"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

People say I'm crazy I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Posted by Jill | 10:19 PM
Yesterday I received a long and detailed response to an e-mail I'd sent WXPK's programming director over the weekend, bemoaning what I saw as a kind of "creeping classicsism" infecting this most unique commercial radio station (that you should definitely check out if you are within broadcast range.) Much to my relief, the station is not, in fact, becoming one of those "All Stairway to Heaven, All the Time" top-40 classic hits stations that make me want to stick an icepick in my own forehead.

But the exchange got me to thinking: What are the characteristics of songs you can listen to over and over and over again, and what distinguishes them from songs that you hope never to hear again? I'm sure there are people who can't get enough of Sunshine of your Love or Brown Sugar or Black Magic Woman, but I'm certainly not one of them. On the other hand, I think Bat Out of Hell may be the best crappy rock 'n' roll record ever made, and that Paradise by the Dashboard Light kicks ass even though I've heard it a million times.

Mr. Brilliant and I were watching Classic Albums: Graceland on VH1 Classic tonight, and while I haven't listened to Graceland in a long time, the clips played on this program were like listening to it for the first time. How many kazillions of times have you heard You Can Call Me Al, especially if you are a Democrat who was politically active in 2000?





Yet it struck me just how fresh and gorgeous every song on this album still sounds -- as fresh as the first time you heard it. Why can you always listen to this:




Or this:




What the heck is it that makes one song unlistenable after a certain number of times and another sound as fresh as new every time you hear it?

For me, the answer seems to be simple: The closer a song is to roots music originated by people of African heritage, the more likely it is to hold up over time. If I examine the music I like closely, I'll find some roots music in there. The Clash were influenced by the Specials who were influenced by ska. The Police were influenced by reggae. Motown got its sound from gospel. Graceland gets its sound from Soweto.

Despite a nearly 100 year history, dating back to the earliest rumblings of what would become jazz in the post-slavery era, the importance of American popular music's African roots has always been swept under the rug. When Paul Simon released Graceland twenty-one years ago, it seemed for a brief moment as though that would change. And yet while the Allman Bros. Band, and Talking Heads, and Paul Simon and Stevie Ray Vaughan and Peter Gabriel have all done very well tapping this roots music, history is littered with the corpses of those who created this music and died in poverty -- and the industry is full of brilliant African artists who can't seem to gain a toehold without a white guy fronting the band. Would anyone have ever listened to Ladysmith Black Mambazo without Paul Simon? Angelique Kidjo has been recording for years, but it wasn't until she recorded a track with Peter Gabriel that she got American airplay. Who knew about Ali Farka Touré until he teamed up with Ry Cooder and Adrian Lyne took a track off their Talking Timbuktu album for his film Unfaithful? Every overwrought pop diva on American Idol today hearkens back to Whitney Houston whose mother is a great gospel singer.

Trace the popular music that at least my generation grew up listening to, and it all has its roots in the African diaspora.

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