Wow! I did not know that LMFAO were son and grandson

[Historian]

The Usual Misinterpretation?

Historian, I wont address your piece except the penultimate pargaraph which may be interpreted at being directed to two posters who reside in T&T. Is this so? If so, do you have that infomation? If not and the statement is a general one directed at people in T&T - that too is totally incorrect.

Maybe we should just shut off our brains like the Lady Gaga crew, or those over in Trinidad & Tobago who dance mindlessly day in and day out to the “wave your flag” wall of cacophony?

Exile, my comment was in no way a reference to you or to the other regular poster on this message board who also resides in Trinidad & Tobago. Based on your music comments (including those YouTube videos you posted featuring those fantastic guitar prodigies in Asia), I have gotten the impression that your taste veers towards a wide variety of Jamaican music and also towards creative jazz forms. You are one person I have always regarded as having genuine eclectic taste in music!

Willi is absolutely correct in his interpretation of my comment. My comment was aimed directly at the many people who I see in photographs and television reports on Carnival, etc. Do you realize that I used the pronoun “those” in my comment? Do you get the impression from this that I mean “all” Trinidadians? Why could you not have interpreted it as it was meant to be interpreted, like Willi so correctly did?

I was referring, in other words, to those proud Trinidadians who make up the numbers who choose to dance day in and day out to today’s soca. And yes, my comment was deliberately caustic as, while soca’s lyrics are often ingenious (including the clever use of figures of speech), the music of the average soca group today is even more banal than dancehall, in my honest opinion!

Exile, stop being so sensitive when I criticize the garbage that’s engulfing the region today (and in increasing numbers)! By the way, make sure that you read Reggaedoc’s excellent input (at the bottom of this thread).

[Reggaedoc]

Well said 'Storian. I think the paradox can be easily explained if one appreciates the fact that Jamaica's rate of illiteracy and aliteracy is the highest it has been in the last 3 decades.
I realy do appreciate the fact that some dancehall artistes, like Beenie Man, should be distinguished from the vast majority of gutter-gas purveyors. The criticism of Gordy, and Clem Dodd is also well placed. I think you should also include Chris Blackwell, who may not only be a good businessman, but also a thief.

[Willi]

Fair enuff.

[Bricktop]

How does Beenie Man performing around the world stop you from enjoying your European music?

[Me]

You are so caught up in your own writing that you are telling me to stop putting down European music. I have not put it down at any point or suggested anything of the like.

You will just never relate to it and people all over (not every person in every part of the globe) will continue to like it.

[Exile]

Will, maybe it sounds nice to write or poetic...but unless he KNOWS people who do so it's either gross generalization or totally inaccurate.

"...or those over in Trinidad & Tobago who dance mindlessly day in and day out to the “wave your flag” wall of cacophony?"

[Willi]

Not at all peeps in TnT. He clearly said those who dance mindlessly to....

[Exile]

Historian, I wont address your piece except the penultimate pargaraph which may be interpreted at being directed to two posters who reside in T&T. Is this so? If so, do you have that infomation? If not and the statement is a general one directed at people in T&T - that too is totally incorrect.

[Historian]

They Are Not "Too Late"

I heard that Beenie Man just finished entertaining the people in St Kitts while all the musical historians on the island were upset about him being there with his non-European music. They are trying to block out the dancehall, but it looks like they are too late.

The “musical historians” you refer to are not too late, I suspect, because dancehall as it is today will surely have a very short shelf life. Do men who utilize the services of prostitutes generally keep them for the long haul?

Now, let me make this clear: I have no problem with Beenie Man’s music, and I’m sure you will note that there are only a handful of names I constantly refer to in my comments on dancehall. Think about it and you will see that this is true. When artists like Ce’Cile and others touch dancehall, the result is magic -- beautiful magic! But no, the masses seem more interested in the garbage of, say, a Sting clash concert or what is being put out by the majority of unemployed people who are trying to make a living the easy way (by grabbing a microphone)!

Dancehall once held much promise, but thanks to its hijacking by decision-makers who are decidedly illiterates as far as melody and harmony and lyrics are concerned (thanks to recording technology, producers nowadays often double as bands), this genre is now an integral element in the wasteland that our region and parts of our world have become.

