MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

as a huge bruce fan, i don't think he was in his prime at that point, he was also popular almost exclusively to white people, there was no mixing of races at his concerts or rather very little.

That could be said about rock music in general. I'm black & I grew up mostly around black folks and remember some of them would call rock n roll "white boy music" especially at school. The majority of my relatives either listened to R&B, gospel, blues, or hip hop. Some had jazz records. I remember a few of my adult relatives had Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, & Charlie Rich records. Not many had rock records, and then it was kind of more the R&Bish style like Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Ambrosia, Rare Earth, Rod Stewart, Steve Miller Band, Toto, Eagles, 1980s Genesis, Pablo Cruise, Elton John, Dr. John, Linda Ronstadt, and so on. They had those artists, but none even had Jimi Hendrix.

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

PeteSilas said:

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

I first knew The Beatles because they used to rerun their cartoon weekday mornings. It was that, then Speed Racer came on. I have the DVD of the complete Speed Racer show now. I'd watch those two shows before school. I wasn't around when they were an active group. But I did used to hear Paul McCartney/Wings a lot, but wasn't really aware it was the same guy as the cartoon at first. At nursery school, they'd play a record of Octopus Garden quite often. So that was probably the first Beatle song I was really familiar with. I heard the EWF version of Got To Get You Into My Life before the Fabs version.

I knew a little of the beatles music, i want to hold your hand etc.., just growing up in america you'll hear it in stores, passing cars, out of peoples houses, on commercials, on tv but i didn't know very much. i didn't know any wings music, and know hardly any now. Oddly, one of my very first memories as a child is hearing "immigrant song" from somewhere, can't even remember where but i remember it clearly and I know it wasn't from around my house. In seattle, we had one black station and all the black folk listened to it, black population in the city was maybe around 10 percent at that time and about the same today but we were concentrated in the central part of the city, which has since been gentrified. I was lucky to hear black music first as a musician. Also, my black stepdad was a huge Elvis fan. My first real memory of the beatles, I mean, where I could actually remember a visual, I was about 14 or 15 and we had cable, they played the sullivan performance of "i want to hold your hand" on, think it was mtv, but what made it so memorable was seeing my mom mouth the lyrics, i never thought of her as a teenager.

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

I first knew The Beatles because they used to rerun their cartoon weekday mornings. It was that, then Speed Racer came on. I have the DVD of the complete Speed Racer show now. I'd watch those two shows before school. I wasn't around when they were an active group. But I did used to hear Paul McCartney/Wings a lot, but wasn't really aware it was the same guy as the cartoon at first. At nursery school, they'd play a record of Octopus Garden quite often. So that was probably the first Beatle song I was really familiar with. I heard the EWF version of Got To Get You Into My Life before the Fabs version.

Fuck yeah. He gave everything he got until the end. I hope future musicians would watch and learn from him that can apply to their own performances.

PeteSilas said:

MickyDolenz said:

That could be said about rock music in general. I'm black & I grew up mostly around black folks and remember some of them would call rock n roll "white boy music" especially at school. The majority of my relatives either listened to R&B, gospel, blues, or hip hop. Some had jazz records. I remember a few of my adult relatives had Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, & Charlie Rich records. Not many had rock records, and then it was kind of more the R&Bish style like Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, Ambrosia, Rare Earth, Rod Stewart, Steve Miller Band, Toto, Eagles, 1980s Genesis, Pablo Cruise, Elton John, Dr. John, Linda Ronstadt, and so on. They had those artists, but none even had Jimi Hendrix.

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

Zeppelin is primarily "black" music, built off old blues (and sometimes flat out stealing it). Stones too. Rock and roll in general is all derived from American blues.

herb4 said:

PeteSilas said:

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

Zeppelin is primarily "black" music, built off old blues (and sometimes flat out stealing it). Stones too. Rock and roll in general is all derived from American blues.

of course it is, but coming from white guys it's gonna be different. It was "white boy music" when I was a kid, but it was great. That's not all Zep did either, they were one of the more versatile groups in rock history, which is what P alluded to in that article. Same for the beatles, they played rock and roll but they had their own british heritage too which came through in a lot of their music.

