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Flanders
08-04-2021, 09:12 AM
I plowed thru part one. Part two is a followup:

Editor’s note: this story is part of City Journal’s Summer 2021 print issue and is being published online in two installments. Part 2 will appear next Sunday, August 8.



Classical Music’s Suicide Pact (Part 1)
Heather Mac Donald

https://www.city-journal.org/classical-music-under-racial-attack-part-1?fbclid=IwAR0IY7e3H_EB-9I2YyhVi1y7vHJD3T7I62TcQ0qJyy1HAAIIfVSl6BjQnXY&wallit_nosession=1


Mac Donald’s commentary is an interesting take about ‘non-existent’ racism; so let me offer a few words about real racism inherent in soul music.

Big band music, blue grass, country and western, rock and roll, classical, and so on all have specific customer bases. Soul music and jazz were nothing more than new product lines designed for precise customers. —— you can even find a few white soul singers looking to cash-in on a black business. (Wags even said that Elvis Presley was a white boy who sang black.)

Singers are like violins and guitars. At some point the differences among the best ones are indistinguishable. That is also true of soul singers. There is no difference among the loudest screamers.

The Queen of Soul —— Aretha Franklin —— was screamer not a vocalist.

Soul music has always been about politics —— that is why the race hustlers came out in force for Aretha’s funeral. This one gave me a laugh:


POOF HE'S GONE! MSNBC and ABC crop out Louis Farrakhan from Aretha Franklin funeral photo



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl8RQwZU4AAMdxP?format=jpg&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dl8RQwZU4AAMdxP?format=jpg&name=900x900




September 1, 2018
Farrakhan out front at the Aretha Franklin funeral cropped from news photos
By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/farrakhan_out_front_at_the_aretha_franklin_funeral _cropped_from_news_photos.html


Naturally, the Clintons circled above the corpse like vultures. Hillary had trouble landing:


VIDEO: Two people help Hillary up stairs at Aretha Franklin funeral
August 31, 2018
By Kyle Olson

http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-two-people-help-hillary-up-stairs-at-aretha-franklin-funeral/


Obviously, I disputed Aretha’s singing voice and the way she delivered a song. Basically, she reminded me of Dick Haymes and Frank Sinatra way back in the days of a radio show called Battle of the Baritones. Haymes had the better voice but Sinatra was more famous. In short: Judge the voice alone not the politics.

Let me add a few words about the music younger Americans listen to:


I refuse to patronize a restaurant or a store that pipes in loud, offensive, music. The music is bad enough, but female vocalists are not singing —— they scream the lyrics so loudly they can drown out a marching band.







Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. William Congreve (1670–1729)






I do not know about rocks and knotted oaks, but I believe the part about the savage beast. All music used to sooth. As Socialism gained ground in our society some very destructive individuals, determined to assert their “artistic” independence in the government-imposed mediocrity of the times set about proving that music could also unleash the beast within; hence, the ugliness that is heard in so much contemporary music.

The American Revolution and the Civil War have songs associated those conflicts. (I know of no song associated with the Korean or Vietnam Wars.) This recording by Glenn Miller will always define World War Two:






https://youtu.be/rjq1aTLjrOE




The Greatest Generation danced and dreamed to a song in order to forget the horrors of a brutal war. One wonders which recording the hateful generation will dance to during the next world war?

Rebellious teens today, as in every generation, resent parental control of any kind. The difference with today’s young rebels is that they willingly subject themselves to control by the most hideous music ever heard; never realizing how they are being manipulated by the sound of music simply to arouse the brutish creature lurking in everyone.

To me, and to many others, the violence that is so prevalent among some young people is directly related to the music kids listen to. And it is not the lyrics that I am talking about, although political statement lyrics are a small part of it. I am not saying that every youngster listening to such music is committing acts of violence. It is more an ugliness of the soul that is spreading to a larger number of teenage Americans each succeeding year.




Alas! all music jars when the soul’s out of tune. Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616)



Cervantes never dreamed that one day music would be specifically formulated to vanquish souls.

And the music is incessant —— it is with some kids almost all of time as though they are trying to drown out everything else. I fear that once today’s troubled youngsters become saturated they will be so horribly scarred by a segment of their culture they will see themselves as victims. That view will make them prime recruits for Socialism’s evils as the country is pushed closer to pure Communism.

Submission becomes a habit difficult to break whether it starts with obedience to music’s subliminal message, or it begins with an oppressive political system, the result is the same. On the day that America is beyond turning away from Socialism the beast will reign.

From the day the march toward big government began, young iconoclasts struggled to establish their uniqueness; to rise above the crowd. Today’s would-be nonconformists are the most frightening conformists among us.

I always considered recorded music the sound of history. Recordings can accurately provide a partial account of a select time period or event because recordings represent what a generation literally hears.


https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?130194-The-Only-War-That-Is-Defined-By-A-Song&p=3360429#post3360429