Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/09/little-richard-dead-at-87.html
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RIP.
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I have been dreading this happening and I was hoping that this day would be far away.
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Soon, there will be noone with talent left, and all we’ll have is housewives from the Jersey Shore.
To quote Peter Steele, among musicians, “Everyone I love is…dead.”
I really have no real impression by most modern artists still alive, except Thievery Corporation, for lasting greatness. The caliber of dead just is so much higher than the living.
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Most of the music I listen to these days is by younger Gen-Xers and Millennials, and while I have fond memories attached to “older” music (in my case late '70s through early '90s), stuff being produced today is, for me, as good or better.
As for Little Richard, while Greil Marcus didn’t cover him in length, he used him in the prologue to illustrate what he considered “Rock and Roll”:
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There hasn’t been real music in this country since Autotune was invented. Now all we have is noise with feedback.
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I think that the calibre of the majority of the Dead is probably no better than the majority of the living. There will always be more good Dead, because they out number us, and the filtre of history has muffled the less stellar among them.
Any way, I’ll get off your lawn now. Have a good day, sir.
“Calibre of the Dead” - Zombie Shooter or Death Metal Band?
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The music industry really bifurcated around the turn of the century to the degree that very, very few truly talented people make any impact on popular culture. Even then, they are mostly working within a depleted paradigm; genres only have so much steam at birth and that quickly fades. Beyoncé, for instance is clearly talented, but I don’t ever find myself moved by her work.
The other half of that divergence is the ability for really talented people to reach their audience without the overhead of a record label controlling or suppressing every aspect of their art. Touring, streaming and direct outreach mean that there are whole worlds of music that no one in mass media is even aware of. No one with real talent and the ability to move music forward is going to reach the “rock star” status again, but that was one of the worst aspects of music from the 60’s through the 90’s. Good riddance.
Rock and Roll is dead and has been for quite some time.
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I’m weirdly at this point where, more and more, I hear about a celebrity death and my initial response is: “Didn’t they die a year or two ago?” I don’t know exactly where that’s coming from. It probably has something to do with the fact that the celebrities I’m familiar with - the ones I grew up with - are now at a certain age, and I’m overwhelmed by how many are “suddenly” dying. It’s creating a disconcerting “Mandela effect,” though.
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90% of everything is crap. We just remember the 10% that was good.
And disagree on what’s in the 10%.
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It was like that for me and Ray Bradbury. I kept continually thinking he was dead, discovering that he was alive, and then within a year going back to thinking he was dead.
Hmmm… maybe I should check Wikipedia.
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Yeah, there are a lot of really talented artists making wonderful music. My wife and I (Gen-Xers) usually start with music on YouTube and follow the playlists. It’s a great way to discover artists you like. In just the last couple of years, we’ve found Petite Meller, Hazel English, Alvvays, Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, Still Corners, Acid Ghost, Craft Spells, Sunflower Bean, Aldous Harding, Marlon Williams…
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I grew up with him making the rounds as a caricature of himself in the 80s. Listening critically as an adult, he was one of the purest rockers of all time.
you are missed.
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A Wop-Bop-a-Loo-Mop, A-Lop-Bam-BOOM!
Black flamboyantly gay guy playing for tame white kids. “If Elvis is the King, then I am the Queen!”
What could it all mean? He and James Brown were poison to white parents everywhere.
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Rock and roll is here to stay, it will never die.
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The idea, sure. The format, yes. However, I am hard pressed to think of a single band or individual that has moved the needle since Nirvana.
And to be clear, when I say move the needle, I mean a band that made a significant cultural and musical impact that was emulated for decades. There have been plenty or great rock groups since, same a jazz or folk, but nothing that really moved any of these genres forward other than for die-hard acolytes of those genres.
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Not exactly gay, not exactly not gay. Regardless of label, he was quite the happy mutant:
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Mr. Jack White would like a word with you.
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What a legend. RnR wouldn’t be the same. RIP you sweet man
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