Writes Dan Charnas, a professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYT, in "Pop Music Is the Problem" (NYT gift link).
Here's how I'd frame the question: Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?
There are 2 directions to go with that question. You could say it's white supremacy or you could say it's anti-racism. It's part of white supremacy if there's an assumption that what white people do is the main thing and what other people do is subordinate — a genre or subgenre. But to have a category labeled "white" would feel — would be — racist.
Charnas expands on his topic like this: "Pop music in America is an extension of whiteness and works just like it — it has no defined borders; it expands and contracts to maintain its dominion; it tells us that nothing too ethnic can have universal appeal."
What's the solution? It becomes a matter of economics: "The solution isn’t about getting rid of special markets or categories. Folk, for example, is a real thing, and if it benefits folk to have discrete awards and institutions, great. It’s pop that needs to be examined, because pop is the biggest market and yet admission to it still seems largely subjective."
Mga Post
74 (na) komento:
Perhaps a better question is Why Grammys? Why do show business people have an unceasing need for categorized and self-awarded prizes and recognition?
I think many on the left believe that if their racism celebrates people (other than white people), that nobody will call them out for their racism.
It's obviously racist. But the liberals who run the Grammys thought they had liberal privilege, and could be racist as long as they were celebratory and uplifting about it. So this caught them by surprise. Now they have been unmasked and embarrassed.
And this apology and excuse from the NYT. What is pop music? It's so hard to define. Oh, poor, poor Grammys.
You know what's not hard to define? Racism. So why do you keep doing it?
Pop music is not the problem, you racists of the left. Your racism is the problem. Quit dividing humanity this way.
"Best Asian Pop Musician" is like "Worst Black Criminal." Your racism is glaring to people who are paying attention. See also "Most Evil Jewish Country in the Middle East."
Maybe my love for Larry Bird had something to do with him being a superstar in a league dominated by black men. Who knows what lurks in my subconscious?
But what you should never do is say that this racism is acceptable. You should not come out with the Most Valuable White Player Awards.
The way to combat racism and diminish it is to not give it any official support whatsoever.
Creating a racial award or merit system is bad. Stephen Carter made this criticism 35 years ago.
I suspect much of the criticism of “Michael” was that it exposed the racism of the industry.
Good for BTS.
Bloc Lives Matter #HateLovesAbortion
Schrodinger's racism.
I will say that Larry Bird was the honky man's honky. He could not jump. I think his vertical was shorter than mine. If Harvard Medical School started funding medical research into White Man's Disease, I'd be like, "That's a real thing. I got that." It's just a badly named disease. There are white people who can jump. And black people who can't jump. But there does seem to be a racial component to this, right? Kind of like sickle cell disease, which seems to have a racial component. I don't want to shut down medical research. Maybe one day they'll come out with a pill. And I'll win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award (pill division).
Humorous racism is way better than serious racism, obviously. If your racist thoughts make me laugh, that's all right. If your racist thoughts make me want to throw a shoe at your head, that's not good. Comedians run into this problem all the time.
Diversity, Equivocation, and Indoctrination (DEI)... sm exercised with liberal license is the very model of Progressive Prejudice... baby, a fetus... feature of color judgment and class bigotry is the new colon-ialism.
I'm assuming they created the special division because they knew that, otherwise, South Korea will be dominating the pop music division for the foreseeable future.
The industry tried to push country and rock crossovers way back in the 1960s and 1970s, and then by the 1980s Run DMC-Aerosmith cover of "Walk This Way." They tried and tried with Paul Simon's Graceland and a slew of rock-hip hop stuff. But, genre fans demand close attention to THEIR genre and demand to win within their own tribe. See the white guy vs. white guy Jethro Tull "Rock/Metal" controversy.
If you want to see voluntary segregation and the future of humanity, attend a pop/rock concert. Only a tiny handful of artists, such as Gorillaz, appeal to multiple tribes.
Well, "Asia" is a pretty big place. (And a prog-rock band from the 80's). "Blue-Eyed Soul" comes from a slightly different place than "Soul." But Charlie Pride was pure "Country" (or maybe "Country and Western") and the "Average White Band" was an inside joke. And everybody knows that "R&B" doesn't stand for "white people music."
I don't think that this is necessarily a horribly racist thing. It's the way things evolve. Race exists--pretending it doesn't won't solve anything. I think the music world will survive.
Race as in Xhosa, Zulu, or South African? Black, Blacker, Peach, etc. Kenyan elite or deplorable?
