From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sun Mar 20 2005 - 23:13:59 GMT
Arlo writes:
> (1) Last time you explicitly stated it was the "overt sexual lyrics" that
> "proved" (using Bloom's vapid logic) the "degeneracy of rock".
Wrong.
> (2) You explicitly stated that songs with strong sexual innuendo or
> suggestiveness were "okay" by saying Peggy Lee was not degenerate at all.
Wrong.
> (3) To "prove your point" you provided a quote of sexual lyrics from one
> song by Peta Pablo, then patted yourself on the back for this "logic",
> despite my challenge that it was an indefensible generalization.
Wrong.
> (4) I challenged you that Bloom's (and your own) argument was critically
> vacant, specifically on two charges, (a) it lacks any critical definition,
> for example, would Bluegrass, Salsa or Polka, or Jazz also be
> "degenerate"?
Like Satchmo said when asked to define jazz, "If they don't know, you
can't tell 'em."
> and (b) it lacks contextual relation with other media, for
> example, why are "overtly sexual themes" in some rock songs enough for you
> to launch into a tirade against "rock", but "overtly sexual themes" in
> literature (Henry Miller, Anais Nin, de Sade) or art (nudes) not making you
> launch into tirades against books and painting.
Irrelevant considering the ubiquity of rock.
> (5) I offered you the "out" of making your charge be against things that
> are "vulgar sexual references", which would place you square in step with
> the Victorians. Your entire "argument" is a ventriliquation of Rigel's
> described Victorian prudery, in fact. Are you saying, then, that you admit
> to siding with Victorian prudery? Note that this still does not relieve the
> gaps of critical logic in your argument, but it does bring clarity to what
> you are attacking.
Show me where Rigel said anything about rock.
> (6) You have, to remind everyone again, stated explicitly that strong
> sexual innuendo or suggestiveness is no cause for concern. I had mentioned
> two posts ago Sinatra and Lee (specifically her "Fever"), and all the
> sexual activity it encouraged, and how many teens "gave it up" after being
> crooned by the Chairman or Miss Lee. Your response was that there was
> nothing wrong with their songs, because there lyrics were not overt like
> Pete Pablo.
Wrong.
> To point: Are you claiming The Clash's "White Man in
> Hammersmith Palais", a song about '70s youth race relations in London,
> "encourages promiscuous sex" while Mozart, Sinatra's crooning or Peggy Lee
> "do not"? If you wanted to have sex, Platt, what music would you put on?
I don't need music to have sex.
> (7) Now you come back (still lacking a critical definition of "rock 'n'
> roll") and condemn it for promoting promiscuous sex regardless of its
> lyrical content. Why then are Lee's songs that have historically promoted
> promiscuous sex exempt? I had further offered the challenge that more
> people are getting laid right now to Mozart than The Clash. If "degeneracy"
> is a function of promoting sex, Mozart and Sinatra and Peggy Lee are more
> guilty than bands like The Clash or The Ramones (or Toby Keith). To point:
> Peggy Lee's "Fever" encouraged, and caused, a lot of promiscous sex back
> then, and continues to today (I know many people who "use it" as a sexual
> mood setting song). Why is it immune to your argument?
Apparently you've done a lot of field study of promiscuous sex.
> Furthermore, you state: Rock wouldn't be anything without its beat of
> sexual intercourse.
>
> (8) The same "beat" drives Bluegrass, Jazz, the Blues, Swing, Salsa, Polka
> (just listen to Das Furlines out of Wisconsin), Reggae and most world
> music. I've been waiting for this, and while I won't point out, yet, the
> obvious upper-tier critical divide seperating "all this" from the songs you
> "exempt", I will say it is quite visible to anyone with an understanding of
> muscial roots and cultural foundations. But, please clarify, as this is
> part of your lack of critical definition, which of these "other" musical
> genres with "beats" either rooted in, running parallel to, or culturally
> related to, "rock 'n' roll" are also "degenerate". Is Salsa degenerate?
> Bluegrass? Jazz? the Blues? Swing? Polka? Reggae? World Music in general?
Like Satchmo said, if you don't know a rock beat when you hear it, I
can't tell you.
> (9) Bloom laughably offer Ravel's Bolero as the one classical piece
> students are familiar with, due to its sexual progression. If Ravel has a
> "beat of sexual intercourse", I take it you condemn it with as much
> vehemence as you do "rock 'n' roll"? If no, why not?
Because it's artistically superior.
> (10) If Ravel, a classical work, has a beat of sexual intercourse, as Bloom
> states, then it would seem to anyone capable of logical thought that this
> condemned "beat" is something that can be found in any musical genre, and
> the argument is really an argument against "sex" and not "rock". How do you
> respond to this? Isn't it really a matter of Victorian sexual repression?
> Seems to me so.
No, it's not a matter of Victorian sexual repression. And since you're
hung up on "Victorian sexual repression," I assume you have no problems
with hippie free love.
> Finally, I "bless Pirsig" for being human, for not falling prey to prudish
> Victorian attempts to repress "vulgar" biological Quality. While you
> trumpet sexual repression (and Victorian morality) in your condemnation of
> "sex" (masquarading as a condemnation of "rock"), Pirsig is out there
> living and having fun, drinking with his buddies, getting laid, dancing and
> thumbing his nose at your prudery. I'm with him, Platt, no two ways about
> it. Like I said, philosophy aside, I'd much rather hang out with Pirsig
> than Rigel. From your statements above, I take it you'd rather spend an
> evening with Rigel, condemning sex and degeneracy and dreaming of a return
> to Victorian prudery.
If your idea of a quality life is bar-hopping and picking up barflies, far
be if from me to criticize. But, your pseudo-intellectual defense of rock
(I refuse to call it music) strikes me as a telling proof of Pirsig's
statement, "In the battle of society against biology, the new twentieth
century intellectuals have taken biology's side." And he added, "The
result is social catastrophe."
Platt
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