Alexander

Rap at this point is an unavoidable part of today's society. Movies, commercials, t.v., cars, bars, ect... It's inescapable. If I could "not" listen to it I would. That said, I understand it's most young people's music of choice and for some an adopted lifestyle. It's a huge part of the landscape these days. I was never into popular music even when I was a kid. I was making my own banjo from scratch and listening to Earl Scruggs records. So the idea of someone like that not digging Wu Tang when he got older ain't that hard to imagine. You're quite right that it is an unavoidable part of today's society, much like jazz, blues and rock were unavoidable parts of society in earlier decades. When something is so omnipresent, I think it's best to find a way to make peace with it. It just doesn't do to be outraged ALL the time (even *I* occasionally have to unplug from religion and politics and just chill).

When will that be, I want to mark my calender. Anyway, if you've seen Mike Judge's film "Idiocracy" you'll remember that the #1 movie in the future is "Ass". Which is a feature film that shows someone's bare ass the whole time. Somehow, I get the feeling that's not so far off the mark of where music's going. Yeah, I'm well aware of the generational divide I've crossed over to. It was marked with the introdution of rap into the mainstream of the 80's. I hated it then and have grown old enough to see that stuff have the "classic" tag hung on it. And just like a generation who didn't get the Beatles, I don't get (or care to get) Biggie Smalls. I just don't see the point of hating. Either find SOMETHING worthwhile in the music, or don't listen to it. That's my ONE critique of Joe Bussard. Great guy with great taste. Very big ears for the narrow strip of territory he's staked out. However, his rants against "modern music" (for Joe that's everything after 1934) are pointless. Crumb hates "modern" stuff, too. It gets tired. Love what you love. Give the other stuff a chance. If it moves you, great. If not, move on.

Delfeayo often works the production end on his brother's albums, but he is a very fine trombonist in his own right. Sometimes I think that all of the Marsali take the heat for Wynton's extreme statements...

I know I've beaten this to death, but this is what I call the "Cultural Gag Reflex." When music "hurts your ears like a hundred dogs," the reason is far more likely to be cultural than musical. Hip Hop and Country are the two most polarizing musical genres, and I believe that it has to do with people's cultural prejudices towards the people who make/consume these genres. Whenever music "hurts my ears like a hundred dogs," that's when I want to sit down and really listen to it. Odds are, once I have confronted my prejudices, I'll find that I actually enjoy the music. I rememeber when I first started listening to Country and Hip Hop. At first, I felt kind of guilty for listening to it. As if this was music that I, a middle-class-white-person-from-the-Northeast-with-an-advanced-degree, wasn't supposed to listen to. This music was not made for me. Eventually, I saw that this attitude was bullshit and that it was what was preventing me from enjoying the music, not the music itself. Now I listen to Country and Hip Hop all the time, and I've found music in both genres that I absolutely adore. It's about being open minded, yes, but it's also about recognizing the absolute subjectivity of taste and experience. And realizing that both are subject to your control.

Are dolphins naturally green or blue? Never could get a handle on that. I always thought that Dolphin Street itself is green (as in it has trees and such) rather than being a street named after a Green Dolphin. Maybe they meant "Green-Dolphy Street"...

I'm really looking forward to this! Forrest Whittaker is a fine actor and one with tremendous range. Here's a man who's acted in films as diverse as "Good Morning, Vietnam," "Ghost Dog," "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," and "Bird." How many actors can claim to have played Charlie Parker AND Idi Amin?!

Wow. As with many serious cases of cancer, it's hard to call this completely unexpected, but it's still a blow when it happens. My thoughts are with his family during this trying time. I remember when my aunt passed away of cancer several years ago. We were sad, but we were also glad that she was out of pain. I imagine that his family must be having similar feelings right now...

RIP. A great musician on her own terms. A shame that she's spent most of her career in her husband's shadow...

In his book The Savage Mind' (1962, English translation 1966), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used the word bricolage to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. Jacques Derrida extends this notion to any discourse. "If one calls bricolage the necessity of borrowing one's concept from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur." A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur. A bricoleur is a person who creates things from existing materials, is creative and resourceful: a person who collects information and things and then puts them together in a way that they were not originally designed to do.

The thing I LOVE about hip hop is that it has actually broadened the definition of the term "musical instrument." A sampler or sequencer, if used to make music, is certainly an instrument. A turntable, when used by a DJ, is an instrument too! A beatboxer, using his mouth, can create beats that put a drum machine to shame! The problem isn't that rap killed music or that rappers (and DJs) aren't musicians, the problem is that our definition of music is too narrow.

