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Offline Die_Hard

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The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« on: January 29, 2011, 12:11:23 AM »
The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)

.by Phillip Edward Alexander on Friday, January 28, 2011 at 1:07pm.

Earlier today I received the 'leaked' version of Machel Montano's bid for the road march 'Advantage,' and please allow me to be the first to say that it is aptly and succinctly entitled.


Not even bothering to change the basic driving bass beat of his last five or so years of contributions, this song is at best a blended remix of much mediocrity that hopes to appeal to the revelers' joy at returning to the savannah stage.

 
Similar to the effects of any other leaked pornography I have had the pleasure of viewing in the past, i felt guilty after listening to it as if i somehow contributed to its existence by my audience.

 
Now, this is in no way meant to blame the man, as I along with many countless others understands that he does indeed have talent, but knowing the business he is in and the compromises he must make to the fete and radio station owners, if its drivel they want to a hook and a killer beat, by all means give them.
 

Especially when you count each Carnival in the millions of dollars, then 'go thru hard sah,' grind them out.

 Where he is complicit in our destruction and that of our culture though, is that his very existence now is becoming detrimental to the art form and murderous to the culture; like something both tragic and obscene, carnival is slowly becoming nothing but a two day drunken orgy to music where a celebration of a people used to be.
 

Where we had 'four verse and chorous' before (to quote the Mighty Stalin), we now have the word 'huuur' punctuated by a rapid fire series of barely understandable commands.

 

It would appear that David Rudder may have been our peak, and the few bright sparks since have flared briefly and dissipated long before the big brooms come out to sweep away the mess that Carnival leaves behind.


We are dumbing down our nation with each passing opportunity to find something like art among our contributions, and nothing like a greatest hits can be compiled that anyone would want to own much less listen to years down the road.

 

For those needing the release to jump and prance around I understand your desire, but is it too much to ask that after all is said and done we leave something that looks and sounds like something we can be proud of years from now?

Somewhere along the way this mimickry and wholesale importation of all things foreign will leave us only with an accent and a self destructive attitude to tell us apart from anyone else, and all the talk of history and mamaguy will count for nothing then.

 

Say what.


Huuur...



.

truetrini

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2011, 12:14:47 AM »
Apt commentary. I, however, take a more holistic and historical look at road march and Machel's place in it. As you alluded to in the note, this is business, not cultural attachment: "if its drivel they want to a hook and a killer beat, by ...all means give them."

The year Machel won the road march with "Big Truck" in 1997 was a cusp much like an earlier era when Sparrow won with "Jean and Dinah." Sparrow ushered in the era of music and tempo in the road march.

In the decade prior to 1997, Pelham Goddard was arranging consecutive road marches for Superblue and Tambu. Tempo, melody with some sing-along lyrics. Machel's win signaled the tempo at all costs era with no-lyrics tuned to drive the hordes across the stages at Carnival and in the fetes.

The mas took on a different look also. Poison rose while Minshall and Berkley were the last bastions of "art."

Your request of revelers and soca providers to leave a legacy at this point is noble, but like most things in life, there will be a rising to the top of quality. Every nation that produces music all have a barrel full of shit music in their musical and cultural canon.

Future generations may look at it with different eyes and ears and see "art", all we can do is be a marketplace. Either we buy it or not, jump to it or not, request it or not. We don't write our history, it is always written after we are gone.

Huuur...

Offline Controversial

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #2 on: January 29, 2011, 01:26:04 AM »
in a nutshell, the music gone thru 8)

Offline elan

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #3 on: January 29, 2011, 07:16:51 AM »
Man, music eh no gone tru......................alyuh getting old. As stated above, Machel and others supply a major part of the market. There are many good soca and calypso out there. In every era you an find "crap music".

Look at the movie industry - Will Ferrel comes to mind - you can say the same thing. It's just a different period in history with different requirement as to what constitute entertainment.
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Offline Bitter

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2011, 10:06:35 AM »
Plenty nonsense lyrics

Lisa Allen-Agostini
http://www.guardian.co.tt/Lisa-Allen-Agostini.html


Is Carnival time
Get ready to wine…

—Wining Season, Machel Montano


I mean, I quoting Machel there because is a nice lavway and if I was doing anything for the Carnival I definitely would of be doing it to that song, but when you study it, I could of be quoting anything. The lyrics we getting nowadays mostly sounding the same.

That “get ready to wine” is a Alyson Hinds breakaway from some time aback, and I sure if you do a head count it must be show up in a next set of songs.

