Why does black people never want to rock?

also: how can the bad brains, or soul brains as they call themselves now, rock when that cant even show up to play?

black people invented rock music along with everyone else good dontcha know (african song and tribal rhythms were carried by imported slaves, developed over time from chain gangs and ghettos to create delta blues and jazz, reggae, soul etc. - giving us Berry, Lee Hooker, Waters, Gaye, Hendrix, Perry yadda yadda yadda - and inspiring every single white rock band ever esp. the ones that influence today's white rock acts (Stones, Velvets, Zep etc.)

i'm sure you all know this - but it is interesting to see why rock n' roll music is so devoid of successful black artists. perhaps racism in the music industry and the resulting dominance of white male bands alienated black peoples from this form of music back in the 60s. 'they stole the soul' perhaps, but there are still pioneers like reggae/punk dj Don Letts who constantly big up the White Stripes and the Sex Pistols.

for what its worth (fuck all) i notice a host of rock bands over the years with black drummers (ocean colour scene, campag velocet, papa roach, p.o.d...but does anyone remember Living Colour?)

I remember Living Colour. Real good band, as far as I'm concerned. All of their albums, to be honest. But naw, no one remembers them. They even tried a comeback tour this year (or late last year). Miserable failure. I don't think they were wearing spandex or wetsuits, though, which may have been the problem.

Said, Kenny G ain't got no SOULLLL John Coltrane is rock and roll You may dig on the Rolling Stones but they could never ever rock like Nina Simone

What about West Asians in indiepop/rock? Cornershop and Papas Fritas?

I notice nobody's mentioned Rage Against the Machine - love em or loathe em, pretty important. Skunk Anansie, Audioweb - the dubby end of indie. Or Luke Sutherland, king of tortured Scots masculinity. Or Debbie Smith of Echobelly, proving the point that BritPop wasn't all mockernee geezers and lisping girlfriends of the above.

No, it sounds like you're just mystified as to why black people by and large aren't big on indie. I don't think this is a hugely pressing question, or any more pressing than why Puerto Ricans aren't huge on country or Pakistanis aren't necessarily big on Italian opera. It only becomes problematic if you (a) for some reason think of punk-lineage indie rock as "better" or "smarter" than everything else, then (b) suspect that everyone else in the world and non-white races in particular are "lesser" or "dumber" for not liking it, then (c) get all fretty and anxious about this conclusion. Just wipe the (a) part from your thinking, and everything's fine, see?

I'm just going to stare at this phrase for a nice long time, in the hopes that it will somehow disappear with my withering glance.

Jesus, what a question! Christ, what a fuckwit!

Surely no-one has said anything like this? It sounds rather like an inflammatory position you've set up to attack. (Hey, an inflammatory straw man: that's apt.) I suppose it could be, though, that I've not read the thread carefully enough and have missed the bit where someone did say it.

..oh, yeah. Mos Def. He doesn't really understand rock, does he? That song never fails to amuse and irritate me, especially since in the course of his telling us that what we like is no good he fails, himself, to rock at all. The thought of the Rolling Stones attempting to rock like...Nina Simone (give me a break, even I could find a more sensible name that rhymed) is repugnant to me. That's what he'd LIKE? Same goes for his lame arena-rock band (saw 'em, hated 'em). And Living Colour, undermixed guitar, bass and drums, overmixed Pompous Ass vocalist. Saw em THREE times, never liked 'em once (they were always openers, and deservedly so). Had a few good studio tracks. Body Count? Got better during their stay on earth, nearly approached Biohazardish-bare-competence. Funkadelic? Yup, rocked. Didn't get all uppity about it, either (none of that "look, we can rock too! In fact, we're better than you! Nyah, nyah!")Bad Brains? ROCKED effortlessly and proudlike. Does anyone here remember a Philadelphia band called Pure Hell? Had kind of a Bad Brains hype going on but I never did hear them. I think the original post here wasn't THAT bad - the question is, to me, why are so few ALL-black rock bands? Sure, there are great African-American rock artists scattered hither & yon, but overall, they seem not to embrace the rock-BAND format. Is it suspicion of a white format? Starmaking machinery that tells them only one member must be the star? I know plenty of musically openminded black folks, but they don't listen to rock. Everything else is fair game, it seems.

