Dave Matthews Band : Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

and this matters why?

(and what shakey said, jeezes talking heads)

how many of DMB's followers would even go try to get into the backstory of his uber-bland "music" and find his 'roots', so to speak? i'd bet not many.

cultural impact

jeezes talking heads

who have sold nowhere near Paul Simon, let alone DMB.

real scientific

I'm not gonna take your word for that - show me some numbers.

of course Euros know African music. we're talking America here.

uh, what? yr spouting some serious ridiculousness here. America developed Afro-influenced music (gospel blues jazz ad infinitum) long before Euros had even acknowledged the legitimacy of African music.

yes, and we are speaking of contemporary music influenced by the African popular music that was itself influenced by American rock/r&b music. Britishes are more likely to be influenced by such for the same reason that you hear a lot more news about Africa on the BBC than you do on NPR.

I'm not gonna take your word for that - show me some numbers.

LOL. you can search for yourself here

Talking Heads have sold fewer than 8 million records over the course of their career. Paul Simon solo has sold fewer than 16 million. DMB has sold 30 million records, and many millions more in videos.

Didn't mention anything about sales.

Didn't mention anything about sales.

and obviously I'm not backing him up but making my own independent assertion

again, bullshit - Johnny Clegg and Savuka. He never sold as much as DMB, but you can put that down to timing and marketing.

where does someone like Stevie Wonder and his afro-excursions fit into your alternate reality?

uh

where does someone like Stevie Wonder and his afro-excursions fit into your alternate reality?

here's a more useful list of cumulative album sales. f'rinstance...

Michael Jackson 60.5
DMB 30.5
The Cars 23.5
The Police 22.5
Sade 22.5
Stevie Wonder 19.5
Grateul Dead 17.5
Bob Marley 16.5
Paul Simon 13.5

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), August 22nd, 2006.

guess it's a good thing i'm not a 'scientist' then, isn't it? of course, it was a 'scientific' thing i said, now was it?

and keep kickin that dead dead horsie there, ol' gabbneb.
somehow we'll see that point.

SECONDLY AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thirdly, ok, forgot about Bo Diddley, but certainly Dave Mathews Band is the first group of American Musician's to ever be influenced by European music. I mean their use of violin and all.

Michael Jackson 60.5
DMB 30.5"

you gotta admire the way gabbneb's stacked the argument here: by his criteria there's only one person who could possibly challenge DMB's seat as the "biggest selling figure in American pop to incorporate African pop music" ie, Michael Jackson.

............

for a dude with tissue-paper skin about the words-in-mouth thing, you shore do it an awful lot. my real point was, dudes, if you want to take my argument down, you're missing your biggest weapon.

For instance, if I say Dave Mathews is the first band to incorporate european influence with their use of violins, or keyboards, or guitars, or triads, or functional harmony, or the English language that's sarcasism.

If on the other hand I say Dave Mathews is a real Boer, that's a pun.

they were failing at the end a long string of successes

no idea what that means

Much of urban, educated black America was on an afrocentric trip through most of the 1970s, and the music of Africa was definitely in the mix. Every funk band had congas from about 1974 to 1980. Yes, I know the conga is technically an Afro-Cuban invention, but in America in the '70s it was presented as a nod to Mama Africa.

The idea that Dave's bogus little musical safaris were earthshattering breakthroughs is completely laughable. Paul Simon had far greater influence and created much more exposure for South African musicans; the notion the DMB were unique American exponents of Afrian music is as wrong as saying Eric Clapton turned America on to reggae.

xpost: Dave outsold EW&F too. point me to where I said they were earthshattering breakthroughs or created more exposure for South African musicians than Graceland or were unique American exponents of African music. I'm saying that no other artist has so completely integrated it, even at the minimal level dmb does, into their fundamental sound from the very beginning of their career. for everyone else it has been deployed at a particular point in their career, after being well established by other means, and eventually dropped.

I know I am being a bit specious here, but I think you are moving the goalposts around too.

Earth Wind and Fire were African-influenced from the get-go and continued to be so for the entire run of the decade they were most popular. And they were huge in the SOuth in the '70s with both whites and blacks. I'm white and I can't remember a trip to the roller skating rink that I don't tie in with EWF, and Kool and the Gang who were influenced by EWF, and the Gap Band, the Dazz Band, Cameo, etc (all likewise.) Black American music was at a hitherto-unknown apex in the '70s, and Afrocentricism was a huge part of that. Maybe the borrowings from African music were not all that obvious, but they were there nonetheless.

Yeah, DMB has outsold a bunch of people, but so what? How many of his fans can even hear or care about his African influences?

summary-heard WAY more than 2 or 3, unfortunately. and no hating on mass appeal. if he's into making an army of mediocrity lovin fools, then so be it, let the march of blandness continue.
but, the music's still crap. and crap coated in sugar's still crap.
the meatheads would still be available for keg-parties, name calling, and date rapes all the same.
and to call DMB art is the loosest use of the term available, i'd say.