You go say, soca is not about lyrics.

That is a load of gobar that so deep it could leepay every wall in every house in Trinidad.

Soca start with lyrics, not just music, not just the soul-deep, hip-shaking, mind-blowing, hand-in-a-the-air rhythms we getting nowadays. Soca (or sokah, as some who in the know have it) was always a child of calypso and calypso is the original lyrics art form.

But what we saying with soca now is a biscuit tin beating in the Savannah. It have lyrics to that? No. It need? Neither. All you want is something to shake your manifesto and you good.

We getting exactly the kind of music we deserve. Not just soca, neither, but kaiso and all gone down.

It use to have clear division between what could play in public and what good for the tent; but I was so shame to sit down in a maxi and hear, sitting right next to my seven-year-old the Lady, all about Crazy and he phone-card situation.

The Lady, in she best English, explaining she friend how the man have a girlfriend who have five phone and so want plenty phone card… thank God she didn’t engage with the double entendre, although I know she not stupid and she well hear it.

And it playing on radio like nothing.

It use to have different kind of song in the tent, from rude one to funny one to serious one and then the imaginative and the political. Now, judging by Calypso Monarch song selection, it only have one kind of calypso: the political kaiso. Anything else ent making the finals so you best ent even bother.

Long time the Calypso Monarch was the thing, the boss, the crème de la crème. Now the poor fellah lucky if he get two gigs for the rest of the year when it done. Who want to hear Calypso Monarch when Shurwayne playing?

And the soca? Them song making Iwer classic Han-han-han-han-han (etc) sound like a scholarly treatise on party. If I never hear about another bumper rolling it go be too soon.

We mustn’t complain, though. We look for that.

I recently take up gardening after years of saying I had a black thumb. It shock me to know that the plants and them didn’t really have nothing personal against me. Is just that some of them like water and some don’t; some like sun and some don’t; and all like you to talk to them and love them up or they go just ups and dead on your hand, water, sun or not.

That is what going on with we and these Carnival arts. We making all the right noises about preserving the Carnival, but where we attention going? We loving up the inane, banal and utterly dotish soca songs, the monotonously aggressive pro-PNM songs, the Chinese bead-up bikini and the gargantuan, clumsy king of Carnival costumes with illegal fireworks and all the trimmings.

Yes, it have Junior Carnival, but when they grow up and find we not really interested in all the delightful, ingenious and individuated costumes they accustom to, what they going and play?

We have workshops to teach children to write and sing calypso and soca, but when they turn 18 and want a work, what they going and do? Ask Patrice Roberts. She come up from Junior Monarch singing real solid songs, songs with craft, melody, wit and charm. What she singing now? I like Sugar Boy, but come on.

That girl could of be something big. Instead she in the shadow of Faye Ann, singing for she supper in a soca band. That is where the real money is so why not? Why she must trap sheself in a kaiso ghetto when she could be blinging next to Machel on a stage in Miami, New York, Toronto?

And now we have Junior Soca Monarch. I pass it in the Savannah the other day. Sound like Soca Monarch to me.

When this thing ups and dead on your hand, the Carnival I mean, don’t cry no crocodile tears. We getting exactly the Carnival we deserve.
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Offline elan

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2011, 07:46:59 PM »
Plenty nonsense lyrics

Lisa Allen-Agostini
http://www.guardian.co.tt/Lisa-Allen-Agostini.html


Is Carnival time
Get ready to wine…

—Wining Season, Machel Montano


I mean, I quoting Machel there because is a nice lavway and if I was doing anything for the Carnival I definitely would of be doing it to that song, but when you study it, I could of be quoting anything. The lyrics we getting nowadays mostly sounding the same.

That “get ready to wine” is a Alyson Hinds breakaway from some time aback, and I sure if you do a head count it must be show up in a next set of songs.

You go say, soca is not about lyrics.

That is a load of gobar that so deep it could leepay every wall in every house in Trinidad.

Soca start with lyrics, not just music, not just the soul-deep, hip-shaking, mind-blowing, hand-in-a-the-air rhythms we getting nowadays. Soca (or sokah, as some who in the know have it) was always a child of calypso and calypso is the original lyrics art form.

But what we saying with soca now is a biscuit tin beating in the Savannah. It have lyrics to that? No. It need? Neither. All you want is something to shake your manifesto and you good.

We getting exactly the kind of music we deserve. Not just soca, neither, but kaiso and all gone down.

