1980s rock music is rather looked down upon these days, but it seemed pretty good at the time and seems not too bad in retrospect. Here's a reader's poll from electric guitar maker Gibsons of 1980s songs. (There's no requirement that they feature electric guitars, but, given the site, not surprisingly, they almost all do). One thing I would note is that this was still the long era, beginning with the Beatles, when the general superiority in stylishness of British rock music was taken for granted. Of the 25 tracks, 12 are American and 13 from the British Commonwealth / British Isles.
Gibson.com Readers Poll – Greatest Song of the ’80s
1. AC/DC, “Back in Black” (1981)
2. Iron Maiden, “The Number of the Beast” (1982)
3. AC/DC, “Shoot to Thrill” (1980)
4. Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” (1984)
5. Simple Minds, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” (1985)
6. Roxy Music, “More Than This” (1982)
7. Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” (1987)
8. R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1987)
9. Van Halen, “Jump” (1984)
10. Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (1988)
11. Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House” (1983)
12. Neil Young, “Rockin’ in the Free World” (1989)
13. Pixies, “Monkey Gone to Heaven” (1989)
14. John Hiatt, “Slow Turning” (1988)
15. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” (1983)
16. Bruce Springsteen, “I’m on Fire” (1985)
17. Guns N’ Roses, “Paradise City” (1988)
18. Fine Young Cannibals, “She Drives Me Crazy” (1989)
19. John Lennon, “(Just Like) Starting Over” (1980)
20. U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name” (1987)
21. Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Pride and Joy” (1983)
22. Rush, “Tom Sawyer” (1981)
23. Split Enz, “I Got You” (1980)
24. Modern English, “I Melt with You” (1982)
25. U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (1984)
The Gibsons critics' poll is decent, too, although their #1 choice, "London Calling" by The Clash seems curious. "London Calling" has always struck me as about the 17th best Clash song ever. It's monumental in style, but seems underwritten, as if it needs another hook of some sort. I believe somebody could take the catchy bass line from The Pretenders' "Mystery Achievement," which was released the same week in December 1979, and add it to "London Calling," and you'd have a better song. The critics poll:
1. The Clash, “London Calling” (1980)
2. Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (1988)
3. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” (1983)
4. Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” (1987)
5. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power” (1989)
6. AC/DC, “You Shook Me All Night Long (1980)
7. Prince, “When Doves Cry” (1984)
8. Def Leppard, “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (1987)
9. Van Halen, “Jump” (1984)
10. Duran Duran, “Hungry Like The Wolf” (1982)
11. Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure” (1981)
12. U2, “With or Without You” (1987)
13. Bruce Springsteen, “The River” (1981)
14. Bon Jovi , “Livin’ on a Prayer” (1986)
15. New Order, “Blue Monday” (1983)
16. Prince, “1999” (1982)
17. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, “I Love Rock ’n Roll” (1981)
18. U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (1984)
19. Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime” (1981)
20. Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (1980)
21. The Police, “Every Breath You Take” (1983)
22. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The Message” (1982)
23. Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House” (1983)
24. The Rolling Stones, “Start Me Up” (1981)
25. Van Halen, “Hot for Teacher” (1984)
26. Squeeze, “Tempted” (1981)
27. Run-D.M.C., “Walk This Way” (1986)
28. Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” (1984)
29. The Smiths, “How Soon is Now?” (1985)
30. Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” (1981)
31. R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1987)
32. U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name” (1987)
33. Motörhead, “Ace of Spades” (1980)
34. R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe (1981)
35. Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train” (1980)
36. Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again” (1987)
37. Madonna, “Like a Prayer” (1989)
38. Mötley Crüe, “Dr. Feelgood” (1989)
39. Beastie Boys, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” (1987)
40. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, “Come on Eileen” (1982)
41. Michael Jackson, “Beat It” (1983)
42. Devo, “Whip It” (1980)
43. Guns N’ Roses, “Paradise City” (1988)
44. Big Country, “In a Big Country” (1983)
45. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight” (1981)
46. AC/DC, “Back in Black” (1981)
47. Madonna, “Like a Virgin” (1984)
48. The Bangles, “Walk Like an Egyptian” (1986)
49. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot” (1988)
50. The B-52’s, “Love Shack” (1989)
The fan choices are less diverse demographically than the critic choices. The fans picked overwhelmingly male groups (Pixies and Talking Heads had one woman each). The critics choices had two Madonna songs, a Bangles, and a Joan Jett, plus gender mixed groups Sonic Youth, B-52s, and Talking Heads.
