Simon Reynolds - C or D

i don't read it anywhere, and it doesn't sound like anything SR would write, to my ears. source?

"As a critic championing Grime, one of my angles – beyond the sheer excitement of the music, the brilliance of the wordplay, the charisma of the MCs – has been ‘you really ought to check this, it’s the voice of the UK streets.’ But I suspect that not many people actually want to hear what the voice of the streets has to say: partly, because it ain’t pretty, and partly, because most people honestly don’t give much of a fu k"

i'm not sure what this conversation is about, really. it seems more about twisting SR's words and biography into a version that everyone can easily despise.

No, it's what's called 'making a point that hasn't been made exactly the same way 64568765387576 times before.'

there's not much diff between paraphrase and quote, i just added the fact that i'm damned if someone who lives in new york is going to tell me what the 'voice' -- singular, ie 'unitary' -- of the uk streets is. how have i twisted anything?

Don't you agree (or not) that saying 'Please don't comment on what Mick Jagger means in "Under My Thumb' or "Some Girls', that's just how Brit rockers speak would be wrong also. Yea, it's a delicate and compllicated thing that needs to be written creatively and thoughtfully, but ignoring it does not seem the same to me as the Matos example upthread of not writing in a review of a punk cd--the guitars are loud.

outside of london i've just been on like a and b roads. "the voice of the streets" in shropshire is sheeps bleating.

"Whereas the true post-Punk spirit manifested today would involve miscegenating Indie-Rock with Grime or Crunk."-Reynold in the Frieze piece

I think on threads in the past, people have discussed the failures of '80s and 90s American rap-rock, and the playing out of the liberal guilt thing among other Anglo musicians who sub-consciously or consciously avoid trying to incorporate current Black pop for fear of being derided aesthetically as phony and insincere.

If anything, the problem is that issue isn't covered enough by most writers, who can never say anything specific about the language/violent imagery/sexism in a hip hop track or album beyond the fact that it exists. As if it's all the same. As if they have mental censors which, when the rapper swears, translates what they hear into a neutral announcement "The rapper used a filthy swear word at this point in the track".

I think the depressing notion here is that everyone is supposed to assume that sexism and extreme physical violence will appear on every single hip hop album; that if you buy a rap album, you're basically asking to hear it. You could argue that its offensiveness is, like say a bass solo, not in itself inflammatory enough to deserve mention. But that's based on both a personal desensitization to violence (sexual or otherwise) and an acceptance of its inescapability in the genre.

Uh no, I read that because it came in second on the P&J that invalidated the comparison, not that it was a stupid comparison in the first place.

x-post - Well the discrepancy he address is in the placing in the P&J poll - my point was more that I think Simon actually mischaracterises Arrested Development's success as being a debacle of left-wing groupthink - it was that in part perhaps, but people were also genuinely loving at least the big singles (the best modern day reference point for Arrested Development is surely Outkast?!?!?) - anyway it's a pretty minor point and all, I was just thinking that, even though I agree with Simon in preferring Public Enemy to Arrested Development, I still hear the latter more than the former these days. Which is why the whole "will this still be important in ten years" argument is always the least effective a critic can draw on - because who the fuck really knows what people in ten years will think and do we really want to give them that much power over us?

Anthony I hope you meant this to be as funny as it is.

- jme, 'final boss'

From Amnesty International 2004:
Since the beginning of April 2004, 190 children have been recruited to fight, according to information provided by UNICEF. This brings the number of verified cases this year to 330.

Many of these children have been forcibly abducted from public places or their homes. Some of the new recruits are as young as fourteen.

The Tamil Tigers are also increasingly re-recruiting former child soldiers by force. In one case in May, four children who had left the Tamil Tigers were taken away from their homes in the middle of the night. Their families say they were violently assaulted when they tried to intervene.

In another case, Tamil Tigers set fire to a house in Sinnathatumunai, eastern Sri Lanka, and broke down the doors of nine others.

In the eastern Vaharai area, relatives were beaten with wooden sticks when they tried to stop their children being taken away. In one instance a woman was knocked unconscious, and another was cut on the face. Both needed medical treatment.

"The Tamil Tigers leadership must issue orders to its cadres to stop these violent and intimidating tactics immediately," said Amnesty International. "It should stick to its earlier commitments to stop the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Children in its ranks should be returned to their homes and not face the threat of re-recruitment."

Last year over 1,200 children were enlisted as soldiers, but in June 2003 the Tamil Tigers promised to stop using children in a joint agreement, Action Plan for Children affected by War. "

By the way they are still recruiting child soldiers.

Also, I 'd like to ask shouldn't people who are writing positive reviews of songs that are sexist, racist, homophobic or whatever have to justify why they think anyone else should waste their time listening to them despite that?