Music Archives
August 7, 2008
April 21, 2008
Jazz And Gangsta Rap (II)
In addition to ensuring that I'll be labeled forever as "rap scold Douthat", I think these three posts from last week about Bill Cosby, rap and jazz ended up conflating several intertwined but arguably distinct issues - the moral content of rap versus jazz, the artistic content of rap versus jazz, gangsta rap versus the broader universe of rap and hip-hop, non-ironic versus ironic approaches to exploitative entertainment, and probably a few others as well. Rather than trying to untangle them, though, I'll just cop out and suggest you go read Peter Suderman and Michael Brendan Dougherty on these and related subjects.
April 17, 2008
Jazz And Gangsta Rap
I should note, in response to a commenter's point on my last post, that yes, obviously gangsta rap obviously has already been domesticated by the upper-bourgeoisie, becoming a tame sort of protest music for young well-off white kids who aren't really protesting anything. But there's distinction between this sort of domestication and what's happened to jazz, which hasn't just become safe - it's become highbrow. And the following (irony-drenched and NSFW) video notwithstanding, I have a tough time imagining the same thing happening with Dr. Dre. (Moreover, if it does happen - if the fortysomething intellectuals of 2030 end up dragging their griping kids to hear the N.W.A. in the Park concert series - it will be a vastly more plausible indicator of cultural decline than the highbrowfication of Miles Davis.)
August 29, 2007
Songs of a Native Son
Since there's apparently a "cloud over Idaho" at the moment, this seems like a good time to mention that I recently had the privilege of meeting Josh Ritter, an Idaho native and possibly the best American singer-songwriter of his (that is, my) generation. I say this as a certified musical philistine, so by all means take it with a grain of salt, but there are plenty of non-philistines out there who agree with me; Amazon calls his just-released disc "the best album of 2007, hands down, by the most under-accorded American musical genius," though personally I would suggest starting with 2003's Hello Starling and going on from there. If you like Dylan or Leonard Cohen or anyone else in that vein, you owe it to yourself to give him a listen.
Also, he seems like a really nice guy. So hold your head high, Idaho!
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