Racially, the fans put Michael Jackson's Billie Jean at #15 (kind of a hard song to avoid for a 1980s list), but no Prince or any rappers. Fan favorites Guns n Roses have a half-black guitarist in Slash and the Van Halen brothers are a little Indonesian. Fine Young Cannibals was a mixed race offshoot of the mixed race band the English Beat.
The critics were somewhat more open to black artists, putting not just "Billie Jean" but also "Beat It" (with Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo) on their Top 50. They also chose two Prince songs, and three rap songs by blacks. Not surprisingly, they are exactly the three you'd expect white critics to come up with: Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," Run-D.M.C.'s remake with the two guys from Aerosmith of "Walk this Way" (which helped relaunch Aerosmith, who had seemed washed up, but they turned out to be so much better than the fat black guys on that track), and Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" from Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." (And Journey had Randy from American Idol as their bass player.)
It seems like music culture got more racially segregated over time. If you were conducting a poll not in 2011 but in 1981 of fans and critics interested in guitars of the best recordings of the 1950s, certainly Chuck Berry would have been heavily represented, plus Muddy Waters and some other blues musicians.
Offhand, I don't notice any Asians or Hispanics on the list, although Los Lobos's 1987 remake of Richie Valens "La Bamba" might have featured some of the more thrillingly precise guitar playing of the decade.
Most of these artists had short careers at the top, with obvious exceptions such as U2, Springsteen, Madonna, AC/DC, Ossy Osbourne, and REM. I don't know why 1980s artists tended to have short careers relative to 1960s-70s artists. Worse drugs? More competition?
I suspect fewer careers started quite as young as previously. The British Invasion bands were very young when they made a splash in 1964-65, but they were kicking in an open door. There was nobody ahead of them with a similar sound, so they could become stars when they were musically immature and then dazzle everybody by maturing into their peaks in their late 20s. With the Beatles, say, "Hey Jude" was a whole lot better than "Love Me Do." They got a lot of credit not just for being as great as they were on "Hey Jude" but also for not being as bad anymore as they had been on "Love Me Do."
In contrast, by the 1980s, outside of rap most of the obvious niches were already occupied. Artists were expected to be pretty mature musically by the time a lot of money was invested in a music video for them. By the 1980s, nobody was going to notice a "Love Me Do." You needed to be up to at least a "Daytripper" level to get noticed. So, that left less time at the top.
Let me try a baseball analogy. It's easier to get to 300 wins or 3000 hits if you can start in the majors at age 19 or 20. But if the competition gets tougher and the learning demands get higher so now you are expected to do, say, 3 years in college and 2 years in the minors so you don't get to start until, say, 23, it's just harder to pile up huge career numbers.
Can't tell you how many of these musicians were gay. Freddie Mercury and one of the guys in the B-52s died of AIDS. Morrisey of The Smiths and Michael Stipe of REM are, presumably, gay. Joan Jett is, presumably, a lesbian. Michael Jackson was weird.
Lots of guys who seemed kind of gay turned out not to be: Bowie, Jagger, Prince. Elegant Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music has four kids. In general, guitar rock is pretty straight.
1. The Clash, “London Calling” (1980)
2. Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (1988)
3. Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” (1983)
4. Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” (1987)
5. Public Enemy, “Fight the Power” (1989)
6. AC/DC, “You Shook Me All Night Long (1980)
7. Prince, “When Doves Cry” (1984)
8. Def Leppard, “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (1987)
9. Van Halen, “Jump” (1984)
10. Duran Duran, “Hungry Like The Wolf” (1982)
11. Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure” (1981)
12. U2, “With or Without You” (1987)
13. Bruce Springsteen, “The River” (1981)
14. Bon Jovi , “Livin’ on a Prayer” (1986)
15. New Order, “Blue Monday” (1983)
16. Prince, “1999” (1982)
17. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, “I Love Rock ’n Roll” (1981)
18. U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (1984)
19. Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime” (1981)
20. Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (1980)
21. The Police, “Every Breath You Take” (1983)
22. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “The Message” (1982)
23. Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House” (1983)
24. The Rolling Stones, “Start Me Up” (1981)
25. Van Halen, “Hot for Teacher” (1984)
26. Squeeze, “Tempted” (1981)
27. Run-D.M.C., “Walk This Way” (1986)
28. Dire Straits, “Money for Nothing” (1984)
29. The Smiths, “How Soon is Now?” (1985)
30. Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” (1981)
31. R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (1987)
32. U2, “Where the Streets Have No Name” (1987)
33. Motörhead, “Ace of Spades” (1980)
34. R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe (1981)
35. Ozzy Osbourne, “Crazy Train” (1980)
36. Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again” (1987)
37. Madonna, “Like a Prayer” (1989)
38. Mötley Crüe, “Dr. Feelgood” (1989)
39. Beastie Boys, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” (1987)
40. Dexy’s Midnight Runners, “Come on Eileen” (1982)
41. Michael Jackson, “Beat It” (1983)
42. Devo, “Whip It” (1980)
43. Guns N’ Roses, “Paradise City” (1988)
44. Big Country, “In a Big Country” (1983)
45. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight” (1981)
46. AC/DC, “Back in Black” (1981)
47. Madonna, “Like a Virgin” (1984)
48. The Bangles, “Walk Like an Egyptian” (1986)
49. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot” (1988)
50. The B-52’s, “Love Shack” (1989)
The fan choices are less diverse demographically than the critic choices. The fans picked overwhelmingly male groups (Pixies and Talking Heads had one woman each). The critics choices had two Madonna songs, a Bangles, and a Joan Jett, plus gender mixed groups Sonic Youth, B-52s, and Talking Heads.
