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About Us
If you are a Gen Xer who loves to read about music the way I do, chances are you were beholden to the reviews in publications like Rolling Stone, Spin and the Village Voice back in the 80s and 90s. And if you are a Black Gen X-er, you were also often perplexed by the way Black music, which is the backbone of all popular music, was continuously omitted, erased, overlooked and disrespected by these publications. For example, on their list of the 200 Best Singers of All Time, Rolling Stone magazine placed singer extraordinaire Gladys Knight at a dismal 101, one slot behind Elton John, one of the very same Friends she sang the fuck out of on “That’s What Friends Are For”. And then RS has the nerve to open her blurb with the self-incriminating statement, “Gladys Knight never quite gets the respect due to her.” I wonder from whom…Duh.
And how the fuck did Bob Dylan place at number 15, above Mahalia Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Chaka Khan, Ella Fitzgerald and Luther Vandross? How, in good faith, could Dylan even be placed above Miss Piggy? He most likely is an incredibly talented songwriter, but as a vocalist, all one has to do is look at that Netflix “We Are the World” documentary thing to see that, as a singer, he completely stinks. Stevie Wonder, who was miraculously placed above Dylan at No. 7 on the list, had to sit down and teach Dylan how to sing like Dylan, who clammed up in the midst of so many incredible Black vocalists in the house. And in what universe is Curtis Mayfield (No. 40) a better singer than Bobby “Blue” Bland (No. 44) and Donny Hathaway (No. 49), for Pete’s sake? If what made Aretha Franklin number one holds true for all artists on the list, then Hathaway logically must be in the top 5.
But there’s no room for Donny because John Lennon is mysteriously there at No. 5 sandwiched between Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. Lennon was that good of a singer? If so, then let’s do a mental test. Logic tells us that the higher up you are on the Greatest Singer list, then you can do vocally what the singers below you cannot. Let’s imagine Patti Labelle (at a remarkably disrespectful No. 74!) singing a rendition of “Imagine” exactly like Lennon sang it. This requires no stretch of the imagination. Now, let’s use our minds and imagine Lennon singing “If Only You Knew” exactly like Patti did, especially the vocal breakdown near the end of the track. Our brain cells cannot even produce this because it would have been impossible for Lennon to get anywhere near those notes. Isn’t showing dexterity and versatility to hit difficult notes while making it sound good the foundation of being a talented singer? If it is, then how can Rolling Stone justify putting Dylan at number 15 and Elvis Presley at number 3 while placing Solomon Burke in the dungeon at 183, right above Karen O, whoever the fuck that is?
And when it came to Rolling Stone naming the Greatest Artists of All Time, their top 4 are The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan (a-fuckin’-gain) and The Beatles. I give a little more leeway here since being an overall great artist isn’t based solely on vocal prowess, but all these white guys openly admit that they were DIRECTLY and INDELIBLY influenced by Chuck Berry (No. 96) and Little Richard (No. 11).
So why where they placed above the people who made them who they were? When it comes to
greatness in basketball, we certainly would not place Bronny over Lebron, now would we?
The problem for us Black Gen Xers who grew up before the publication of Vibe Magazine and theinternet is that the criteria for judging all music were mostly left up to white journalists and music critics who experienced music differently than we do. Black people of my generation do not listen to Metallica and strum along to their music with an air guitar. Black people weren’t blown away by Eddie Van Halen’s virtuosity on “Eruption” and we much preferred Earth, Wind and Fire’s version of “Got to Get You Into My Life” over the original because the horns and drums make us feel a certain way. White journalists do not understand the cosmic relationship we have with music and generally write it off as frivolous or unsophisticated, that’s why they proclaim that Patti Smith (No. 47) is a greater artist than Bessie Smith (does not appear).
This is the reason I wrote this blog. Black music was arguably at its best when I was growing up, give or take five or seven years before I was born in 1971 and five or seven years after I lost interest in contemporary music in 1998. But unless you were Prince or Lauryn Hill, white music critics either ignored or crapped on your music, and since we didn’t have legitimate publication to fend for ourselves, the legacies of the artists we idolized (like Cameo, Phyllis Hyman, Maze featuring Frankie Beverly, Vesta and others) were washed away. I refuse to let that happen. We can’t wait for white critics to finally come around and do right by us because they can’t even properly manage their own corrupt and self-congratulatory Grammy Awards and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF). (Twenty Grammys for Pat Methany and three Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions for Eric Clapton?! Gimmeaphuckinbreak.)
This whole experience I’m laying down here is to pay tribute to the amazing creators of Black music that touched our lives—and more specifically, my life—during the eras that encompass the mid-sixties up until about the early 2000s, artists who have never received the kudos or recognition they deserved from the white press. Many of them, like Rahsaan Patterson and Angie Stone and The Trammps and D-Train and Fatback and Rachelle Farrell and R.J.’s Latest Arrival and so many others never reached number one on any charts. (Hell, Rahsaan never even got into the top 50). When the mainstream press talks about the two British Invasions, they never mention Black Brits like Hot Chocolate, Loose Ends, Junior and Five Star, groups that gave us Black Gen Xers some excellent reasons to Smurf the night away back in the day. Thank God many of us are still alive and kicking in this age of blogs and podcasts, meaning that we can completely bypass the stuffy asswipes at Rolling Stone, Spin, NARAS and the RRHOF and talk about artists who mean something to us without having to hear another goddamnedword about the Grateful Dead or Dylan.
My goal here is to offer critiques and personal perspectives of Black music from that era, doing it with professional journalist integrity. Well, not really critiques because I’m not a critic. Nor do I have any studies or training in music. Furthermore, there isn’t much journalism in this blog because I’ve never studied in that field, so my points of view are not really professional either. And whether I have integrity or not is really a judgment call. So, I guess we’re right back where we started from. But I’m not going to let my lack of experience or perspective stop me from writing about Black music. It certainly did not stop all those assholes at Rolling Stone and Spin from doing so.
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