Clive Davis, recently passed and a Great American, discovered Whitney and Whitney's first few albums were heavy Clive. Then she wanted to change her style.
I preferred early Whitney.
I think an underappreciated point is that Grammy categories proliferate in large part because the "The Grammys" are primarily a marketing tool. Much like grade inflation, Grammy proliferation allows for more winners, more honorees, and more credentials, which suits the industry just fine. The eagerness to have a category of popular music for white Americans is an eagerness to tap into the most affluent music market with a directed appeal to them.
Icehouse at 631 - bingo - marketing - money.
You know who really sucked? Average White Band. Oh my God, they were horrible. Even the black guy couldn't help.
(shorts alert for AA)
It's like The Eagles and funk music had a bastard love child.
I will, on the other hand, defend this one hit wonder.
Nice afros!
Music is essentially free to make now.
This industry wont be around much longer.
It can't die fast enough.
“If you want to see voluntary segregation and the future of humanity, attend a pop/rock concert.”
…so true. in high school and college I worked at a concert venue. My normally oblivious high school self was shocked at times over the difference in crowds. Jimmy Buffett shows the crowd was the whitest- very white iykwim. Springsteen, Kate Bush too white. Tracy Chapman shows had people what came out for nothing else, like from under their rocks. I think the most diverse crows were Newport Jazz shows…
Oscars have changed "foreign" to "international." Implies the little people could never win the big prize? Or the Academy is understandably obsessed with U.S. consumers and jobs, wants to throw something to the others who aren't foreign or alien? One way of saying it's not just business, it's art? Best female? Not bad for a chick, or we don't want the women to win everything?
@Political Junkie: "Then she wanted to change her style."
Correction: Then she became a hardcore drug addict and didn't know up from down or how to take a bath by herself.
What a fantastically intelligent question you have posed, Wilbur. What could it possibly be? I'm sure it has nothing to do with creating buzz excitement attention you know like advertising maybe to boost sales. Nah it couldn't be that it's just that these are inferior people, to you of course, who need lots of extra attention and boosting of their self-esteem. You don't need such boosterism because you are a solid alpha male secure in his own accomplishments never requiring applause or words of encouragement.
I appreciate you humiliating yourself in response to Althouse's trolling with rage bait to get you people inflamed agitated for our entertainment.
What category shall we nominate Wilbur for? Chubby divorced couch potato Remington raider with a bad comb-over who hasn't cleaned his CPAP machine in a year?
**Wilbur said...
Perhaps a better question is Why Grammys? Why do show business people have an unceasing need for categorized and self-awarded prizes and recognition?**
I see this as a part of the bigger meta trend of cultural controversy for the sake garnering attention, a la outside friends and family no rational human should be looking at the wnba but somewhere in a pr board room the old guy sitting at the table silently cracks a smirk…
My kids listen to KPop. And what Mary Beth says is correct. South Korea is just better at it than the current US music industry.
ai answers: “From a scientific, sociological, and psychological perspective, it is impossible to completely "sterilize" or eliminate race consciousness from human psychology, as our brains are naturally wired for evolutionary categorization.”
Dam if you do and viceversa. Trying to find some happy outcome only makes it worse.
"Enigma said...
...
If you want to see voluntary segregation and the future of humanity, attend a pop/rock concert."
I saw a humorous Reel on Facebook showing the long line at the entrance to the men's restroom at a recent Rush concert. Then it showed the complete absence of a line at the women's restroom. It made me laugh because it turned the usual situation on its head.
"Blue-Eyed Soul" comes from a slightly different place than "Soul."
Yeah, England!
The Animals would be an obvious example of this. 90% of their output consisted of cover songs of old Blues records. They were a great rock band, so to my ears the songs sounded a lot better. And Eric Burdon had a fantastic voice.
The Commitments famously did a movie about blue-eyed soul.
The Blues Brothers did it, too, of course. (But Sam & Dave did it better).
My favorite scene in The Blues Brothers is when Jake and Elwood got a gig playing in a rough bar.
"What kind of music do you play here?"
"We play both kinds: country and western."
Sometimes soul needs to adapt.
Continental apartheid and Diversity.
If there is to be an Asian Pop Music Performance category, it seems like the only band that should win would be Asia.
Sure, "Heat of the Moment" was 1982, but it is never too late to make amends.
I am Laslo.
I wonder if the Grammys would have avoided the problem by creating a K-Pop award.
As boatbuilder points out, music comes out of different cultures and sometimes the words we use to talk about music just reflect that. K-Pop is a term that's been in widespread use in the music industry. It's a specific genre of music.