It use to have clear division between what could play in public and what good for the tent; but I was so shame to sit down in a maxi and hear, sitting right next to my seven-year-old the Lady, all about Crazy and he phone-card situation.

The Lady, in she best English, explaining she friend how the man have a girlfriend who have five phone and so want plenty phone card… thank God she didn’t engage with the double entendre, although I know she not stupid and she well hear it.

And it playing on radio like nothing.

It use to have different kind of song in the tent, from rude one to funny one to serious one and then the imaginative and the political. Now, judging by Calypso Monarch song selection, it only have one kind of calypso: the political kaiso. Anything else ent making the finals so you best ent even bother.

Long time the Calypso Monarch was the thing, the boss, the crème de la crème. Now the poor fellah lucky if he get two gigs for the rest of the year when it done. Who want to hear Calypso Monarch when Shurwayne playing?

And the soca? Them song making Iwer classic Han-han-han-han-han (etc) sound like a scholarly treatise on party. If I never hear about another bumper rolling it go be too soon.

We mustn’t complain, though. We look for that.

I recently take up gardening after years of saying I had a black thumb. It shock me to know that the plants and them didn’t really have nothing personal against me. Is just that some of them like water and some don’t; some like sun and some don’t; and all like you to talk to them and love them up or they go just ups and dead on your hand, water, sun or not.

That is what going on with we and these Carnival arts. We making all the right noises about preserving the Carnival, but where we attention going? We loving up the inane, banal and utterly dotish soca songs, the monotonously aggressive pro-PNM songs, the Chinese bead-up bikini and the gargantuan, clumsy king of Carnival costumes with illegal fireworks and all the trimmings.

Yes, it have Junior Carnival, but when they grow up and find we not really interested in all the delightful, ingenious and individuated costumes they accustom to, what they going and play?

We have workshops to teach children to write and sing calypso and soca, but when they turn 18 and want a work, what they going and do? Ask Patrice Roberts. She come up from Junior Monarch singing real solid songs, songs with craft, melody, wit and charm. What she singing now? I like Sugar Boy, but come on.

That girl could of be something big. Instead she in the shadow of Faye Ann, singing for she supper in a soca band. That is where the real money is so why not? Why she must trap sheself in a kaiso ghetto when she could be blinging next to Machel on a stage in Miami, New York, Toronto?

And now we have Junior Soca Monarch. I pass it in the Savannah the other day. Sound like Soca Monarch to me.

When this thing ups and dead on your hand, the Carnival I mean, don’t cry no crocodile tears. We getting exactly the Carnival we deserve.

According to she definition you could file this under modern day soca.
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Offline just cool

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2011, 08:18:15 PM »
Man, music eh no gone tru......................alyuh getting old. As stated above, Machel and others supply a major part of the market. There are many good soca and calypso out there. In every era you an find "crap music".

Look at the movie industry - Will Ferrel comes to mind - you can say the same thing. It's just a different period in history with different requirement as to what constitute entertainment.
You tryin tuh tell me that sh!t them boy singin is soca ?? sttuueeppppssss!  soca ded since super blue start wid dis "wave yuh rag" bullsh!t.
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Offline Bitter

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2011, 09:08:04 PM »
Man, music eh no gone tru......................alyuh getting old. As stated above, Machel and others supply a major part of the market. There are many good soca and calypso out there. In every era you an find "crap music".

Look at the movie industry - Will Ferrel comes to mind - you can say the same thing. It's just a different period in history with different requirement as to what constitute entertainment.
You tryin tuh tell me that sh!t them boy singin is soca ?? sttuueeppppssss!  soca ded since super blue start wid dis "wave yuh rag" bullsh!t.

The thing is, "Get something and wave" is a classic, with a story and lyrics to match any song you put forward. What happened is that it got distilled down to the "wave" part. So on the one hand, you can trace it back to him, but you can't Superblue for the subsequent lack of quality.

The music has never been better, so you have to also look at the songwriters. We have been blessed in the past with outstanding and prolific song-writers, and these guys have stayed in the business a long time churning out hit after hit. Now we have a new crop, that are just as good, and I think that must be acknowledged as well. What is different is the large numbers of riddim riders and fete singers, that we didn't see before. This is, I feel a natural outcome of better economic opportunities for soca singers. It attracts a wider cross-section, and dilutes the quality.

