Town Fights Cricket Plague With Led Zeppelin 190
The residents of Tuscarora, Nevada are getting ready to fight the annual invasion of mormon crickets with the power of Rock-N-Roll. Trial and error has shown that the crickets don't think much of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones. The residents circle the town with boomboxes at regular intervals to drive off the millions of crickets. "It is part of our arsenal. You'll wake up and there'll be one sitting on your forehead, looking at you." says Laura Moore, an unemployed college professor and one of the town's 13 residents. The crickets devastate crops, cause slicks on the highway and evidently love rap.
copyright violation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
"rap" 75% of the word "crap".
Re:PC police (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, I thought De la Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, et. al. produced quite decent music...
Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll have to remember that trick for when mine are old enough to start playing crap on the radio. "Sorry, m'boy. The only way we can keep the boogy-man away is to spin up some of Dad's Floyd albums. Maybe you can listen to your music really quietly in the basement."
My oldest is 15, and so far he has been immune to peer pressure on the subject of music. And most other things too... he's a good kid. In any event, he's been exposed to a lot of good music since he was a baby, and has definitely acquired a taste that is similar to mine (and to a lesser extent his Mom's, but only since she doesn't listen to music nearly as much as I do). The same thing happened to me growing up. I ended up really liking what I was hearing from my Dad ("classic" rock, back before it was a cliche, some country, some proto-progressive music), and my tastes branched off from there. I completely bypassed disco (ugh!) and punk and other popular movements.
My kids are free to listen to whatever they like, but since they've been exposed to so much good stuff at home (all kinds of progressive rock, jazz and classical) they tend to like that. Will they change their tastes or interests as they get older? Maybe... and that's fine. Nevertheless, my plan has been to set the example and let things grow as they may. The contrast between what I consider to be "good" music and what's popular is much stronger than it was in the 70s when pop music hadn't yet completely devolved to the level it's at today.
My little brother (13 years younger) liked some of the same things as me when I was still living at home. After I moved out, he went through a brief rap phase, discovered the "classics" (big air quotes because I refer to "classic rock", not classical music) and now digs jam bands and bluegrass. There's are not often my cuppa, but are definitely something I think is cool.
It's all a matter of what you're exposed to. In the absence of good music, many people won't find that overly simplistic and repetitious music can get tiresome, or that better alternatives are out there. Some people never see music as more than background noise or something to dance to. I also have a personal pet theory that tone deafness is a spectrum and that most people have it to some degree or other, so melody and harmony just don't have the same effect on them as it does for others. Others don't have the patience or interest in acquiring the taste. (e.g., I sometimes didn't like many of my favorites the first time I heard them). And other people just like what they like, and there's never anything wrong with that.
Of course, I find the idea of scary stories very appealing...
Re:At the risk of being modded down (Score:3, Insightful)
And I fucking hate the Beatles.
Then your opinion on music is empirically worthless.
Hate to break it to you, but that's just science.
Re:PC police (Score:5, Insightful)
Because no white (or any other ethnicity) person has ever created a rap song/album.
It's because of comments like yours, that parent is +5 Funny.
(In case you haven't noticed, the parent comment doesn't contain words such as "white" or "black". It's funny how he could make all your stereotypes fill in the blanks at once with just two words.)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people have a low opinion of rap, and admittedly a lot of rappers simply aren't very good. Fine. But there are some rap artists who deserve a lot more respect than they either get, or indeed might even want.
The bottom lines is, rap is poetry. Or at least, rap is our societies current form of poetry. Don't believe me? Would you believe a Nobel Laurette [bbc.co.uk]? Rhyming verses, set a to meter. To be sure, rappers do not frequent poetry readings or college debating societies, but these are not essential artistic qualities.
Rappers are ultimately wordsmiths rather than musicians. Most may not be spectacular, but even the weakest typically have a command of English vocabulary over and above that the general population. When you finally see something like a freestyle rap "battle", you will understand just how sharp they can be.
Now some might say that a lot of rap is "wasted" on the "gansta'" lifestyle topics. That's the choice of the artists, and frankly, it sells. But there is a lot of alternative rap [frontalot.com] out there if you are willing to be open minded about the artform.
I am reminded of a certain Calvin and Hobbes strip [burfeind.net].