Stop trying to put down “European music” (and, although you did not directly say it, American jazz and other art forms)!! Give one of our dancehall musicians a simple song, say “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and ask them to develop musically on this theme. Get the picture? Elements of European study are absolutely essential towards ones musical development, which is why serious music students make much sacrifice to study formal music.

Finally, musical popularity means nothing, as if you look back at history, often we find that the lowest common denominator of music will rise to the top of mass acclaim. It’s often all about cold business decisions rather than genuine sincerity in the music. Just take a quick glance at, say, Billboard’s Top 10 charts for any week, or even better, look at some of the embarrassing “episodes” in the development of Western music, for example the emergence of punk rock and rap. We will easily see that success and talent/high standards do not often go together!

Whether we like the genre or not, I’ll say this about country music: It has always been concerned with sincerity and creativity in its output, and so it can by no means be surprising that the country music genre has stood the test of time and is still among the most popular forms of music today!

By the way, the occasional sampling of a dancehall beat by one or two American producers is not surprising, as dancehall has very infectious rhythms! I have always pointed out that fact! So, while we are not likely to see many foreign dancehall bands in the same way that reggae bands were springing up all over our eastern and western hemispheres, we can look forward to an occasional “stealing” of portions of dancehall rhythm.

In the final analysis, though, I have always been amazed at the paradox of a country that can produce a Third World Band, or a Bob Marley and the Wailers, or a Black Uhuru turning around today and descending to the gutter depths of today’s dancehall output!

End note: I already read the report of Mavado’s reception in Ghana, including his on stage performance in front of an audience of some 10,000 fans, so don’t waste your busy time trying to use that as an example of anything but what it is.

[Me]

I heard that Beenie Man just finished entertaining the people in St Kitts while all the musical historians on the island were upset about him being there with his non-European music. They are trying to block out the dancehall, but it looks like they are too late.

[Historian]

Wonderful Comment!!

of the legendary Berry Gordy!

I actually like their upbeat dance chunes.

Grammy on-stage performance mi seh!

Mosiah, my friend, I honestly have no personal problem with you, and I never had . However, you make me laugh with these not-clearly-thought-out-comments that you sometimes make!!

Who, for example, cares if LMFAO continues presenting us with cheap Top 20 hip hop-type dance music, or even turn to dancehall?! (I even note, by the way, that Ne-Yo might be doing a recorded collaboration with Mavado.)

Do you think I give a damn about rap and hip-hop, and even how popular the exponents of these two closely-related genres are? In this case, if LMFAO was a Jamaican duo, they would represent the worst of Jamaican offerings, probably even lower than.... Know what, let me stop here before I upset the seemingly mindless dancehall crew!!

But back to my central theme here. Who cares if Stefan Gordy and Skylar Gordy are related to Berry Gordy? My goodness, man, Berry Gordy, like our own Kenneth “Sir Coxone” Dodd, is a vastly overrated “producer”!! Motown’s greatness was the result of the highly talented songwriters and studio musicians whose salaries businessman Gordy was fortunate to have found himself paying! Do you know how many hits Gordy failed to realize until he was overruled and the particular songs were recorded and became yet another of the long list of Motown smash hits?!

The same applies to Jamaica’s Sir Coxone Dodd, who was neither an arranger or a producer or a musician or an engineer. Rather, Dodd was simply a smart businessman who found himself in the right place at the right time! And my use of the word “smart” here is by no means an admirable or commendable comment!

But let me ask you this, Mosiah: Based on Jamaica’s popular music today (or, to put it another way, Jamaica’s cultural showpiece), what reason does anyone have for supporting an institution like the Jamaica School of Music or even music program in schools, where (no doubt to the dismay of posters like Me, Islandman and others) European “patterns of music” like those agonizing and repetitive diatonic and chromatic scales, etc. and American jazz practices like chord inversions and chord substitutions are taught?!

Maybe we should just shut off our brains like the Lady Gaga crew, or those over in Trinidad & Tobago who dance mindlessly day in and day out to the “wave your flag” wall of cacophony?

I cry for music programs in our country, and in our region! Literally!! LMAO indeed!!

[Me]

They do have quite a interesting vibe to their songs.

[Mosiah]

of the legendary Berry Gordy!

I actually like their upbeat dance chunes.

Grammy on-stage performance mi seh!