Before anyone really tries to answer this question, as homework, they need to watch the Prince & The Revolution live video performance of BABY, I'M A STAR from the Purple Rain Tour...

Then, and only then, they can provide some feedback....

PeteSilas said:

herb4 said:

Zeppelin is primarily "black" music, built off old blues (and sometimes flat out stealing it). Stones too. Rock and roll in general is all derived from American blues.

of course it is, but coming from white guys it's gonna be different. It was "white boy music" when I was a kid, but it was great. That's not all Zep did either, they were one of the more versatile groups in rock history, which is what P alluded to in that article. Same for the beatles, they played rock and roll but they had their own british heritage too which came through in a lot of their music.

No, I get you.

I was born in 1967 and lived through the early desegration of schools. One really cool thing that came out of it was, around 6th grade or so, at lunch we used to have a thing where they'd play records and had a little dance area. Kids took turn picking records. It was the first time I'd heard stuff like Pairlament Funkadelic, Ohio PLayers, Chic and the Spinners. Then the white kids would play "You Light Up My Life" and the couples would slow dance. lol.

There was always a "divide" (still is) but as I got older and learned more about music, largely due to this student led "lunch dance" thing, I started to realize how much it all had more in common than it was different. Even through high school there were dumb Led Heads who hated "black music", completley missing the point/roots of it all and the radio stations drove the split a lot as well. Then Prince showed me the true light right when I hit puberty and I was like "categorize that, motherfuckers". When I went to his show for the first time it looked like...well..."America". It all spoke to me.

We're veering way off topic here and this might actually make an interesting thread of its own (if I can figure out a way to word it in an OP) but, looking back, I was always grateful for busing and desegration for opening my eyes culturally as well as a socially. I remember the adults and a lot of kids were terrified of it.

PeteSilas said:

of course it is, but coming from white guys it's gonna be different. It was "white boy music" when I was a kid, but it was great. That's not all Zep did either, they were one of the more versatile groups in rock history, which is what P alluded to in that article. Same for the beatles, they played rock and roll but they had their own british heritage too which came through in a lot of their music.

My mom calls singers like Johnny Mathis & Sammy Davis Jr "white music". She doesn't really like their records, it's not soul to her. But she'll watch Sammy as an actor. That's why people like Michael Jackson & Lionel Richie were called sellouts by some of the black audience in the 1980s. They were said to have watered down their music to crossover. That was said of 1960s Motown too. With Led Zeppelin, the majority of the audience is white males. How many black people do you see at a KISS or Metallica concert? A very small percentage if at all. So "white boy music". It was white rock fans who had the "disco sucks" riot at the baseball game in the 1970s. The genre wasn't even called "rock n roll" until white people started doing it in the late 1950s. Before that it was "race music" then later "blues" and "rhythm & blues". "Rock n roll" was black slang for sex. Music by blacks was not called that, although the term can be heard in songs by black artists all the way back to the 1930s. White DJ Alan Freed gave that name to the music. Also how many black rock acts get the same recognition and sales as the white ones? Only Jimi Hendrix. Even Jimi's records did not sell as much as The Stones or Pink Floyd. The black rock bands are generally considered "too black" for rock radio and "too white" for R&B radio. R&B radio has played acts like Hall & Oates, Kraftwerk, Culture Club, Wham!/George Michael, Phil Collins, even Tears For Fears. But a lot of that is considered "blue eyed soul" not rock. Look at blues. B.B. Kings biggest selling album is the collabo one with Eric Clapton. It went multi-platinum. That means it probably mainly sold to fans of Eric. Other than that, B.B.'s albums were not huge sellers.