This is available through iTunes for $9.99.

I agree with you, Shawn. I loved "Reasonable Doubt" back in the day.....a raw, hard hitting, hungry album....a bona fide hip hop classic. Everything that came after that was pure crap. He's got business sense, but he owes alot more to luck than he does to talent for getting where he is today. He's one of the main reasons hip hop took its plunge from street music to mindless assembly line pop drivel in the late 90s/early 2000s. edit for spelling I think "The Blueprint" and "The Black Album" are very mature statements. Yes, Jay-Z's favorite topic is Jay-Z, but his flow is astonishing. And unlike a good many hip hop artists, Jay-Z is capable of carrying off an entire album all by himself (he doesn't do much in the way of guest stars). As I've said elsewhere, Danger Mouse's "Grey Album" is even better than "The Black Album." But as much as I love the beats, it comes back to Hova's presence and lyrical ability.

I respectfully disagree with this opinion. So do I.

Have a great one!

I have a feeling that another debate on the ethics of downloading is nigh... Danielle, are you useing file-sharing services to obtain these downloads, or are you purchasing them from pay services like iTunes or eMusic? You should know that many people here take a dim view of illegal downloads. Even I, who have no problem swapping copies of discs with friends, am morally opposed to the use of illegal file-sharing services.

Hey! I like gangsta rap! Nas's "Hip Hop is Dead" is a GREAT album!

The Great Wall is an amazing feat of engineering, and had the ancients known of it, they might well have included it. The problem with the more modern "wonders" is that their construction is not a mystery to us. When the ancients compiled their list, they had good reason to call these structures "wonders." They were so vast, so complex, that their construction seemed feats of magic as much as engineering. But the Statue of Liberty? The Eiffel Tower? Even the Taj Mahal and the Kremlin? Beautiful buildings, no doubt, but hardly "wonders." They may inspire admiration, but do they inspire the kind of awe that the Lighthouse of Phaeros inspired in those who lived in Alexandria? I might give a bye to Ankor Watt or Stonehenge. Even the statues of Easter Island. Again, these are ancient structures that the ancients themselves might have included in their list. But I can't include modern structures. We know too much about their builders.

The original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: The Great Pyramid of Giza The Hanging Gardens of Babylon The Statue of Zeus at Olympia The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus The Colossus of Rhodes The Lighthouse of Alexandria How do you improve on that?!

And that Woody Allen did in "Zelig" ten years before that.

Haw! Beck AND Beta Band Fan right here! Just had a lovely listening to "Odelay" earlier today. What a fantastic album... I don't question your right to dislike anything you want. Taste is such a personal thing. It just interests me how something I like so much could completely turn somebody else off. When I worked in the music department at B&N, I used to confront this all the time. I remember one day, a woman came in looking for some "relaxing piano music." Of course, I immediately put on some Bill Evans (probably "Waltz for Debbie" or one of the other LaFaro trio sides). She screwed up her face like I had just shoved cod-liver oil in her mouth and said, "Oh, God! Not that! This makes me very anxious!" I was very taken aback. I'd never met anybody who didn't like Evans immediately, much less anyone who didn't find his playing relaxing! I took it off and tried Keith Jarrett's "Koln Concert" which suited her much better. Another time an older guy came back to the department and complained about the fact that I'd been playing (very mellow) jazz all afternoon on the in-store play. "It's just noise! They're just making it up as they go along! Why don't play some real music?" Taste is such a strange thing...

And they rock, right? I've been struggling for a positive spin, and I think I've finally found one: thanks for saving me $12.99 plus tax. I'm asking seriously: What didn't you like? And did you watch all four videos?

That's a great one too! Have you seen the "Gone Daddy Gone" bug video? Not as good as the others, but still pretty twisted... So Gone Daddy Gone seems to be a pretty straight cover of the Violent Femmes version. Is that the case with any other tracks on St. Elsewhere? All of the other tracks on "St. Elsewhere" are originals, but they do make a habit of doing covers in concert. I heard that at their New Year's Eve show (in support of the Flaming Lips) they did a version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity." I really wish I could have heard that!

And they rock, right?

Perv.

This has been HEAVILY discussed on another thread. And the skit was censored for broadcast. It was "bleep in a box." Yeah, like nobody knew what the bleeped word was. Actually, I've heard comments from several people who saw it on the show first and on the net later. They all thought that it was "cock in a box," which they thought was funnier. They didn't think "dick in a box" was as good. Nevertheless, the point is that they didn't use the WORD "dick" on TV, so the airwaves are technically safe. I don't think the FCC monitors for implied meaning. Just the overt stuff.