I Can't Tell If This Article is Serious Or Not - Music

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

I really want this article to be satirical, but it's not on The Onion, sooooo...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/mus...465246002/

(Actually a good point about Brown Sugar though, that song is pretty weird).

YoungPunk

I'm betting they're actually serious. The PC police are really dumb....

Boltzmann
supplier of entropy

Gender: Male
Age: 27

A lot of these lyrics are actually really dumb though, some of them, like “Ebony and Ivory”, I don’t see anything wrong with them. Anyway, I wouldn’t take any article that lists things too seriously, like Kanye says: “n****s be writing bullshit, like they gotta work”. You’re giving them exactly the response they’re hoping for. Also, don’t you see the irony in that you’re offended by an article, because they claim to be offended by something you’re not offended by?

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

antaiospiano wrote:

A lot of these lyrics are actually really dumb though, some of them, like “Ebony and Ivory”, I don’t see anything wrong with them. Anyway, I wouldn’t take any article that lists things too seriously, like Kanye says: “n****s be writing bullshit, like they gotta work”. You’re giving them exactly the response they’re hoping for. Also, don’t you see the irony in that you’re offended by an article, because they claim to be offended by something you’re not offended by?

I'm not offended at all. It's more the fact that this article gets the meaning of the lyrics wrong on occasion, and is poorly written. People can write whatever they want, but it's not above criticism, which is what I want to discuss. I understand that stuff like this happens all the time, but for media to publish articles that attack the content of past art (even if it's Kung Fu Fighting) shows a very strange trend to me.

See this article as well, which was a more interesting way to go about this.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig...nversation

PurpleHazel

LOL at the "Ebony and Ivory" entry. They're not even claiming it's politically incorrect, just "naive." Hell, that could probably apply to a ton of social message music from the 60s and 70s.

"You're Having My Baby" is worse than some of these (also just hilarious).

Boltzmann
supplier of entropy

Gender: Male
Age: 27

Tha1ChiefRocka wrote:

I'm not offended at all. It's more the fact that this article gets the meaning of the lyrics wrong on occasion, and is poorly written. People can write whatever they want, but it's not above criticism, which is what I want to discuss. I understand that stuff like this happens all the time, but for media to publish articles that attack the content of past art (even if it's Kung Fu Fighting) shows a very strange trend to me.

See this article as well, which was a more interesting way to go about this.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig...nversation

Just saying: you’re only making his/her article more well-known with this post. If you would personally tell the writer what is wrong about his article, I would probably back you up.
“Very strange trend”, very predictable trend I would say: The anti-PC police can feast and awkward conversations like these spark up. Exactly what the media wants: unnecessary and meaningless conflicts.

Boltzmann
supplier of entropy

Gender: Male
Age: 27

PurpleHazel wrote:

LOL at the "Ebony and Ivory" entry. They're not even claiming it's politically incorrect, just "naive." Hell, that could probably apply to a ton of social message music from the 60s and 70s.

"You're Having My Baby" is worse than some of these (also just hilarious).

Right? They’re basically saying it wouldn’t be relevant today, like no shit, Einstein’s relativity theory wouldn’t either Laughing

indieshins

Age: 25

Some of these are hilarious - Walk on the Wild Side is fine, Money for Nothing is almost definitely satire (he's playing a character), Turning Japanese I haven't heard, but the thing about "assuming identity" was cringey. It really doesn't seem like a terrible lyric.

I've always thought Brown Sugar was a bit iffy. Heard it once, thought it was a fun song, then looked up the lyrics. I'm still inclined to not let that ruin my enjoyment of it, but I agree its a fair point.
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RichardSauce

I don't agree with all of them necessarily, but with the article's premise being "This shit wouldn't fly today," then yeah, most of these songs would face backlash, whether they were well intentioned like Ebony and Ivory, just having fun like Kung Fu Fighting, or just clueless and insensitive which covers most of the rest.

There are a lot of things, slurs, crass cultural appropriation, bigotry, rape/statutory, that were a lot less permissible today than they were thirty or more years ago, and we're more sensitive even with less serious transgressions. Hell, it's probably worth noting that some of these had at least some blow back at the time, particularly Band Aid, which was always seen as crass.

Personally I would take off Walk on the Wild Side and Ebony and Ivory at least, neither of which really cross any lines, and the latter of which is probably our best attempt at a "increase the peace" message towards race relations. Seriously, it's a thankless job, even the best one's just come off as lame or tone deaf, no matter how well meaning the poor saps who step on that landmine are....anyone remember Brad Paisley's "accidental racist" fiasco from earlier this decade?

I'm surprised they left out Run for Your Life by the Beatles....or In the Summertime by Mungo Jerry, both of those are pretty easy targets.

YoungPunk

Kendrick can say anything and the media will praise it... facts...