Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/02/2005 | R&B star Luther Vandross dies at 54

Grammy award winner Luther Vandross, whose deep, lush voice on such hits as “Here and Now” and “Any Love” sold more than 25 million albums while providing the romantic backdrop for millions of couples worldwide, died yesterday. He was 54.

Since suffering a stroke in his Manhattan home in 2003, the R&B crooner stopped making public appearances, but he managed to continue recording. In 2004, he captured four Grammys as a sentimental favorite, including best song for the bittersweet “Dance With My Father.”

Mr. Vandross, who was in a wheelchair and appeared weak at the time, delivered a videotaped thank you: “Remember, when I say goodbye, it’s never for long. Because” – and he broke into his familiar hit – “I believe in the power of love.”

I’m looking forward to seeing Queensrcyhe and Judas Priest tomorrow night. It’s going to be great.

Operation: Mindcrime’s lyrics resonate far too much these days. It still stands as one of my favorite albums of all time. No doubt admitting this here has probably just put me on a watch list. You folks who thumb your noses at heavy metal need to take the time to listen to this with an open mind.

Got no love for politicians
Or that crazy scene in D.C.
It’s just a power mad town
But the time is ripe for changes
There’s a growing feeling
That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due

I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I’ve seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone’s a crook?

…Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America
Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America

Check out Danko Jones and listen to some of their tunes. They rock. If you don’t have an urge to play air guitar to this – well you don’t. Understand?

A modern way to generate word of mouth, in an age of filesharing.

Don’t know if it’s deliberate or not. Either way it’s smart.

Ask Metallica to show producer Bob Rock the door: sign here. Please.

This time it’s driven by the fans. I think I’ve found a like soul there now too. Mentioning Faster Pussycat, Metallica, and Twisted Sister in the same paragraph makes me respect ’em.

I was fooled, and so were plenty of others at Blabbermouth and Metafilter (yes, that’s my first link posted there – damn I feel stupid!), by this editorial at the Iconoclast that clamied that “while the murder of even a semi-human barbarian like Mr. Abbott is tragic and to be lamented, it would be wrong to ignore Mr. Abbott’s complicity in contributing to the soul-deadening culture of death, ugliness, depravity and inhumanity that spawned his killer. “. It’s a paraody. An insulting, over the top parody. And a lot of us fell for it.

…Baby boomers and their music rebelled against parents because they were parents ? nurturing, attentive, and overly present (as those teenagers often saw it) authority figures. Today?s teenagers and their music rebel against parents because they are not parents ? not nurturing, not attentive, and often not even there. This difference in generational experience may not lend itself to statistical measure, but it is as real as the platinum and gold records that continue to capture it. What those records show compared to yesteryear?s rock is emotional downward mobility. Surely if some of the current generation of teenagers and young adults had been better taken care of, then the likes of Kurt Cobain, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, and cer?tain other parental nightmares would have been mere footnotes to recent music history rather than rulers of it.

To step back from the emotional immediacy of those lyrics and to juxtapose the ascendance of such music alongside the long-standing sophisticated assaults on what is sardonically called ?family values? is to meditate on a larger irony. As today?s music stars and their raving fans likely do not know, many commentators and analysts have been rationalizing every aspect of the adult exodus from home ? sometimes celebrating it full throttle, as in the example of working motherhood ? longer than most of today?s singers and bands have been alive.

Nor do they show much sign of second thoughts. Representative sociologist Stephanie Coontz greeted the year 2004 with one more op-ed piece aimed at burying poor metaphorical Ozzie and Harriet for good. She reminded America again that “changes in marriage and family life” are here to stay and aren?t “necessarily a problem”; that what is euphemistically called “family diversity” is or ought to be cause for celebration. Many other scholars and observers ? to say nothing of much of polite adult society ? agree with Coontz. Throughout the contemporary nonfiction literature written of, by, and for educated adults, a thousand similar rationalizations about family “changes” bloom on.

Meanwhile, a small number of emotionally damaged former children, embraced and adored by millions of teenagers like them, rage on in every commercial medium available about the multiple damages of the disappearance of loving, protective, attentive adults ? and they reap a fortune for it. If this spectacle alone doesn’t tell us something about the ongoing emotional costs of parent-child separation on today?s outsize scale, it’s hard to see what could.

Policy Review: Eminem Is Right: 12/04
Too powerful not to quote. Instead of closing your mind, try reading the lyrics. Maybe you will find clues for how your kids feel about you and their world.

…If yesterday?s rock was the music of abandon, today?s is that of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage music ? the characteristic that most separates it from what has gone before ? is its compulsive insistence on the damage wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out parents, and (especially) absent fathers. Papa Roach, Everclear, Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Eminem ? these and other singers and bands, all of them award-winning top-40 performers who either are or were among the most popular icons in America, have their own generational answer to what ails the modern teenager. Surprising though it may be to some, that answer is: dysfunctional childhood. Moreover, and just as interesting, many bands and singers explicitly link the most deplored themes in music today ? suicide, misogyny, and drugs ? with that lack of a quasi-normal, intact-home personal past.

Policy Review: Eminem Is Right: 12/04

Don’t let her bias (which shows itself in her opening paragaphs) stop you from reading this through. Once you get past it, you realize the question she is asking is important, deciding to read the lyrics (read the lyrics?!?! that’s fucking revolutionary!) is a first step to understanding, and the connection she makes is right on the money. No matter how much you want to deny it.

Make sure to read the following article she cites too:

This is the sound of one generation reproaching another ? only this time, it’s the scorned, world-weary children telling off their narcissistic, irresponsible parents. “You were never there when I needed you,” blurts Shaddix at his absent father on “Broken Home.” “I hope you regret what you did.”

Blender: William Shaw: “Why Are America?s Rock Bands So Goddamned Angry?”: 8/02