Music discussion with a 17-year old
Tyrone Steels II
Being a music lover/junkie/wackjob, I find myself in many a heated argument about "today's" music and "yesterday's" music with the younger folk. Now mind you, I'm only 32 years old so I'm not extra seasoned, but when I talk to a 17-year old, I might as well be a septuagenarian.
On this particular occasion, my 17-year old cousin was telling me that that pop/R&B artist Mariah Carey is the "greatest singer ever" since she can sing "so high and beautiful" (referring the Mariah Carey's five-octave vocal range). She stated this "fact" while seeing Ms. Carey sing the classic ballad "Loving You" originally performed by the legendary and short lived Minnie Riperton back in 1975. I proceeded to inform her, nicely of course, that the song "Loving You" was performed by Minnie Riperton back in 1975 and that Ms. Riperton, in my opinion, performed the song better since she was more soulful. Talk about getting a rise out of my cousin. She proceeded to tell me the following (edited for clarity due to much ebonical flavor):
Minnie who? Minnie what?!? Whatever cousin. First of all, that's Mariah's song period. Mariah wrote it fool. I know that for a fact dummy. And Mariah is the best singer period! Minnie?? That's an old folk name and no damn oldy can sing like Mariah.
Bless the ignorant for they know not what they say. Instead of breaking her little rant down to the very last compound, I just showed her the following YouTube video:
She watched it in stone silence noticing the VH1 Classic logo in the upper right hand corner with the year 1975 next to it. After watching the video, what she said next in all seriousness left me speechless:
Oh my god! A black chick sung that song first?!?! And she don't look like a oldy. Minnie still an oldy name. White girls always tryin' to take our style. I knew Mariah was a liar. She always lying. Anyways, the song sucks. We ordering that pizza?
I made sure the pizza was loaded with everything and that I had an extra mug of beer after hearing that.
Update: More Minnie Riperton here.--Dean
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Artie Shaw
- Benny Goodman
- In The Mood...
- More Blue-Eyed Soul
- Music discussion with a 17-year old
- Dusty Springfield
I consider myself fortunate in that I listened to a lot of my parents' music from a very early age, and then when I came of age in the 1980s I was more into classic rock and old soul music than what was current at the time. This meant I missed out on a lot of '80s music, but that's okay when I got older I went back and discovered some of what I was missing. The point is that I grew up used to listening to older music. So I never had that "I don't like the old sh*t" mentality. In fact if I dig through my music collection I have stuff that's even older--Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Andrews Sisters, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, etc. To me music is all part of a continuum.
Also, anything that's current tends to follow Sturgeons's Law: 95% of everything is crap, which includes 95% of what's popular right now. That 95% will mostly be forgotten in 10 years. But then the remaining stuff will be the stuff that people remember and still love.
And then by 2016 or so we'll hear some kids saying there was no good music in the early 2000s, and others saying, "they made such better music back in 2006, what happened?" It always runs that way. Two sides of the same coin. You just watch. ;-)
Had Minnie stuck around she'd be an oldie now. She's the reason I now kick myself for not going to the student concerts at my alma mater, Hyde Park High School, back in the '60s.
Quite a talent. She was more than a one-hit wonder, but breast cancer got her when she was only 31.
The subjective definition and continuing evolution of good music.
The subjective definition and continuing evolution of accepted language.
The subjective definition and continuing evolution of race.
And the subjective definition and continuing evolution of good pizza.
And you illustrated it all with the most modern and popular (hip, cool, happenin, whack) phenomanon on the web today: YouTube.
Great work!
I assumed that his definition of “everything” didn’t include pineapple or barbecued chicken.
It has to be real jalepenos though, not those light green banana peppers.
And my idea of a loaded with everything pizza is double cheese, all meat (minus anchovies and chicken), double onion, and double green pepper. LOVELY!
I love the "hip, cool, happenin, whack" line. :)
I had faith in your choice of pizza, and you didn’t let me down! Extra cheese is a special touch….
You really are a full fledged intellectual, by my definition, at least. You are actually talking about stuff like this, while probably 95% of the other folks aren’t.
But you can skip the dingy suit. That's for the movies.
The weird beard is OK, though. I’ve got one.....
Regardless of who sings it, lord, I hate that song.
Actually, one of the greatest R&B/soul singers is a white female by the name of Teena Marie. That woman is tied with Chaka Khan as far as amazing voices go. I think my young cousin would probably explode seeing Teena Marie sing.
Race and music... Such a topic. Sounding white, sounding black. It just tires me out at times but the subject is still a topic. I'm just a good music lover. And I thank my parents for being so musically diverse in their tastes. My father played in a black rock named in the 1970s before ABC and MCA records forced them to go R&B and pop. His background got me listening to Steppenwolf, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers, Average White Band, etc.
You can never have too much loaded pizza, or too much good music ;-)
Wow, Minnie can sing quite beautifully. That was a cute conversation Tyronne. Made me laugh.
Minnie certainly sang it better than John Stamos's brother Richard Stamos.
And Wikipedia says "Lovin' You" was for her daughter. How neat.
Down to the Bone has to be one of the best.
Not much, maybe, but... But then, that's a personal preference.
If you want to bring up five-octave singers, what about Annie Haslam of Renaissance? Her work in the album Songs of Sheherezade should guarantee her a place in 20th-century music history.
Interesting coincidence: Haslam, Ripperton, and Carey have one other trait in common: they're all drop-dead gorgeous. :)
Tyrone: I went the other direction. Started out with Airplane, Doors, CSNY, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes. Then I started listening to "oldies" and discovered folks like Sam & Dave and The Wicked Pickett, not to mention greats such as the Temptations.
Oddly enough, Soul and R&B led me to country, not the other way 'round. Go figure.