ya, my stepdad would talk about guys like Charlie Pride but honestly, mixing of musics has been going on about as long as the mixing of the races. I don't remember lionel being criticized like MJ and Prince were, Lionel was never dangerous, (he was "like an uncle according to terence trent d'arby) the only thing I remember people saying about lionel was that his music was schmaltzy but what great work, I can't think of any other songwriter who had a string of ballads like that, his fast songs were sort of lame but they hit too sometimes. I don't believe I am a fan of one true black rock group, i always found them as pretentious as the white groups but not as good, i'm talking, what was that band that was big? Living Color? garbage. Can't think of too many, the others like Cameo, who might have incorporated a tinge of white rock pretty much stayed black, at least at that time, the kids my age were listening to that stuff, all of us, white black, asian, whatever.

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

of course it is, but coming from white guys it's gonna be different. It was "white boy music" when I was a kid, but it was great. That's not all Zep did either, they were one of the more versatile groups in rock history, which is what P alluded to in that article. Same for the beatles, they played rock and roll but they had their own british heritage too which came through in a lot of their music.

My mom calls singers like Johnny Mathis & Sammy Davis Jr "white music". She doesn't really like their records, it's not soul to her. But she'll watch Sammy as an actor. That's why people like Michael Jackson & Lionel Richie were called sellouts by some of the black audience in the 1980s. They were said to have watered down their music to crossover. That was said of 1960s Motown too. With Led Zeppelin, the majority of the audience is white males. How many black people do you see at a KISS or Metallica concert? A very small percentage if at all. So "white boy music". It was white rock fans who had the "disco sucks" riot at the baseball game in the 1970s. The genre wasn't even called "rock n roll" until white people started doing it in the late 1950s. Before that it was "race music" then later "blues" and "rhythm & blues". "Rock n roll" was black slang for sex. Music by blacks was not called that, although the term can be heard in songs by black artists all the way back to the 1930s. White DJ Alan Freed gave that name to the music. Also how many black rock acts get the same recognition and sales as the white ones? Only Jimi Hendrix. Even Jimi's records did not sell as much as The Stones or Pink Floyd. The black rock bands are generally considered "too black" for rock radio and "too white" for R&B radio. R&B radio has played acts like Hall & Oates, Kraftwerk, Culture Club, Wham!/George Michael, Phil Collins, even Tears For Fears. But a lot of that is considered "blue eyed soul" not rock. Look at blues. B.B. Kings biggest selling album is the collabo one with Eric Clapton. It went multi-platinum. That means it probably mainly sold to fans of Eric. Other than that, B.B.'s albums were not huge sellers.

I remember the days of bussing, there was some tension here but not that much, by the senior year of our school years, it pretty much didn't make that much difference because people hung out in their own cliques anyway and well.., seattle never has been a place for real race violence. But.., I do remember hearing ac/dc and stuff I wouldn't have heard before when the schools mixed. It was good from that standpoint.

herb4 said:

PeteSilas said:

of course it is, but coming from white guys it's gonna be different. It was "white boy music" when I was a kid, but it was great. That's not all Zep did either, they were one of the more versatile groups in rock history, which is what P alluded to in that article. Same for the beatles, they played rock and roll but they had their own british heritage too which came through in a lot of their music.

No, I get you.

I was born in 1967 and lived through the early desegration of schools. One really cool thing that came out of it was, around 6th grade or so, at lunch we used to have a thing where they'd play records and had a little dance area. Kids took turn picking records. It was the first time I'd heard stuff like Pairlament Funkadelic, Ohio PLayers, Chic and the Spinners. Then the white kids would play "You Light Up My Life" and the couples would slow dance. lol.

There was always a "divide" (still is) but as I got older and learned more about music, largely due to this student led "lunch dance" thing, I started to realize how much it all had more in common than it was different. Even through high school there were dumb Led Heads who hated "black music", completley missing the point/roots of it all and the radio stations drove the split a lot as well. Then Prince showed me the true light right when I hit puberty and I was like "categorize that, motherfuckers". When I went to his show for the first time it looked like...well..."America". It all spoke to me.

