RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

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