I think if the Grammys had done that, BTS could hardly complain. It's common use in the industry.
In contrast, there's no such thing as "Asian music."
Pretty funny stuff, Howard. Who is the enraged one here, me or you?
BTW, except for the divorced (2 time loser, currently hitched) part, you couldn't be more wrong about me. But you're often wrong, but never in doubt.
I hold with George C. Scott, who felt that comparing artistic performances one against one another was degrading. He despised the commercialization, hype, and superficiality of the televised Hollywood awards circuit.
You be you.
Blue Eyed Soul = The Righteous Brothers, IIRC.
Maybe it's simply a practical matter of more categories = more prizes.
In the early '80s, at a record warehouse supplying about a dozen or so stores, we had classifications based on the location demographics of the individual stores. The classifications dictated how many of each album, and yes, *single* (45), each store received. There were usually some exceptions. For example, a certain R&B release would call for the max shipment to every store, not just the more "urban" stores.
There were label reps that lurked around (lugging samples/merch etc.), hobnobbing with the dept managers. I think there were industry sales reports that were based on what was shipped to the stores, and not necessarily what was actually sold by the stores (whatever didn't sell at reduced rates were returned months later). Those reports affected published Top 40 lists etc., so it was a little shady. Probably not more so compared to other industries though.
There always seems to be a little racket built in, and it manifests in many ways. Slush funds have to have room to slush in order to serve their purpose.
Yacht Rock should be its own category!
@Scott Patton, in the words of The Smiths "Paint a Vulgar Picture":
"At the record company meeting
On their hands - a dead star
And oh, the plans they weave
And oh, the sickening greed
At the record company party
On their hands - a dead star
The sycophantic slags all say :
"I knew him first, and I knew him well"
Re-issue! Re-package! Re-package!
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra track (and a tacky badge)
..."
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/51318/
Here's how I'd frame the question: Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?
The first thing that comes to mind is that Korea is a place where people are born and raised while white is an inaccurate color description.
"Yacht Rock" is an earned? evolved? category. Songs aren't born as Yacht Rock - they *become* Yacht Rock.
I know many here consider it a pejorative, but this female Rush fan* thinks that cruising around a lake or lazy river or harbor with a swimsuit, sunscreen, and a baseball cap on, listening to Yacht Rock, is a lovely summer day.
* I haven't listened to their later work at all, say post-Presto, but I was a big fan of their work up to then and saw them many times in concert in my younger days. I understand they're now on tour with a young woman on percussion and that she's a phenom.
What will the Grammys do when Taylor Swift identifies as Korean?
The Oprahization of the Grammys. You get a prize, you get a prize, you get a prize, you get a prize………..
K-pop, I-pop, C-pop, J-pop, P-pop, et cetera. R-pop, by area. All pop, and no mom?
It's peach pop, not to be confused with Pakistani pop, just because both start with the letter 'p'. And definitely not planned parenthood, which is an umbrella incorporation antithetical to the human experience.
Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?
Because Taylor Swift doesn't need the help.
Aja was a far greater band than Asia. I don't think we should discriminate against bands with a speech impediment.
Do "One Night in Bangcock" and "I think I'm Turning Japanese" count as Asian songs?
I sometimes try to speak Spanish. I find that I can understand those who speak Spanish with an Anglo accent better than those who speak Spanish with, say, an Argentinian accent. I have that in common with many Spanish speakers. ..Thus so with music. With all due respect to Chuck Berry and Elvis, I preferred to hear R&B with the bland stylings of Pat Boone. He had, in my opinion, the definitive version Love Letters in the Sand.........Even in the field of classical music, I prefer Gilbert and Sullivan to Rossini and Verdi. Those guys were way too over the top.
Tull were innocent bystanders during the famous Heavy Metal award dust-up. They thought so little of the award and/or their prospects that none of the band members even attended IIRC.
BUMBLE BE is correct about The Righteous Brothers--they were Blue-eyed Soul when the Brit musicians were still in short pants.
Korea has also been kicking our ass on the movie front mostly.
At the chamber music concerts I attend, 90% of the attendees are white, and mostly Boomers. The orchestral concert audiences are larger of course and more diverse though still tending to white and older.
I've learned over the years that if you want young people or minorities to avoid you, tell them your interests are classical music and military history.
YT keeps offering me KPOP but I haven't clicked on one yet. They certainly LOOK appealing for the most part and I suspect that's a lot of their attraction for certain demographics.
NTTAWWT.
