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- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
- Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 09:40:00 -0800
- Sender: Discussions on all forms of Music <ALLMUSIC@AUVM.BITNET>
- From: SYSMGR@CBOS.UC.EDU
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- Lines: 38
-
- Rarely has a harvest on allmusic offered so many invitations to serious
- wrong-talking.. and someone actually had the 180-proof taste to encourage
- me to dump on ALW? Okay, sports fans:
- Ladies and gentlemen of the list (strike out where not applicable), the
- 80s, like its spiritual parent the third reich, is OVER. Potato-witted
- defenses of moral and artistic relativism--in the name of justifying
- vast wealth for tone-deaf scuzzbags--won't cut it anymore. Andrew Lloyd
- Webber a *popularizer*? An EDUCATOR? That's like calling John Dillinger
- a financier or Oliver North a Christian. What the hell kind of backhanded
- compliment is to say that you walk out of his shows whistling the set?
- Webber is completely incapable of sustaining musical thought for more than
- four bars. And that, I've finally realized, is the secret to his success.
- His "fans," the present-day public, is so freaked out and fucked up that they
- can't concentrate for more than a few seconds. In consequence, they are
- completely incapable of pleasure. (This is very ironic, since they reject
- music for ALW on the theory that his arsenic-laced oatmeal is more "pleasing")
- For, comrades, one common feature to the joys of, say, Mississippi John
- Hurt's three-minute songs & Mahler's 90 minute symphonies is the cumulative
- feeling of time. Bluntly, crudely (so the 80s is over, big deal; now it's
- the fucking 90s): the more you pay attention, the more it's WORTH IT. There
- are connections galore between ALL the moments: it's called musicianship,
- it's called music. With ALW, it just plain doesn't matter what you do.
- The experience is emotionally flat and, apparently, prized as such.
- And THAT brings us to tirade the second: Beermeister imagines Reaganite
- exile will be made more tolerable by listening to Boulez playing Sacre &
- Lulu? BOULEZ? That insensitive, politically-hyperactive weasel? That
- schmuck who thinks that meaning is waste of time which won't advance his
- career? That Bismarck with a math degree? I know FZ reveres him--but even
- great folk have their eccentricities; Pops loved Lombardo, and that parallel
- ain't far off at all. The guy's a complete sonofabitch, and rarely has
- any musician--Herbie Mann comes to mind--made that fact so audible. You
- want Lulu Suite? Check a real musician like Abbado! Never mind the cardboard
- posturing, the "Holy shit, I'm so hip I can wee wee on the score!," get
- the fuck down to the music, and ditch that French jackanapes. Thank you.
- In conclusion:
- I'm King Kong, don't fuck with me!
- Sincerely,
- Michael
-