Racially, the fans put Michael Jackson's Billie Jean at #15 (kind of a hard song to avoid for a 1980s list), but no Prince or any rappers. Fan favorites Guns n Roses have a half-black guitarist in Slash and the Van Halen brothers are a little Indonesian. Fine Young Cannibals was a mixed race offshoot of the mixed race band the English Beat.
The critics were somewhat more open to black artists, putting not just "Billie Jean" but also "Beat It" (with Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo) on their Top 50. They also chose two Prince songs, and three rap songs by blacks. Not surprisingly, they are exactly the three you'd expect white critics to come up with: Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," Run-D.M.C.'s remake with the two guys from Aerosmith of "Walk this Way" (which helped relaunch Aerosmith, who had seemed washed up, but they turned out to be so much better than the fat black guys on that track), and Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" from Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing." (And Journey had Randy from American Idol as their bass player.)
It seems like music culture got more racially segregated over time. If you were conducting a poll not in 2011 but in 1981 of fans and critics interested in guitars of the best recordings of the 1950s, certainly Chuck Berry would have been heavily represented, plus Muddy Waters and some other blues musicians.
Offhand, I don't notice any Asians or Hispanics on the list, although Los Lobos's 1987 remake of Richie Valens "La Bamba" might have featured some of the more thrillingly precise guitar playing of the decade.
Most of these artists had short careers at the top, with obvious exceptions such as U2, Springsteen, Madonna, AC/DC, Ossy Osbourne, and REM. I don't know why 1980s artists tended to have short careers relative to 1960s-70s artists. Worse drugs? More competition?
I suspect fewer careers started quite as young as previously. The British Invasion bands were very young when they made a splash in 1964-65, but they were kicking in an open door. There was nobody ahead of them with a similar sound, so they could become stars when they were musically immature and then dazzle everybody by maturing into their peaks in their late 20s. With the Beatles, say, "Hey Jude" was a whole lot better than "Love Me Do." They got a lot of credit not just for being as great as they were on "Hey Jude" but also for not being as bad anymore as they had been on "Love Me Do."
In contrast, by the 1980s, outside of rap most of the obvious niches were already occupied. Artists were expected to be pretty mature musically by the time a lot of money was invested in a music video for them. By the 1980s, nobody was going to notice a "Love Me Do." You needed to be up to at least a "Daytripper" level to get noticed. So, that left less time at the top.
Let me try a baseball analogy. It's easier to get to 300 wins or 3000 hits if you can start in the majors at age 19 or 20. But if the competition gets tougher and the learning demands get higher so now you are expected to do, say, 3 years in college and 2 years in the minors so you don't get to start until, say, 23, it's just harder to pile up huge career numbers.
Can't tell you how many of these musicians were gay. Freddie Mercury and one of the guys in the B-52s died of AIDS. Morrisey of The Smiths and Michael Stipe of REM are, presumably, gay. Joan Jett is, presumably, a lesbian. Michael Jackson was weird.
Lots of guys who seemed kind of gay turned out not to be: Bowie, Jagger, Prince. Elegant Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music has four kids. In general, guitar rock is pretty straight.