I think there's an interesting cultural conundrum buried in here somewhere. Top 40 music in other genres has crossed over to the indie set, but not Top 40 country music. Why not?

oh you're asking THAT question. take it up with the rolling country thread and chuck eddy et al

drummer from ocean colour scene was black, iirc.

well, pitchfork didn't exist when i was at my whitest and indiest, thank christ...

um, but yeah basically speaking as someone who worshipped uncle tupelo and shit back then, we definitely started to verge over to regular country which i still love to this day as a result of starting with tupelo/jayhawks/palace bros, etc...

obv it started with like townes van zandt, guy clark, jimmy dale gilmore etc...then on to waylon and willie....but then pretty soon a lot of my friends and i were listening to george jones, dwight yoakam (at the height of his commericial popularity circa "this time"), and even dudes like gary allen, (some) alan jackson, randy travis, george strait, and tons of o.g. shit old time nashville stuff

a lot of dudes that were super alt country (way more than me) that i came up with now are just country dudes period, don't even like indie at all anymore

vampire weekend's next record is gonna be country

typo

seems like an indie alt country revival would kinda make sense, by way of the grateful dead and the byrds, lots of nu-psych bands will probably end up going up the country eventually

You know why they keep making CDs when the rest of the world has figured out how to steal/download mp3s? COUNTRY MUSIC.

Why does people want to keep reviving this thread?

i do it for the lulz

http://i.imgur.com/9mNdr.gif

There was like a four page feature on Jamey Johnson in Spin. Brad and Miranda had a little crossover love in 2009 too.

Indie kidz and major country are still def in the "dabbling" stages but the marriage certainly isn't unheard of

I keep forgetting Spin exists.

You know why they keep making CDs when the rest of the world has figured out how to steal/download mp3s? COUNTRY MUSIC.

You know.... there is this funny little (?) thing called prog. It is actually now at its most popular since the mid 70s. And it has never quite caught on in the case of digital downloads. Maybe because people feel like concept albums filled with 30 minute suites and ambitious album artwork is more tempting to buy on CD than on digital files......

COUNTRY MUSIC and NORWEGIANS.

I hope this doesn't seem racist, it's just fascinating.
― Indieholic Anonymous, Tuesday, July 23, 2002 6:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess it did seem rascist...
― Indieholic Anonymous, Tuesday, July 23, 2002 6:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i often think about the title of this thread

didnt know where else to post this

https://medium.com/cuepoint/like-it-is-bob-dylan-explains-what-really-killed-rock-n-roll-f6a4b6587a1a#.xbtohz64s

very good, long read on dylan, race, rock n roll (and NOT the usual mojo history cliches)

that actual interview was discussed in depth on one of the Dylan threads. I don't think this interpretation is a well-kept secret or anything, the fall of the first generation of 50s rock giants (Chuck, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee) is woven into most discussions of the history of the genre, I remember encountering it as a pre-teen watching "The Compleat Beatles" where its discussed in the context of how rock n roll hit a fallow period prior to the Beatles

I feel like Miriam Linna or someone once wrote about some good rockin stuff (albeit you had to look for it) that happened during the fallow period prior to the Beatles.

oh there's definitely good stuff between '60 and '63, it's just that the standard narrative is that rock died when Elvis joined the army/Chuck got arrested/Little Richard retired etc.

well i posted it here more for the race angle, which while not exactly new, idk, was interesting to hear dylan talk about it. his suggestion is something like r&r was black AND white (regardless of the exact roots), but once it was segregated, and once that segregation was enforced, it stopped being r&r as it was originally conceived.

idk how you could look at 60s music and not see that divide (and people periodically attempting to bridge it - Sly, the Stones etc.)

dylan is a pretty smart guy. knows a lot more than he says, i think.

but it's true that most people refuse to acknowledge that "rock and roll", 1963-forward, is a predominantly white musical form. i hate to bring him up, but that was the worst thing about klosterman's nyt garbage- this unquestioned, ingrained belief that rock and roll is a _black_ art form. this, just wall of white delusion and denial.

'59-'63 was a terrible time for the four or five founding behemoths, and a terrible time for the proliferation of Steve Lawrences and Bobby Vees. But, as has often been pointed out, from Motown to Spector to the second wave of doo-wop to girl groups to Pitney/Orbison/Shannon moodiness to lots else, there's no end of great stuff to search out.

I haven't looked at the article, and am certainly not trying to discredit anything Dylan has to say on the matter. He was there, I wasn't (I was, but not really), and he's always interesting on early rock 'n' roll.