The thing is, in a fete, I don't care that a song is a brilliant expression of the mood of the country after the coup. I just want to get my rag and wave it. What we must not forget is that songwriting is still alive and well. Technology is making it easier to find and hear these gems, but there is still a long way to go.




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Offline just cool

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2011, 11:56:52 PM »
Man, music eh no gone tru......................alyuh getting old. As stated above, Machel and others supply a major part of the market. There are many good soca and calypso out there. In every era you an find "crap music".

Look at the movie industry - Will Ferrel comes to mind - you can say the same thing. It's just a different period in history with different requirement as to what constitute entertainment.
You tryin tuh tell me that sh!t them boy singin is soca ?? sttuueeppppssss!  soca ded since super blue start wid dis "wave yuh rag" bullsh!t.

The thing is, "Get something and wave" is a classic, with a story and lyrics to match any song you put forward. What happened is that it got distilled down to the "wave" part. So on the one hand, you can trace it back to him, but you can't Superblue for the subsequent lack of quality.

The music has never been better, so you have to also look at the songwriters. We have been blessed in the past with outstanding and prolific song-writers, and these guys have stayed in the business a long time churning out hit after hit. Now we have a new crop, that are just as good, and I think that must be acknowledged as well. What is different is the large numbers of riddim riders and fete singers, that we didn't see before. This is, I feel a natural outcome of better economic opportunities for soca singers. It attracts a wider cross-section, and dilutes the quality.

The thing is, in a fete, I don't care that a song is a brilliant expression of the mood of the country after the coup. I just want to get my rag and wave it. What we must not forget is that songwriting is still alive and well. Technology is making it easier to find and hear these gems, but there is still a long way to go.





Breds, you could never convince me in a million yrs that this " slop" they callin soca is just as good musically or lyrically than what we had. the late great cecil humes/ maestro produce some of the best musical and lyrical mater pieces that would put this "show yuh rag" generation of soca artiste to shame ah 1,000 x over!

fellas like duke , nelson, shot shirt, kitch, terror, bomber, sparrow, maestro , blakie just to name ah few all jumped on it and produced some master pieces, especially the shadow and IMO should have the title "king of soca", BC he put out some wickedest beats with lyrics to match.

i remember when soca first came out, and the old ppl was very unkind to it, they wanted to stick wid the traditional kaiso beat like what yuh would hear in the tents along wid the social commentary, but after a few yrs they all warmed up to it BC in reality, soca didn't stray too far from the calypso beat.

IMO, this shyte they callin soca is synonymous wid what them young jamaican artiste callin reggae. all of it is techno! BC that's what the shyte sound like , and yeh it more marketable, but iz it real soca? remember , soca is the beat, not what you sing and call it soca.

jazz iz jazz BC of the beat, and so is the blues, and so iz country, and so is R&B. music is identified by it's beat, call me old fashion, but this ting them young boy callin soca is techno, BC it have ah techno beat.
The pen is mightier than the sword, Africa for Africans home and abroad.Trinidad is not my home just a pit stop, Africa is my destination,final destination the MOST HIGH.

Offline Bitter

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2011, 08:15:06 AM »
SO is there ANY good soca this year, or is it all techno?
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Offline Jah Gol

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #10 on: January 30, 2011, 10:11:26 AM »
I will the first to admit the music generally has deteriorated ,Rhythmically , Melodically and lyrically. That said I don't have a problem with the song. It is what it is- a road march tune in the 21st century. 

Offline Conquering Lion

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Re: The Abuse of Culture... (Who Say Advantage?)
« Reply #11 on: January 30, 2011, 01:02:21 PM »
Man, music eh no gone tru......................alyuh getting old. As stated above, Machel and others supply a major part of the market. There are many good soca and calypso out there. In every era you an find "crap music".

Look at the movie industry - Will Ferrel comes to mind - you can say the same thing. It's just a different period in history with different requirement as to what constitute entertainment.
You tryin tuh tell me that sh!t them boy singin is soca ?? sttuueeppppssss!  soca ded since super blue start wid dis "wave yuh rag" bullsh!t.

I get your point but before you knock Superblue.. you must listen to the lyrics of "Get something and wave" again...you would realize that the song was written right after the coup and the lyrics said as much. Same as Duke's "Get on Radical"
We fire de old set ah managers we had wukkin..and iz ah new group we went and we bring in. And if the goods we require de new managers not supplying, when election time come back round iz new ones we bringin. For iz one ting about my people I can guarantee..They will never ever vote party b4 country

 

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