Beneath The Sheets is KKK-pop. Just Learing for a kicking.
I have always thought of Hall & Oates as Blue-Eyed Soul. But Wikipedia says the are R&B.
I tried to watch Lollapalooza a couple weekends ago (Hulu broadcasts it all four days) and for me it was a lame lineup, at least whenever I turned it on. It was either DJs (which I simply do not understand), K-pop, or some other lip-synching pop princess.
*Jamie said...
*"Yacht Rock" is an earned? evolved? category. Songs aren't born as Yacht Rock - they *become* Yacht Rock.
*I know many here consider it a pejorative, but this female Rush fan* thinks that cruising around a lake or lazy river or harbor with a swimsuit, sunscreen, and a baseball cap on, listening to Yacht Rock, is a lovely summer day.*
Sistah!
It's a joy seeing Annika play with Rush.
"And I'll win the NBA Most Valuable Player Award (pill division)."
Failing that, you could then give the WNBA a shot.
"Aja was a far greater band than Asia. I don't think we should discriminate against bands with a speech impediment."
And "Aja"--the song and the album--was way better than both. Which, apparently, the Aja band recognizes.
Maybe BTS doesn't want all of those other "Asians" horning in on their action.
I never thought of "The Commitments" as "Blue-Eyed Soul." It's Irish paying homage to Soul.
And a great movie.
It's One Night in Bangkok
google is a freak, amirite?
The Righteous Brothers actually named one of their albums Some Blue-Eyed Soul.
I thought it was a term invented by music critics!
Here's how I'd frame the question: Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?
...But to have a category labeled "white" would feel — would be — racist.
That's because all those other categories are racist, too.
It's just the other categories are the racism that the Left loves
"There are 2 directions to go with that question. You could say it's white supremacy or you could say it's anti-racism."
Actually, there is a third direction that I think is the most likely answer: It's virtue signaling. Virtue signaling is not "white supremacy" and it's not "anti-racism."
He's so fine, Arirang Arirang Doo Lang Doo Lang
Wish he were mine, Arirang Arirang Doo Lang Doo Lang
"White Pop" = Country
Every industry has awards. I built a BERTL award winning product once. Yay me! But although they are mostly about advertising, there's no sense that anybody outside the business needs to know or will care. Just like the AMPAS awards were, in the Before Time.
Here's the question everyone is avoiding:
Is the Category about the listeners, or about the performers?
Can only "Koreans" do "k-Pop"? Or can anyone do it?
Can only "Asians" do "Asian music"? Or can anyone do it?
Is Mozart "German music"?
If the Categories were about "music that appeals to people who like X", then the controversy would be different, and less.
But when the Category is simply "skin color / nation of origin of the performers", then they are shit, and we can't say enough bad things about the people who created the category
Theory: The Righteous Brothers didn't want to go to Harlem and play in the Apollo. (Although it worked out all right for Buddy Holly). They didn't want to be mistaken for black singers. Specifically, they didn't want to be excluded from racially segregated radio programs.
Album title ideas...
We Sound Black But We Are White (no)
Honkies Can Sing Baby (no)
Caucasians Got Feelings Too (no)
Blacker Than Elvis, Whiter Than Your Mama (no)
Some Blue-Eyed Soul (ding, ding, ding!)
Albino Rainbow genre is a gray and pollution-free sky when the rain stops is White power music reflecting inclusive luminescence.
Wikipedia is like a blue-eyed soul schizo baby.
Wikipedia in the 1960's: You're nailing it, Wiki!
Wikipedia in the 1980's: What the fuck, Wiki
Many of the greatest soul songs ever produced were backed by the Swampers at Muscle Shoals, AL. 4 white guys. Race may identify music but talent knows no racial boundaries.
And John Oates has brown eyes.
"I will, on the other hand, defend this one hit wonder."
I like this Hot Chocolate video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUA4slmxx7E
Actually Taylor Swift does need some Grammy help. She's been nominated 58 times but won 14, only about half of Beyonce's 99 nominations and 35 wins (both highest all time). Swift does have the most Album of the Year awards (4) and more of her wins have been in the Pop (5 vs 1) category but she isn't close to dominating Pop or Country (3)the way Beyonce dominants R&B (18 wins).
I don't know for sure, but I probably would prefer KPOP tp KRAP/
"You people make such catchy music!"
Mag-post ng isang Komento
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 4 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith. Also: No italics, even briefly. Use asterisks for emphasis. And don't play with the format by changing fonts or using boldface or all caps. Never include more than one extra line break between paragraphs.