Especially given the origin of the phrase "Rock 'n' Roll." I mean, think about it.
You know what they say: sex, drugs, and not-sex.
That's supposed to be punk rock somehow? I mean, like Poison was? I guess I don't really get it.
2: Exactly! Also, I think I've deployed the exclamation point over-zealously in this two-post combo. I have regrets.
Secret Sign by the Knights of the New Crusade is the punk rockest Christian song EVAR. Ever since I heard it, I've had a(n admittedly perverse) fondness for it.
To be truly safe, those kids had better do it in the butt.
well ok yeah but i really listened to mxpx a lot in jr high
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqZXy63_CZQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWOx4TUYXZA
somehow i can here belle & sebastian and beach boys and ride in there that i'd soon be listening to.
or sometimes impending marxism!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LOnkizrVbU&feature=related
srsly nothing but smiles nwo
oh i found one with 'save it for marriage' lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qcxr-p29gI#t=1m40s
You know, I get the idea of abstaining for spiritual reasons -- like fasting, just with sex. But this whole OMG it's not safe you'll die if you do it concept...
Did you watch it to the end? The girl is in the car with a different guy, who smirks as she hands him the condom and says 'Don't worry, it's safe.' The little slut.
The introductory narrative reminds me of Titian's Temptation of St. Anthony, which I just saw last weekend. Very similar storyline, but the blond girl had the cutest little ivory horns and a lot more jewelry. And there was no car. Other than that.
I didn't get much past "if they hand them out at school, it must be safe!". So does she at least get lucky with the second guy?
I think it's implied that she does. And clearly if he doesn't go for it either, she'll just move on to the next guy. With whom she'll have the exact same conversation again.
B-b-but! What about "I don't SMOKE! And I don't DRINK! And I don't SMOKE! At least I can FUCKING THINK!" Not for Jesus, still silly, but definitely "punk rock."
12: Jesus ruin your whole post, why don't you oudemia?!
Ahem -- "I don't SMOKE! And I don't DRINK! And I don't FUCK! At least I can FUCKING THINK!"
Consider this your erratum page.
Every so often, I find myself picking up a rental car in a red state and listening to broadcast radio. Since I don't ordinarily listen to top 40 stations, I don't always recognize right away if the car radio is tuned to a contemporary christian station rather than a conventional pop music station (usually the giveaway is the station identification announcement: the brand name is generally something like "The Word").
Anyway, these experiences have convinced me that contemporary christian music has entered the uncanny valley of similarity to mainstream pop: the vocal stylings are the same, the instrumentation is the same, the sound engineering is the same, but there is something missing. This post stimulated the thought that the missing ingredient is sex. You just can't sing paens to Jesus' love with quite the same emotional content that animates music inspired by sexual lust.
One of my fondest grad school memories is of the day of critical theory survey class when we read Malcolm McLaren (that pain in the ass). The conversation turned to straight edge, and it transpired that our young professor had never heard of it, so there followed a half-hour seminar on the subject delivered by the many DC-local MA students in the room (and me).
You just can't sing paens to Jesus' love with quite the same emotional content that animates music inspired by sexual lust.
13: I don't think Jesus intervened in this vale of tears just to screw with your post, oud.
17: I have a *very* personal relationship with him, JRoth.
Also, would anyone need to feel sick for humanity now?
This may help. One truly wonders at the sick fuck who thought this was cute.
Watching this made me choke on my breakfast. I'm guessing this band gets federal funding?
16: so right. My comment inadvertently used "you" where it should have said "white people".
You just can't sing paens to Jesus' love with quite the same emotional content that animates music inspired by sexual lust.
This is pretty much why all late-20th-c Christian music sounds, like, gay, or at least queerly Christophilic. Lust is the engine of pop.
It's the same thing with Donne's holy sonnets. The Petrarchan sonnet was invented for getting ladies to fuck you. You can't just go around writing sonnets about God without expecting half my students to respond by shouting out, "Is John Donne, like, gay, or what?"
21: and nobody come back with the Carter family singers, OK? Because we all know that June's hymn-singing was just sublimated sexual lust.
The Petrarchan sonnet was invented for getting ladies to fuck you
AP English would have held my attention a lot better if AWB had been teaching at my school.
24: What did they tell you sonnets were for?
21/23: I was going to come back with the troubadours sexxxytime songs for the Virgin Mother. But they're French, so maybe they get a bye?