We're veering way off topic here and this might actually make an interesting thread of its own (if I can figure out a way to word it in an OP) but, looking back, I was always grateful for busing and desegration for opening my eyes culturally as well as a socially. I remember the adults and a lot of kids were terrified of it.

PeteSilas said:

ya, my stepdad would talk about guys like Charlie Pride but honestly, mixing of musics has been going on about as long as the mixing of the races. I don't remember lionel being criticized like MJ and Prince were, Lionel was never dangerous, (he was "like an uncle according to terence trent d'arby) the only thing I remember people saying about lionel was that his music was schmaltzy but what great work, I can't think of any other songwriter who had a string of ballads like that, his fast songs were sort of lame but they hit too sometimes. I don't believe I am a fan of one true black rock group, i always found them as pretentious as the white groups but not as good, i'm talking, what was that band that was big? Living Color? garbage. Can't think of too many, the others like Cameo, who might have incorporated a tinge of white rock pretty much stayed black, at least at that time, the kids my age were listening to that stuff, all of us, white black, asian, whatever.

Some of the R&B audience wanted Lionel go back to the early Commodores sound, before the adult contemporary songs like Three Times A Lady. Like when he was saying things like "didn't have a lot of val-ya at all". Like this track has little to do with Ballerina Girl:

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

ya, my stepdad would talk about guys like Charlie Pride but honestly, mixing of musics has been going on about as long as the mixing of the races. I don't remember lionel being criticized like MJ and Prince were, Lionel was never dangerous, (he was "like an uncle according to terence trent d'arby) the only thing I remember people saying about lionel was that his music was schmaltzy but what great work, I can't think of any other songwriter who had a string of ballads like that, his fast songs were sort of lame but they hit too sometimes. I don't believe I am a fan of one true black rock group, i always found them as pretentious as the white groups but not as good, i'm talking, what was that band that was big? Living Color? garbage. Can't think of too many, the others like Cameo, who might have incorporated a tinge of white rock pretty much stayed black, at least at that time, the kids my age were listening to that stuff, all of us, white black, asian, whatever.

Some of the R&B audience wanted Lionel go back to the early Commodores sound, before the adult contemporary songs like Three Times A Lady. Like when he was saying things like "didn't have a lot of val-ya at all". Like this track has little to do with Ballerina Girl:

i'll listen to it, but i can't say i've ever liked a non ballad of lionel's aand the commodores had their hand in stuff like brickhouse and machine gun, those weren't lionel songs, lady was good too but I think that was a commodores written song. Nothing bad to say, lionel wrote songs that will outlive just about anyone's you can think of, those songs are songs for the ages. the "didn't have a lot of val-ya at all" and as arsenio used to make fun of his "oww" from brickhouse, but even then a song like just to be close to you was an epic ballad, i dare anyone not to be moved by that, and he had several of them of the same quality, then, after can't slow down he dropped the turd on us, dancing on the ceiling and never came back. although, someone mentioned deep river woman, can't say i don't like that one but it wasn't as good as the stuff that came before.

PeteSilas said:

I can't think of any other songwriter who had a string of ballads like that, his fast songs were sort of lame but they hit too sometimes.

The biggest selling newer act is Adele. Isn't she known for ballads? Air Supply was popular in the early 1980s. Although she's not a performer herself, I'd say Diane Warren got Lionel beat with the ballad hits. She's written songs for many artists since the 1980s.

PeteSilas said:

the "didn't have a lot of val-ya at all" and as arsenio used to make fun of his "oww" from brickhouse,

I think that came from Sugarfoot (Ohio Players). Then others did it like Lionel, Larry Dodson from the Bar-Kays, & Larry Blackmon from Cameo. Larry Blackmon is the one who produced Chunky A. Lionel does Fire in his solo concerts.

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

I can't think of any other songwriter who had a string of ballads like that, his fast songs were sort of lame but they hit too sometimes.

