From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 18 2005 - 21:05:56 GMT
>Arlo wrote:
>
> > frank sinatra? talk about getting the ol' sex drive going! how many young,
> > nubile teens lost their way because the chairman crooned them into it? is
> > sinatra one of your hippie trippie flower children responsible for the
> > decay of the nation? and peggy lee... don't even get me started... sinatra
> > and miss lee are responsible for more sin! sin!! SIN!!! than those dang ol'
> > clash guys will ever be.
Platt contradicts himself saying:
>One big difference: Frank and Peggy could sing, and Bach and Mozart could
>compose music.
But I thought you were of the opinion that rock's "degeneracy" was founded
in its tribal, sexual beats, and its motivation to induce people into acts
of sexual debauchery? Here you seem to contradict yourself by saying that
music that drives people to engage in sex acts is okay if its
"well-written" (as defined by you)? Your Mozarts and Sinatras and Peggy
Lees, even though their music whips people into sexual frenzies, is
perfectly okay with you, eh?
So if it's its NOT the lewd acts that the music makes people perform, and
simply "not liking the sound", what's the point of all this anger? I mean,
there are many sounds I don't like (low flying airplanes, John Cage, church
hymns, Frank Sinatra, Wagnerian Opera...) and yet I don't attribute the
decline of Western Civilization to them.
So what's it going to be, Platt? Is it what the music makes people do (in
which case you'd have to demonize Sinatra and Mozart as a greater exemplar
of villiany than The Clash)? Or is it the auditory sensations (in which
case neither Sinatra nor The Clash are inherently bad- or inherently
"anything", since Sinatra hurts my ears and The Clash hurts yours)? Unless
you believe yourself to have a superior auditory capacity than I, or the
millions who like The Clash (or any other "rock" band) do, and are able to
make Quality decisions that I am too inadequate to make.
"And what is well written, and what badly -- need we ask Platt, or any
other poet or musician, who ever wrote or will write either a classical or
any other work, in metre or out of metre, rock or country or jazz or
bluegrass or opera writer, to teach us this?". Apparently, we do.
Or... is it one of your Victorian throwbacks that driving people to wild
sex acts (like Sinatra or Mozart do) is okay so long as the "sex" is not
spoken of overtly. Hmmm... but this can't be, the lyrics to Sinatra's
Melody of Love are very overtly sexual (especially compared to The Ramone's
Bonzo Goes to Bitburg).
Some big contradictions here, Platt. Praytell do enlighten...
>And what's with this non use of capital letters? Some "advanced language"
>no doubt. Never mind that it draws attention to itself and away from the
>meaning of what is written.
Too bad you didn't take Pirsig's English class back in Bozeman. You'd have
learned that all these "rules of grammar" are artificial constructs applied
after-the-fact, and only are the focal attention of pretenders. If you
understood my meaning, why be such a prude about capitalization?
At any rate, my deepest apologies if my lack of "proper grammar" bothered
you. Being as it was St. Paddy's day, I was returning from a night of
quaffing many pints of Double Chocolate Stout, and engaging in Pogues
sing-a-longs (Sickbed of Cuchulainn is a great song to sing in a pub!). God
loves those Irish, they "saved civilization" and yet know how to let loose,
sing and drink and have a good time!
Hey... which reminds me. What about polka? Since this music could be
considered the theme music to drunken experience, I suppose it ranks on
your list as the absolute worst of the "hippie, trippie"
decline-of-the-world music? Why not spend as much mental hostility
attacking polka as you feel you need to on rock?
Arlo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Mar 18 2005 - 21:09:25 GMT