22: In Dan Radosh's book on evangelical pop culture, he says that there is a fair amount of contempt among the "hipster" evangelicals for the "Jesus is my boyfriend" genre of Christian songwriting.
25: All I remember is "Enduring masterpiece...blah blah blah...heart has its reasons that reason knows not...blah blah...touches feelings common to all humanity across generations...blah blah blah...this will be on the exam...blah blah blah...if you just read the Cliffs Notes you are cheating yourself...blah blah blah..."
Everyone believed our AP English teacher was a queer, and I consistently defended him (in that time and place, "defend" is the right term; even I did not question the assumption that this was an accusation that warranted a defense), largely because I rejected the underlying assumption that anyone who dressed nicely and liked books must be a homo. A year or so after HS graduation, he made a drunken pass at me. By that time, though, the liberal secular university had corrupted me enough that I didn't get freaked out about it. Indeed, I gave him credit for waiting until I reached the age of majority.
Of course the woman is a temptress and the man is an otherwise righteous dude trying to resist her wiles. Just like in the garden when Eve tempted Adam with the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Rocking and Rolling.
Indeed, I gave him credit for waiting until I reached the age of majority a handjob.
27: Yeah, this kind of poetry teaching makes me really glad I didn't study poetry at all until grad school.
On the other hand, some Christians apparently really know how to party:
The Narcotic-to-Theologian Correspondence.
re the OP, I couldn't watch past 20 seconds. For some reason it reminds me of discussions (here?) of the "nice guy" syndrome - like some kind of self-righteousness porn.
there is a fair amount of contempt among the "hipster" evangelicals for the "Jesus is my boyfriend" genre of Christian songwriting.
The "Jesus is my abusive boyfriend" genre of Christian poetry is way better.
Christianity is just straightedge turned 45 degrees.
The "Jesus is my abusive boyfriend" genre of Christian poetry is way better.
Yeah, everybody loves Wagner.
Wagner is the Billy Collins of poetry.
I thought Billy Collins was the Billy Collins of poetry.
One word: Stryper.
max
['It's like, like... really really bad Winger!']
39: I have really hazy memories of once thinking they were, like, so cool.
Batter my heart, two-fisted God.
So what horny teenage guy is going to see this video and think "hey, I want to be the loser who doesn't have a car and winds up walking home from the date while some other dude gets to bang the cute girl?"
I mean, the only thing that could undermine the message even further is if we saw abstinence boy hitchhiking and getting picked up by a Republican congressman at the end.
40: 39: I have really hazy memories of once thinking they were, like, so cool.
But you were like twelve, right? That's OK.
Batter my heart, two-fisted God.
Deepfry my soul!
max
['And they're a step up from the music in a Church of the Powerball!']
I have really hazy memories of once thinking they were, like, so cool.
It's not often that I get to feel superior to Di, but when I first heard Stryper at age 16 (Soldiers Under Command), I knew even then that they were totally lame--contagiously so, in fact.
Further to 44: I credit marijuana with giving me this precocious power of discernment.
If the title was Soldiers Under Christ the King* it would have been even clearer that they suck.
*a phrase now found once by Google, in a Youtube comment on a video called "Ian Paisley teaches on the Jesuits".
I felt superior to the kids listening to Stryper becuase I was listening to the self-evidently hipper faux-Satanist metal (Ozzy Osbourne, etc), which in retrospect now looks just as silly. Better licks, though.
Better licks, though.
Does anything else matter?
what 48 said --- that, and note that bands like black sabbath were very intentionally being silly contrary to, say, stryper.
I'm sorting through my spam and I find that someone found my place via this search. I officially blame Stanley.
bands like black sabbath were very intentionally being silly
They were!? I went through a very brief Black Sabbath period, which embarrassingly happened in freshman year of college rather than at its proper time, in high school, and pissed my freshman year roommates off a lot. But it was only 3 months? On repeat, admittedly. Sorry, guys!
52: It's ok, parsi, I went through a period of listening to Black Sabbath a lot just a few years ago.
My freshman year of college, I got too cool to listen to Black Sabbath and traded in all my vinyl from them. I could absolutely kick myself for that now.
I'm retrograde in this, but I've never stopped liking Black Sabbath. And I just had Megadeath on in the home. which I believe annoyed the neighbors.
Despite 20 years of trying, I'll confess to never really getting punk rock (a capacious category, I know) -- it still today mostly seems like bad musicianship aligned with annoying attitude. The 90s, and 00s versions don't even seem to have the virtue of originality. I do like the Clash and Ramones a lot, though.
