music" that's out today in front of my step daughter.
Every body wants to talk about how bad music or rap is right now... music is always a reflection of reality. Lil Wayne exists in real life. He does want to F*ck every girl in the world. The problem is not how can he say that... it is why does he feel like that. What makes him not want to respect women, even though he has a mother and a daughter??? Society is at a all time low... Poverty in the hood is at an all time high, foreclosure rate is at an all time high. People are drinking and fu*king and blaming it on the alcohol.
Music has always been this reflection, yes people are way more profane than they used to be in music... because people are more profane in real life. The crack epidemic had destroyed the black family, so who is to tell these kids that it is not necessary to swear every other word to get your point across.
Also I may add who gives a fu*k about using swear words... who is to say fu*k is bad and sex is good... completely irrelevant in the real world. If we had peace and prosperity around the globe the words we use there would be no right and wrong words... their just words people. One day somebody said no you can't say that, and it stuck. Just like one day people said blacks were not 100% human and that stuck. We need to get rid of these mentalities of there is one correct way to talk or be. There is simply not a right way of talking or being. Peace and prosperity needs to be the focus of discussion.
Thank god for rap music. Who knows where real nig*as in the hood would be without rap music. You mean to tell me that every black male is bad because he cusses and sags his pants??? No we have no culture and no identity beyond hip hop.
Some people just don't accept it... they can fu^k off.
enumbaz,
I'll tell you where the "real niggers in the hood" would be without hateful, violent, misogynistic music pumping into their brains for hours a day.
They'd be a hell of a lot better off.
And you can fuck off as well.
Signed,
20 years of working in the hood
Word.
Wowww you work in the hood and come to realize that the reason people in the hood are the way they are is because of rap music...
Now please note that I never said hip hop in its current state is helping the situation, I am clearly pointing out that it is a reflection of peoples living situation. Period.
Signed,
against self appointed guardians of the status quo'