Where is the Phil Spector coverage?
Are the songs he produced being banned?
Did he have to do an interview on MTV?

If he is not relevant, then neither was Chuck Berry or James Brown when they did some things.
[This message was edited Tue Feb 4 14:33:11 PST 2003 by XLBubba]

Any other reasons why this should be a debate on racism in music? Wanna talk about NWA and Ice-T lyrics too? Race don't matter. Evil abounds.

edit: Joshy, don't you see the words "white music" and "black music" in the topic title? Guess not.
[This message was edited Wed Feb 5 9:39:33 PST 2003 by Jasziah]

you r the one bringing race in2 this.
no1 else.

Joshy84au said:

no he is right. I dont see a damn thing about Phil Spector murder or the guy from The Who child porn case

BUT R KELLY! Every1 wanna talk about him!

paisleypark4 said:

it's because the media is predominantly older white people... and to older white people pete townsend and phil spector are where it's at... these are the people they looked up to back in the day... so, they're on the downlow about it...

as for r. kelly... they don't give a shit about r. kelly so they can just go at his story as hard as they please...

In The UK we heard plenty about Spector and next to nothing on Kelly.

at the moment it's all about MJ though.

I'm hearing about all these fools.

When the Pete Townshend story broke, that was ALL I heard about & saw. I guess it might have died pretty quickly compared to R. Kelly BUT having sex & playing water sports with numerous minors on video tape is gonna be more sensationalized than Townshend going to a kiddie porn site once that they know of...

Joshy84au said:

Naive. There's massive biases in news reporting, don't need a Prince.Org thread to make that fact.

Could it be that you hear more about R. Kelly because you watch music television, BET, etc.? Phil Spector seems to have gotten a lot of press on so-called white-man news channels. Yes, biasness exists in the media. No doubt. But I don't see it here. "Whitey" is constantly dissed and joked about in popular American comedies. To be fair, why shouldn't whites talk about that? It does go both ways... encompassing all races actually. I wish we could stop being over-sensitive about race issues, and press a reset button on this planet. Most of us didn't start this, but it keeps being perpetuated for some reason... for several reasons; I suspect mostly political. It seems like we'll ALWAYS be talking about race. We need to put on some "Everyday People" and chill.

edit: typo
[This message was edited Wed Feb 5 9:53:48 PST 2003 by Jasziah]

XLBubba said:

All over the place. There was a huge article in yesterday's Washington Post. And, there is an article about the woman in today's Washington Post.

Besides most media stories right now are trying to tell yet another angle on the space shuttle explosion.

there are Double Standards but nobody wants the cold blooded facts on that.

I think R. Kelly being a more current artist has some influence too.
I mean the last album Spector worked on was somewhere around 81? There's a lot of people who are like 'Specter who?' But a there is a lot of people now who know about the 'I believe I can fly' guy...

Honestly... yall all need to shut the f*ck up about this racist sh*t.. Whats up with the title of this thread.

Yeah Phil f*cked up.. and so did R. Kelly

they both need what is coming to them

and my decision on it didnt depend on the skin color

bunch of %$%#%$#% #$%'s
[This message was edited Wed Feb 5 21:18:12 PST 2003 by Sdldawn]

Sdldawn said:

tell 'em how you feel Steve!

The difference is R. Kelly has been settling such cases for years. There apparently was a sustained effort on his part to continually seduce and molest young girls and then pay off their families if charges were raised. There was a cycle of abuse and criminality, in other words. Evidence against the man continues to bubble up. And, he had the grand idea (sarcasm) to release a children's book that, according to one wire service report, features an illustration of girls of undetermined ages dancing around him. So, that's Robert Kelly's own drama.

In the case of Townsend and Spector, as a previous poster mentioned, there is more of a cultural identification among the former hippies who are now senior editors in American newsrooms. That's no joke. That's why Beatle deaths garner front-page coverage with jump pages of appreciation pieces, and film retrospectives on the evening news. Townsend's story went away quickly with his promise about a book that details his own abuse. Had he not taken on the role of victim, the scandal probably would've lasted longer.

The Spector story "has legs," as we say in the news biz. We're just seeing the start of this story. It'll be with us for a while, I'll wager.

XLBubba said:

Phil Spectors songs are already unofficially banned from MTV - Whenever have you seen a fucking Phil Spector song on MTV?!

It's all recent shite because that's what pays the bills and earns them cash.

MTV is one 24 hour infommercial channel just like QVC.

Yet another "the Black man can't get no justice" thread - change the fucking record.

this shit is sooo stupid. Do the crime, do the time. I wish none of the raping, killing, child molesting fuckers would get any tv air time. Just go to fucking jail and lock the door. Make them cell mates if you want to. Make R. Kelly and Phil Spector share the same pod. Maybe Kelly will rape Phil and Phil will shank Kelly. Throw in O.D.B. and Robert Blake and a long rope, and maybe they can do themselves in, saves the state some electricity money.

So you think the white media is holding back on Phil Spector but going overboard on R. Kelly because he is black? Then explain Robert Blake's case to me - he is white so using your theory he should be getting low coverage & the benefit of the doubt. Yet he has been plastered on every newspaper & everyone thinks he is guilty. How did that happen - he's white.
The media is going to play up anything they think will get them readers or viewers. Most people don't know who Phil Spector is.
Or care.
R. Kelly's case is more interesting to the media because there are videos involved. Videos mean pictures which mean airtime. The media needs pictures. A head shot of Phil Spector and a aerial view of his house - hohum.
A scratchy home video of R. Kelly & an underage girl combined with some shots of a shirtless R.Kelly taken from his numerous music videos - homerun.
Bring me a photo or video of Phil Spector at The House of Blues the night before the murder with the victim - bingo - frontpage!
Plus Phil Spector has been reported as CRAZY since the 60's. This murder is just more proof.
Was R.Kelly known to be into underage girls before this all broke. No - this was all new.
Yeah it does seem like the Media is trying to bury R.Kelly before he has had his day in court. They have done it before. Pee Wee Herman. Rob Lowe. James Brown.
I don't find the press/media racist so much as just plain evil. They will print/report horrible half-truths & rumors & shrug it off by saying it's news.

thedoorkeeper said:

Not all news outlets. Most abide by time-honored standards of libel (those that hold up in court):

The primary tenet being that a story isn't actionable if it is, in fact, true. That's why -- particularly in the big Chicago paper that broke the R. Kelly story -- most of the sources of information were police, prosecutors and court documents. And much of what they reported was a part of public record: police reports, court documents, warrants, etc.

Therein lies the distinction between most respectable news outlets and tabloid scandal publications.