54: I got too cool in fairly short order as well, and started listening to Talking Heads and Elvis Costello by sophomore year. That's good music too, so it's all cool. The only music I really stopped listening to in public, as it were, due to peer pressure, was Yes, and to a certain degree other prog-rock so-called concept bands (Genesis, Pink Floyd, King Crimson). I may have an attitude about that now: you guys shouldn't have given me shit about that!
My heavy metal clarinet friend got me into Black Sabbath soon after my ex-wife moved out, and I had a sublime in-car make out to their credit.
23: Because we all know that June's hymn-singing was all religious expression is just sublimated sexual lust.
Seriously, the wages of sin is not death, the wages of sin is babies. And who doesn't like babies? They're cute.
They're cute.
Which is fortunate, because without that, they're just really loud disease vectors.
56: Genesis and Pink Floyd outlived their best periods, but there's no shame in liking stuff from the glory days. That said, I'm pretty sure it's been well over five years since I last chose to listen to a Floyd album. I found "Foxtrot" and "Nursery Cryme" at a used CD store more recently than that, though.
As for King Crimson, they never really had a fall-off. Their first best era was the second version of the band, but the rotating membership starting with "Discipline" has been consistently interesting, with the exception of a few lyrical clunkers from Adrian Belew (whose solo stuff I quite like, but some of his recent KC lyrics are terrible).
As for King Crimson, they never really had a fall-off
Yes they did.
it still today mostly seems like bad musicianship aligned with annoying attitude.
Television? Quine?
39: they're just really loud disease vectors
Just like mosquitoes. Except they never drink ... blood.
61: Oh? When? "Beat" and "Three of a Perfect Pair" aren't as strong as "Discipline," I'll grant, but "Thrak" stacks up very well against both "Discipline" and "Red."
You know they continued releasing albums after Thrak, right?
(The latter has some tunes I like, but there's undeniably been a falling off; I would argue that Thrak didn't even live up to the promise of VROOOM. "Consistently interesting" isn't really right either; we've had quite a lot of the counterpointillistic guitar interplay by now and (IMO) Fripp should ditch both the wall of effects and Belew.)
counterpointillistic
Is this original? It's pretty good.
I'm struggling between: counterpoint-illistic, and counter-pointillistic.
64: Agreed. I got into Crimson with the Discipline triad, or trio (whatever, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair), worked backward a bit to Court of the Crimson King and skipped around, loving Starless and Bible Black.
The ConstruKction of Light and the Power to Believe initially blew me away (I had to leave the room for some fresh air the first time I heard the latter), but I have a hard time listening to them now. I find them agitating. Weird.
It is original and means exactly what you would think, ie, it's a portmanteau of "counterpoint" and "pointillistic".
we've had quite a lot of the counterpointillistic guitar interplay by now and (IMO) Fripp should ditch both the wall of effects and Belew.
We need the counterpoint, ben. The wall of effects is ... overwhelming. But I think that's the point? I don't know. I miss the delicacy of Discipline.
Sorry about the italics in 71.2 there.
I miss the delicacy of Discipline.
THELA HUN GINJEET! THELA HUN GINJEET!
The Delicacy of Discipline sounds like the name of a Taschen book of soft-focus bondage photos.
65: I own those too. I hate typing out the titles to the 2000 album and songs because of the 'Kc' motif everywhere, but "FraKctured" and "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part IV)" definitely stack up next to their counterparts in the canon. Sadly, that album is also where the Belewisms started to take hold (tracks 1 and 6), so it's not all great.
I don't really mind "The Power to Believe," but neither do I listen to it very often.
I don't know that I agree that Belew needs to be ditched, but his energies definitely need to be focused into something that sounds like Crimso. He's got incredible chops and I like his solo records, but left to his own devices he goes in directions that seem orthogonal to the rest of the band.
That sounds neat. I guess the idea would be multiple, independent voices playing short notes over a, potentially, wide range.
It's not often that I get to feel superior to Di
Seriously? Dude, you clearly aren't paying attention.
"FraKctured" and "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part IV)" definitely stack up next to their counterparts in the canon
I respectfully disagree! If there were nothing else about which to complain, the shit timbre would suffice. I also think the past-mining that those titles (and Belew's lyrics) evince is unfortunate.
"Fracture" continues to be able to grab me and even to be exciting; "FraKctured" I haven't listened to in a while but always struck me as not very interesting.
ninjap: I'm in the library so can't vouch for the audio but this purports to be KC's "Discipline".
