Phony

Source: Amazon

I've been sharing some hardcore bluegrass and country music on Twitter this week. I guess you could say I've been in a mood. But, then, nothing gets me in a mood like the suggestion that soulless, inauthentic tripe is the real, musical deal.

Somebody read my piece on post-millennial music, and decided that it meant I was endorsing, nay, obsessed with that granny in gangsta drag, Jay Z, and his perennially spread-thighed consort.

Ahem!

Years ago, Mrs. Carter appeared on some stage where someone was strumming a mandolin. This, um, effort launched a media frenzy in which it was declared that the first lady of Autotune could now add "bluegrass singer" to her list of presumed accomplishments.

She has since been crowned queen of something or other, because nothing says regal like nylons under a bathing suit.

As for Mr. Carter, whose admiration of "breastesses" renders him as sexually interesting as a full diaper, he is no more a musician than he is a sex god. Like his wife, he has coasted to artistic credibility on the notion that mere proximity to something true, real, and wildly creative (in this case, The Beatles) grants him equal musical status.

It does not.

Talent is a gift. Sweat is a must if you want to develop it. The Carters have neither. And, they don't have the class or the dignity to do anything but steal from someone who does.

Wanna thunder at me about racism? Do your worst, but know this: I spent my childhood in the free states watching black entertainment, sports, and political figures get to the top and do it right.

When these two cheap, sequined thugs have the talent of a Smokey Robinson or an Aretha Franklin, the political will of a Martin Luther King or an Eleanor Holmes Norton, the grace and athleticism of a Debi Thomas or an Edwin Moses, you won't have to tout them, because I'll know.

And, so will everybody else.

Next up: Madonna? Are You Kidding? I've Never Talked To Madonna. Oh, wait! It's basically the same article with different identifying characteristics, and a penultimate paragraph which mentions Eleanor Parker, Joanne Woodward, Kathryn Grayson, Shirley Bassey, Ann Miller, and Cyd Charisse.

In other words, trash comes in every color.