The biggest selling newer act is Adele. Isn't she known for ballads? Air Supply was popular in the early 1980s. Although she's not a performer herself, I'd say Diane Warren got Lionel beat with the ballad hits. She's written songs for many artists since the 1980s.

don't know anything about adele, and if you listed warren's ballads, just personal taste but I know I wouldn't put them in lionel's class, he was the best at that in my mind. Songs that capture the mystery and magic of love. Oddly, from a docu on the commodores, it was the ballads that drove a wedge in the group, strange because those ballads will live on past the rest of their music.

PeteSilas said:

don't know anything about adele, and if you listed warren's ballads, just personal taste but I know I wouldn't put them in lionel's class, he was the best at that in my mind. Songs that capture the mystery and magic of love. Oddly, from a docu on the commodores, it was the ballads that drove a wedge in the group, strange because those ballads will live on past the rest of their music.

Depends, maybe for weddings or something. Destiny's Child did remake Sail On on their debut album. But uptempo songs are more likely to be sampled in rap songs than adult contemporary or power ballads. And hip hop is the most popular genre now, at least in the US. It's doubtful that U Can't Touch This would have been a big hit with the music for You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone instead of Superfreak. I hear Brick House on the radio today more than any other Commodores or Lionel solo songs.

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

don't know anything about adele, and if you listed warren's ballads, just personal taste but I know I wouldn't put them in lionel's class, he was the best at that in my mind. Songs that capture the mystery and magic of love. Oddly, from a docu on the commodores, it was the ballads that drove a wedge in the group, strange because those ballads will live on past the rest of their music.

Depends, maybe for weddings or something. Destiny's Child did remake Sail On on their debut album. But uptempo songs are more likely to be sampled in rap songs than adult contemporary or power ballads. And hip hop is the most popular genre now, at least in the US. It's doubtful that U Can't Touch This would have been a big hit with the music for You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone instead of Superfreak. I hear Brick House on the radio today more than any other Commodores or Lionel solo songs.

ya, brickhouse is a classic, still think the ballads will be more loved in hundreds of years. timeless air to them that great songs have.

PeteSilas said:

ya, brickhouse is a classic, still think the ballads will be more loved in hundreds of years. timeless air to them that great songs have.

Music and anything else is mostly remembered because it is still promoted in some way. There's many old hits that are not promoted and are mostly forgotten. People today know the bible because churches are still around, and there's many church networks on TV. Mozart & Bach are known because orchestras today perform and/or record their music. The Beatles are more well known today than say Jackie Wilson, because the media constantly talk about The Beatles, companies make games & toys about them, books are still written about them, and their label continue to put out new versions of their albums every few years. That isn't done so much with the DeFranco Family or the popular singers form the 1920s. Like I heard Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry & Wild Thing by Tone Loc on the radio today. Probably whenever Lionel's and other artists music fall into the public domain, the records probably won't get the same push since the original label might not make much money on it. There will be low quality versions out there like with obscure movies/TV shows on home video. Or those cheap CDs sold in gas stations with re-recorded versions of an artist's hits.

MickyDolenz said:

PeteSilas said:

ya, brickhouse is a classic, still think the ballads will be more loved in hundreds of years. timeless air to them that great songs have.

Music and anything else is mostly remembered because it is still promoted in some way. There's many old hits that are not promoted and are mostly forgotten. People today know the bible because churches are still around, and there's many church networks on TV. Mozart & Bach are known because orchestras today perform and/or record their music. The Beatles are more well known today than say Jackie Wilson, because the media constantly talk about The Beatles, companies make games & toys about them, books are still written about them, and their label continue to put out new versions of their albums every few years. That isn't done so much with the DeFranco Family or the popular singers form the 1920s. Like I heard Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry & Wild Thing by Tone Loc on the radio today. Probably whenever Lionel's and other artists music fall into the public domain, the records probably won't get the same push since the original label might not make much money on it. There will be low quality versions out there like with obscure movies/TV shows on home video. Or those cheap CDs sold in gas stations with re-recorded versions of an artist's hits.

the great music transcends all of that. Sure, there is some great music that never gets heard sure, I'll believe that. But the great music is great because it has touched a lot of people in some way.

