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ch-scene - "Is Stephin Merritt a racist because he doesn't like hip-hop?"

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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: "Is Stephin Merritt a racist because he doesn't like hip-hop?"
  • Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 09:41:47 -0400

Probably already discussed to death on that other, hipper music list you're all on, but it's Friday and I got precious little to do at work at present:

http://www.slate.com/id/2141421/

Steve Albini sez: http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=223811#223811

Jessica Hopper claims that it's not Stephin's embrace of "Zippity Doo Dah" *nor* his distaste for Beyonce (um, OK), but rather his "unconcern for the last 50 years of black music" ( http://tiny.abstractdynamics.org/archives/007762.html ) that calls his racial politics into question. (Simon Reynolds elucidates further here:
http://blissout.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_blissout_archive.html#114668681783360454 )

So: how many records by artists of races other than one's own does one have to own/listen to in order to escape charges of racism? And does one have to keep the collection current? I mean, a majority of the black people in my record collection are either dead or at least really old, I suspect, though I haven't exactly done a census.

I find a lot of the current hip-hop that I'm exposed to, via TV & radio, to be pretty boring, repetitive, and derivative. Those exact same adjectives could also be used to describe my feelings about most music of most other genres as well, though. Go figure. Pop culture can be boring. Who'd a thunk it? I also know that there's a tiny subset of current hip-hop that's consistently pushing the envelope & is every bit as exciting, presumably, as the tiny subset of indie-rock that's still interesting. I don't really buy much/any indie-rock anymore, either. The last 3 CDs I bought were that new Candi Staton (meme collision: the best song on it was written by Will Oldham), that Pyramid album from last year, and Muddy Waters' "Hard Again." (the half-dozen before that were either local [indie-rock] bands or the Rhino Doo-Wop and Girl Groups box sets, depending on how you count to six).

So I may not be a racist, but rather just a terminal square? Whatever happened to just gleefully mocking peoples' musical tastes themselves?

Ross




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