Ninjap? not so sure about that one. I'll check out the audio in a bit. It's hard to paper write and listen to music at the same time. Paper writing and unfogged commenting though? Cake!
75: That may be, but honestly, Discipline absorbs me in its, er, threads, in a way that no other Crimson does.
Almost all of my Crimson is on vinyl, and I don't listen to it very often any more. Though. Discipline I no longer have a copy of! I have to remedy that.
> (define (string-contains? s w) (let ((sl (string-length s)) (wl (string-length w))) (if (> sl wl) #f (if (string=? s (substring w 0 sl)) #t (string-contains? s (substring w 1 wl))))))
> (define (ninjap? s) (string-contains? "ninja" (symbol->string s)))
> (ninjap? 'ninjaphilosopher)
#t
> (ninjap? 'nosflow)
#f
>
string-contains? would probably be more efficient using string->list.
I don't even understand 83 well enough to make a pseudo-knowing joke about it.
A Christian punk band is possible, but not a punk Christian band (unless they were so subversive that the evangelical-industrial complex that is the Christian radio/record bis thought they were on the level).
Imagine, if you will, a music programmer for a Christian radio station, or an a & r guy for a Christian record label, but who was also fluent both in European musical history, from Gregorian chant up through, say serialism (also jazz, 20th century popular music, and aesthetic and critical threory). If you were to ask this hypothetical person, why do you play this shit instead of the St. John Passion or the Soul Stirrers?, that person will reply:
Because once the aesthetic takes precedence over the message, you have succumbed to the world that you hoped to change, or at least save people from. Music should be chosen so as to be an effective vehicle for a message specified in advance. Musicians should never decide, or even shade, what the message should be..
83 would be shorter in Python.
My python was shorter in '83
That Reagan recession was hell all around, wasn't it?
(Ripostes citing the NBER recession-timing report should not be posted here, but should be reserved for someone who gives a damn.)
Wow, I haven't seen LISP in the wild since the great parenthesis shortage of ought-six.
We've discussed Lisp here multiple times. No wonder people keep leaving in a huff.
I'm torn on this nature-nurture debate. Some would argue that ToS, as the son of consanguinous imbeciles, was doomed by his genes to idiocy. Others take a more sympathetic view, and point to the tragic neglect he suffered while his mother earned her meagre paycheck blowing long-haul truckers by the border crossing, or to the abuse he suffered at the hands of the other boys at the juvenile home who laughed at his hermaphroditic genitalia, or to the lingering effects of his youthful glue-sniffing.
Alas, it seems tragically overdetermined.
The anti-semitism, on the other hand... Who would have imagined that getting stiffed out of $5 by one jewish recipient of a back alley rimjob could unleash such a venemous tirade?
OK, OK, ToS. You've successfully intimidated me. I'll be quiet. Just don't sic the EFF on me, pretty please with sugar on top?
BTW it's not entirely implausible that you've got my mother on speed dial, because she did spend much of her career working with retards in social services.
Wow, I haven't seen LISP in the wild since the great parenthesis shortage of ought-six.
It was actually Scheme.
Wow, that poor bastard must be having an aneurysm over 96.
Uh, isn't Scheme Lisp?
Certainly Abelson, Sussman & Sussman use it so...
(Little bitchery enabled by chance enthusiasms? Hell yes.)
100: You do realize who you're talking to, right?
Whom, Walt. Whom you're talking to.
(I realise. That's why I'm trembling in terror that I missed some nice subtle point that clearly makes me look like a fool.)
102: Just you wait until you make a grammar mistake. I'll be waiting. Watching.
103: You missed some nice subtle point knowledge of which would immediately send you into a coma because of its incredible lack of importance.
102: With whom, Walt. With whom you are talking.
Scheme is a Lisp. I just assume when I see someone talking about seeing Lisp used or something that they mean Common Lisp.
I speak with others, Minivet. Maybe you only speak to them. Maybe that's why your life is cold and empty.
Ah. You see, this where learning one's Lisps from a library that seemingly gave up on Lisp in the 1980's alters one's views.
There are no google hits for anything along the general lines of "LISPers do it in tail position" or referring to "tail calls" in a nontechnical sense.
Be the change you wish to see in the google, neb.
Nobody has mentioned the most amazing thing about the video: it's on YouTube, but the comments associated with it aren't incredibly stupid. Some are even funny!