PeteSilas said:

the great music transcends all of that. Sure, there is some great music that never gets heard sure, I'll believe that. But the great music is great because it has touched a lot of people in some way.

"Great" is an opinion of the listener. There's college courses on Tupac Shakur. So that means he is great to his fans or to people taking the class. But to a person who only likes bluegrass, Tupac's music would not mean much, but Roni Stoneman's or Flatt & Scruggs might. To hard rock fans, Black Sabbath might be great to them, but Poison maybe not.

Intersting derail.

Out of curiosity, by the standards of the people posting about the race subject, is AMy WInehouse considered "black music" or "white music?" Pretty sure the majority of her fans were white but the rotos of here music weren't. And when I mention bands like Led Zep or the Stones, I guess I wasn't framing it in terms of their audience as much as the blueprint for their sound and the song structures themselves - or at least attempting to point out how I learned the difference beyond what the radio stations and cassette category labels were attempting to communicate. Those bands will flat out TELL YOU their influences, what they listen to and where they got thier sound. Keith Richards' favorite musical genre is reggae.

The vast majority of Hendrix fans were white (and still are) but I wouldn't slot him in the category of "white guy rock" when the basis of his entire sound was heavily rooted in blues. Beastie Boys had a largely white audience despite being hip hop (with some punk thrown in). Red Hot Chilli Peppers whole thing was bass/beat driven funk/punk and George Clinton even produced their 3rd album. I mean, I'm not certain it's as simple as scanning the demographics of a concert audience to determine the basic elements of an artist's sound which I suppose is where the break in the conversation and the terms of the debate are being discerned. A lot of that shit is just marketing, what radio stations will play what and, for a while, was HUGELY determined by what the band looked like, especially during the heyday of MTV.

Elvis' whole thing (and the famous marketing approach of his manager) was built on finding a good looking white guy who could "sing black".

Dudes like 80's Lionel were about as milquetoast as it got around that time and honestly don't remember ANYONE in my circle liking that shit. Or Huey Lewis. Deeply inoffensive, generic and risk free music with ZERO edge at all and not a damned thing challenging or deep about it. Totally forgettable shit that my parents liked or what I like to call "Music for People who Don't Really Like Music" and just listen to top 40 radio; a demographic that still exists. But you still had bands like Talking Heads with a predominantly white following doing what arguably amounted to funk and African rythm based songs a large majority of the time. Look at the make up of the band in the "Stop Making Sense" film and there are more black people on stage than white, while the audience is the other way around.

Thankfully, I think these barriers are smaller than they used to be, especially as so many white kids have gotten into hip hop, even though IMO the musical ;andscape is fucking DIRE right now. Could be I've just turned the page and gotten old like all those before me. It's an interesting conversation though and one I think is thread worthy. Maybe I'll start one but I want to figure out a way to frame it around Prince so it doesn't get moved to a deserted sub forum.

Any ideas on how I can tactfully and topically do that without making a race baiting thread?

jaypotton said:

None of his shows were ever the same (just look at each night of th 21 Nights In London at the O2) and set lists changed (sometimes completely) each night. - He often reinterpreted his songs so they were fresh even when seeing/hearing them for the X time. -

I have to take exception to this statement.

One of things I actively disliked about him as a live performer was just how often shows and the set lists were exactly the same on every tour, save maybe a few surprises. I saw 2 Musicology shows (about 2 months apart), 2 ONA shows (2 nights consecutive) plus PR and Lovesexy tours both in person and on video and the set list hardly changed at all. Musicology had some spontaneity in the acoustic set. ONA was the same show both nights. The Livesexy and Purple Rain videos are almost exactly what I saw live, right down to the choreography (and even large parts straight from the movie).

The 2 Hit N Run shows (About 6 months apart I think; shortly after the name change BACK to Prince) I saw were almost exactly the same, right down to the order of the set list and the encores.