"idk how you could look at 60s music and not see that divide (and people periodically attempting to bridge it - Sly, the Stones etc.)"

it is obvious. the divide is there. but i think his point is that it 'died' at that point. sly trying to erode the divide was an attempt, but it was a necessary (and contrived, not necessarily in a bad way) attempt because that initial, organic, conception of it had already died.

"but it's true that most people refuse to acknowledge that "rock and roll", 1963-forward, is a predominantly white musical form. i hate to bring him up, but that was the worst thing about klosterman's nyt garbage- this unquestioned, ingrained belief that rock and roll is a _black_ art form. this, just wall of white delusion and denial."

yep. regardless of racists trying to ignore the black strands, and weird liberals over emphasising the black roots ('IT IS *ALL* BLACK MUSIC!'), regardless of how it happened, the fact is just that most of the innovations have been from white artists. yes i know hendrix is towering, but even as he was bringing his R&B training to what he was doing (and the genre), he was playing in what was already a white rock style. it basically stopped being 'black music' a long time ago.

yeah I'm not disagreeing, I think his point that rock was at least fundamentally different after '59 is correct. Which is why Sly, when he came along, was seen as a welcome exception rather than the rule.

And of course circa 63 Brit acts were all covering material by Black musicians

You'd have to do a detailed check on this to be sure, but my guess is that, starting with the British Invasion bands, white covers of black hits are substantially better by the mid-'60s than in the '55-57 era. I like the original "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" (Exciters) and "Go Now" (Bessie Banks) and "I'm Into Somethin' Good" (Earl-Jean) even better than the more famous covers, but the covers are pretty great too (and probably most people would go with Manfred Mann). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were generally fantastic covering girl group and Motown and Chuck Berry. Compare that with the horrifying Pat Boone-type cover from the '50s. (Exception: the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'.")

That the first three covers I listed were still the bigger hits remained...troublesome? complicated? grossly unfair? Manfred Mann and the Moody Blues and Herman's Hermits all did an excellent job.

You'd have to do a detailed check on this to be sure, but my guess is that, starting with the British Invasion bands, white covers of black hits are substantially better by the mid-'60s than in the '55-57 era. I like the original "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" (Exciters) and "Go Now" (Bessie Banks) and "I'm Into Somethin' Good" (Earl-Jean) even better than the more famous covers, but the covers are pretty great too (and probably most people would go with Manfred Mann). The Beatles and Rolling Stones were generally fantastic covering girl group and Motown and Chuck Berry. Compare that with the horrifying Pat Boone-type cover from the '50s. (Exception: the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'.")

― clemenza

so white people got better at "cultural appropriation"? :)

I brought this point up in this in another thread, but it's probably more relevant to this discussion: It's interesting to look at the R&B chart of 1963 and consider the fact that there was so much overlap with the pop chart at that moment that Billboard stopped publishing an R&B chart for over a year, including all of 1964. In '63 people like Elvis, Roy Orbison, Bobby Darin, and the Beach Boys were placing records on the R&B chart. What was going on then? Were "black music" and "white music" converging? In early '65 the R&B chart comes back but it appears that white acts are seldom on it from that point forward - until the disco period when things get shaken up a little.

various guesses online--

http://www.discomusic.com/forums/showthread.php/42201-The-Missing-Billboard-Soul-Charts-1964-answer-and-Cash-Box-charts-here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_R%26B/Hip-Hop_Songs
From November 30, 1963, to January 23, 1965, there were no Billboard R&B singles charts. The chart was discontinued in late 1963 when Billboard determined it unnecessary due to so much crossover of titles between the R&B and pop charts in light of the rise of Motown.[5] The chart was reinstated with the issue dated January 30, 1965, as "Hot Rhythm and Blues Singles" when differences in musical tastes of the two audiences, caused in part by the British Invasion in 1964, were deemed sufficient to revive it.[citation needed]

^^^ I see one guy in the discomusic thread asking the question but no one takes him up on it (unless I'm missing something)

Down to it, it's a good naive question to ask. And the last points I've just skimmed over are very sensible.
Cultural / race divide is its own answer, as music is closely linked to education, heritage, identity. There hasn't been much white presence in some genres that retain a strong black majority even to this day. You just have to ask black artists what they were listening and admiring to as kids. There's already been much talk elsewhere about the woman side of the history of music (how many listeners even approach 'equality' there ?), which is a similar social question.

hell hath no whining like the whining of an entitled dude who believes in “real rock” pic.twitter.com/E583DZ692E

— maura 🎙 johnston (@maura) December 12, 2017