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Music Thread: Shut Up And Sing!

I don't think even Garrett would wear those!

In my youth I really enjoyed Cat Stevens, and even today I hear his music and remember simpler times when all I and my friends had to worry about was making enough money to afford a pizza from one of the the two joints in town. Yup, both were good, although one specialized in Sicilian style, so we could mix it up and have the best of both worlds! Longer Boats is one of my favorites...sort of weird, but with his signature sound. (Don't worry, that's not a link that will make him any money)

But not any more. And that makes me yearn for a time in which art and music and movies weren't entwined with politics, with the angry, screeching opinions of everyone with a guitar or skill at regurgitating lines in a script, and who think that their celebrity gives them license to double as a political pundit.

The stupidity of most "artists" is well documented by their own words. Perhaps their skills at mimicry and singing and playing an instrument come at the expense of higher-order thinking. And certainly the industries in which they work are subsumed in leftist orthodoxy.

But there is a difference between the casual ignorance of some B-list singer jabbering about a ceasefire in Gaza or defunding the police (but my private security will keep their guns!) or how Trump will force pregnant women into birthing camps, and the virulent anti-Western, anti-Semitic words and deeds of Cat Stevens. Nope...I won't use his new name. Why should I? He has no respect for me...why would I respect him?

From his support for the murder of Salman Rushdie for the sin of writing a book (a rare misstep), to his ongoing support of "Palestine," and of course a ceasefire in Gaza that would allow Hamas to recover and continue their Islamic-based murder and destruction of Jews and Israel...Cat Stevens has (mostly) carefully threaded the needle and presented a peaceful, hippie-like public persona, but his deeds are solidly in the pro-Islam, anti-Israel camp. He makes a lot of money from detached boomers who love his music and buy his whitewashing of his true beliefs.

But not from me. When one of his songs comes up on my algorithmic music feed I skip it, and I don't have his music on my lists. Short of cancelling my Spotify account there isn't much else I can do. I guess I can smash my CDs, but that is a sunk cost and won't hurt him at all.

Mostly I'm pissed off that nothing is off limits. Everything is political. Yes, Breitbart was correct, "politics is downstream from culture," but sometimes I just want to listen to music or watch a movie and not be punched in the nose by somebody else's politics.

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Happier stuff below. Mostly what was on my recently played list...

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ELO is sort of a weird group. Their music, at least to my ear, is over-produced and electronic, yet it works! Maybe it's the quality of the musicianship (Lynne can play the guitar pretty well), or the fact that it seems original.

Regardless..it's good stuff!

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I know very little about Soul music, but I sure do love this song. In the Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett is a classic, and for good reason.
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Speaking of great music, this is as good as it gets.

That was his first hit! He died in a plane crash in 1967, but not before taking music by storm.

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I didn't know much at all about Stevie Ray Vaughan...mostly his name. I listened to other stuff in the 1980s. But a friend introduced me to him by coming over with a CD, and I was mesmerized. "Let's go see him!" "Hey...dumbsh*t. He's dead!"

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Speaking of dumbsh*ts. Van Morrison is climbing Dildo's boycott chart. "They Own the Media" is his entry in the Jew-Hate competition, although Roger Waters is probably going to retire the trophy soon. Morrison also recorded an anti-lockdown song with Eric Clapton, so he isn't all bad, but still...

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Sorry to be sort of serious. You are of course free to ignore my blather and go off on wild tangents, which you are going to do anyway!