Maybe the O2 shows were different. I've heard them described as hit heavy but with different ones each night so I'll take your word for it but, by and large, Prince's main shows were highly scripted and very samish from my experience.

Bands like The Grateful Dead, Phish and Widespread Panic will give you an entirely different show each and every night, which is why they have such a dedicated live following, but the only time I really felt like I was getting any surprises from P were during the aftershows I was lucky enough to attend (plus those awesome acoustic sets on Musicology which I honestly think he made up on the fly).

herb4 said:

But you still had bands like Talking Heads with a predominantly white following doing what arguably amounted to funk and African rythm based songs a large majority of the time. Look at the make up of the band in the "Stop Making Sense" film and there are more black people on stage than white, while the audience is the other way around.

Thankfully, I think these barriers are smaller than they used to be, especially as so many white kids have gotten into hip hop,

I'm not sure about that. Today's Tumblr generation is always talking about "culture vultures" and "cultural appropriation". About a year ago there was this lady on Youtube that made a video saying she hopes Bruno Mars dies because he's ripping off black music, and that the labels are promoting him & Robin Thicke instead of black R&B singers. The ironic thing about it was that she's black, but her online name had something to do with an anime TV show. There's a thread about it somewhere in the other music section. The thing about Bruno is, I don't think many people period that comes from a Hawaiian background has become a mainstream star in the US. It's not a Pat Boone situation where the white singer outsells the non-white singer. Only 1 Japanese singer has had a #1 pop hit and that was in the 1960s with Sukiyaki.

MickyDolenz said:

herb4 said:

But you still had bands like Talking Heads with a predominantly white following doing what arguably amounted to funk and African rythm based songs a large majority of the time. Look at the make up of the band in the "Stop Making Sense" film and there are more black people on stage than white, while the audience is the other way around.

Thankfully, I think these barriers are smaller than they used to be, especially as so many white kids have gotten into hip hop,

I'm not sure about that. Today's Tumblr generation is always talking about "culture vultures" and "cultural appropriation". About a year ago there was this lady on Youtube that made a video saying she hopes Bruno Mars dies because he's ripping off black music, and that the labels are promoting him & Robin Thicke instead of black R&B singers. The ironic thing about it was that she's black, but her online name had something to do with an anime TV show. There's a thread about it somewhere in the other music section. The thing about Bruno is, I don't think many people period that comes from a Hawaiian background has become a mainstream star in the US. It's not a Pat Boone situation where the white singer outsells the non-white singer. Only 1 Japanese singer has had a #1 pop hit and that was in the 1960s with Sukiyaki.

Yeah, you make good arguments and a tight case and I can definitely see where you're coming from. I confess to being old, caring less and incredibly detached from almost all modern music but I still go to shows and take an interest when something catches my ear. I'm the grumpy old man now talking about the kids these days just don't get it, it all sounds the same and get off my lawn. Music, I think is tied VERY CLOSELY to sex and is primarily for the young(er). At a casual glance, it seems to me that racial divides are smaller, if only due to the continual demise of terrestial radio and my previous point of a ton of white kids diggin hip hop. Then again, that's sort of history repeating itself with white kids tuning into "black music" only this time the cast majority of the artists they dig are, in fact, BLACK.

Mars is a weird thing for that lady to focus on because he fucking rips off everybody (and rather well). I like Bruno but only in the way I like, say, Lenny Kravitz. Meaning they're fine but, my god, both are extraordinary thieves. Often to the point of distraction.

You're posting good stuff (in a weird font).

herb4 said:

PeteSilas said:

not black but had a black stepdad and we called it "white boy music" too, the same way we'd say a tv show was a "white boy show" or as I later coined the term "white boy humor" for the immature, silly humor that white people have. I learned to appreciate white boy music though, part of the reason was because my heroes, Prince and MJ were opening my influences up to more than just the r&b I was growing up on. Prince only had to mention led zeppelin in an interview and suddenly, i had to know all their music, critics only had to compare ATWIAD to the beatles and I was cramming their music into my head.

