Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (04/08/87)
Really-From: sun!adlaia%witold@seismo.CSS.GOV (Adlai Alexander) > >This is followed by Boy George's slimy lounge-act vocal; which in turn > >is succeeded by an increasingly chaotic and tasteless > >assault of British pseudo-soulsters (why do British black > >singers have to assume American black idioms, accents, > >pronunciations and vocal embellishments, all of which are a denial > >of their own vastly different cultural heritage?; what is wrong > >with a British black sounding British?). > Why does Mick Jagger have to sound American? Or Roger Daltrey? Or Robert Plant? Or Paul Young? Or Tom Jones? Or Joe Cocker? Or Ozzy Osborne? Or Paul Rogers? Or Eric Clapton? I think that this guy feels that blacks in England should "stay in their place" while he doesn't even realize that there is a long tradition of British pop stars who emulate Americanisms in music. Maybe they feel close to that kind of feeling. Seiji Ozawa is Japanese, but the world would be a bleaker place without his interpretations of Mahler. What, should he only conduct shakuhachi and koto music? I'm not saying that I prefer British blacks to sing like Americans thus ignoring their natural dialect. I'm just saying apparently this guy thinks its OK for the white guys and not for the blacks. I mean it's like saying that Clapton should try to sound more like Julian Bream and not be so pretentious as to play the blues. Isn't he denying his "own vastly different cultural heritage?" Don't tell British blacks what they should do. I know what they would tell this guy to do. Adlai