Zeppelin is primarily "black" music, built off old blues (and sometimes flat out stealing it). Stones too. Rock and roll in general is all derived from American blues.

Race is a strange thing when it comes to listening to music. Still to this day. People don't want to upset their peers/relatives/friends. I find it sad and interesting. People segregate their self out of fear. Still. It's very strange. I love Prince for knowing he listened to Zeppelin and Joni. It was a beautiful expansion of my horizons. Worked for him, works for me.

Marrk said:

Race is a strange thing when it comes to listening to music. Still to this day. People don't want to upset their peers/relatives/friends. I find it sad and interesting. People segregate their self out of fear. Still. It's very strange. I love Prince for knowing he listened to Zeppelin and Joni. It was a beautiful expansion of my horizons. Worked for him, works for me.

People in general have always more likely to listen to music of their own race/ethnicity than another. Like Mexican singers primarily sell to Mexicans. The main audience for Bollywood music is Indians. If you look at the record collection of black people, in general the majority of it are likely to be black singers/bands over other races. Movies with a majority black cast are called "black movies" or blaxploitation. But movies with a majority white actors aren't labeled "white movies". It's as if white is the default (in the USA). A big deal is made if Crazy Rich Asians becomes a mainstream box office hit rather than just a movie that only the Chinese audience goes to watch. Whites are more likely to buy white artists. That's how Elvis Presley/Rolling Stones/George Michael/Eric Clapton/Bee Gees/Michael Bolton/Kenny G/Eminem/New Kids On The Block can sell way more than other races doing the same kind of music. More white people will buy so-called "world music" if Paul Simon & Peter Gabriel does it than the records of musicians playing or singing on those records. Same for rock bands using black gospel choirs as background singers like I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner. Black people are more likely to watch white TV shows than whites will watch BET or something. How many whites listen to Rudy Ray Moore over Robin Williams. White people in the past would do the occasional crossover versions like Louis Armstrong, Bill Cosby, Gloria Estefan, Charo, & Sidney Poitier. But Sidney was often the only black actor in otherwise white cast movies. Sammy Davis Jr was in the Rat Pack, which was all white dudes besides Sammy. Desi Arnaz was linked to Lucille Ball, Tonto to the Lone Ranger, and Bruce Lee to the Green Hornet. There's actresses like Rita Hayworth, Catherine Bach, & Lynda Carter who have a Latino background but it was kind of hidden just like a lot of Jewish actors in the studio era changed their names.

I don't know. i saw John Williams once (movie composer). All he does is wave a baton at an orchestra and it's just amazing magic. Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Close encounters, E.T., Harry Potter, Indy. They all fly out/ For a film nerd That is right up there on Mt. Exciting.

But for Pop/Rock concerts, I'll give it to our man. I saw a lot of 'legends' but saw Prince more than i've seen some of my own relatives.

herb4 said:

Yeah, you make good arguments and a tight case and I can definitely see where you're coming from. I confess to being old, caring less and incredibly detached from almost all modern music but I still go to shows and take an interest when something catches my ear. I'm the grumpy old man now talking about the kids these days just don't get it, it all sounds the same and get off my lawn. Music, I think is tied VERY CLOSELY to sex and is primarily for the young(er). At a casual glance, it seems to me that racial divides are smaller, if only due to the continual demise of terrestial radio and my previous point of a ton of white kids diggin hip hop. Then again, that's sort of history repeating itself with white kids tuning into "black music" only this time the cast majority of the artists they dig are, in fact, BLACK

That could be said about popular mainstream music since rock n roll began. You think all of those girls were screaming at Elvis & The Beatles and going to watch Frankie Avalon movies were just listening to them. When The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show there was even a caption saying "Sorry girls he's married" when John Lennon was on the screen. The crooner pop singers that were really popular before rock n roll weren't usually considered selling sex (Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Andrews Sisters).