One of the genres I always liked was the Brideshead Revisited style of Brit Fop Rock where, typically, working class kids like Ferry pretended to be all genteel. I was amused to learn that Ferry, the son of a pit pony driver (in a coal mine?) but now a Tory country gentleman, is the father of Otis Ferry, who is perhaps Britain's most often arrested crusader for the defense of foxhunters' rights -- a character out of Evelyn Waugh. (In contrast, Joe Strummer of the Clash was a boarding school boy whose father, a diplomat who held the secret codes at various British embassies, was a good friend of Kim Philby).
Combining the the readers and critics lists:
Combining the the readers and critics lists:
6. Roxy Music, “More Than This” (1982)
24. Modern English, “I Melt with You” (1982)
10. Duran Duran, “Hungry Like The Wolf” (1982) (or "Rio"?)
11. Queen and David Bowie, “Under Pressure” (1981)
15. New Order, “Blue Monday” (1983) (or "Temptation" from 1981, where the real hook -- "Oh, you've got green eyes ..." -- doesn't emerge for many minutes)
20. Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (1980)
29. The Smiths, “How Soon is Now?” (1985)
I'd add The Cure's "In Between Days" as another 1980s classic of jangly toff rock.
If you add together the 50 songs on the critics list and the 25 songs on the readers list, you get 46 from 1980-1984 and 29 from 1985-1989, which accords with my general perception that rock was losing momentum in the 1980s. Of course, I was losing momentum as I was getting older, too, but now I have statistical proof that my late 1980s complaint ("Rock music just isn't as awesome anymore as it was in December 1979, and get off my lawn!") was right.
If you add together the 50 songs on the critics list and the 25 songs on the readers list, you get 46 from 1980-1984 and 29 from 1985-1989, which accords with my general perception that rock was losing momentum in the 1980s. Of course, I was losing momentum as I was getting older, too, but now I have statistical proof that my late 1980s complaint ("Rock music just isn't as awesome anymore as it was in December 1979, and get off my lawn!") was right.
Posts
236 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 236 of 236The vocals of Tom Sawyer are so dorky, annoying, and wimpy. It's like geektar rock.
Wes, white culture is not dead, it has gone underground. Big difference. It is no more dead than black culture was in the days of Bing Crosby.
I think that is wishful thinking. I am not aware of any underground White culture in any serious sense. Now if you are saying that White culture has about as much influence as Black culture did in the 1950s (a minority culture that affects music and food for amusement) then that is not too inspiring to me. I think White culture is bigger than that, but it is definitely dying. And at least the Black culture of the 1950s was on the upswing.
For what ever reason, White guys don't want to face this fact.
How do Gibson's define Rock Music?
There's quite a few tunes listed in the original Gibson's list I wouldn't consider Rock Music.
Still...
I often wonder why it seems that I am perhaps the only 80's veteran on the planet who thinks U2s Two Hearts Beat As One is a great rocking tune and one U2's best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIuAFBRyjj4
And why does everyone rate London Calling when Should I Stay Or Should I go is clearly an alltime classic Rock'n Roll great?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZk_HnE-cdU
How about Would I Lie To You by the Eurythmics - or is that considered gay over there or something?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q9zF8OsR_8&feature=related
The Cult - She Sells Snctuary?
Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust?
Killing Joke - Love Like Blood?
In my very much biased opinion the 80's were popular music's greatest decade and I spend all day listing great tunes. Unfortunately I gotta do other stuff.
Gilbert O'Sullivan? That's a real stretch, Mr pro-Irish-and-anti-English anonymous - he's always been a peripheral and frankly a joke figure. There's no evidence that Page or Idol are Irish in any way, and even your trump cards Lennon and McCartney had to go back several generations to find a meaningful link with Ireland - they had fully English attitudes and sensibilities, and were Englishmen with Irish surnames, nothing more. Certainly not "displaced Irishmen" anywhere other than your imagination.
No, the comfortable majority of great English musicians are just that. And as has been discussed above, many of Ireland's most cherished musical sons are a bit more English than you might think.
Last word - Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" gets my vote as the best American rock song of the 1980s. Damn near perfect musically and conceptually, it's aged superbly well and has if anything even more poignancy than it did in '85.
Matra, you have a point - Limelight is the other Rush song that really stands out.
Tom Sawyer is the soundtrack to dirtbags camping at Lake Havasu.
102 degrees at 3 AM and they would play the same song - over and over and over...
"Today's Tom Sawyer mean mean cry....bah ba bah BUHM!!!>>>"
The same class of "youth" that would play Digital Underground's Humpty Dance over and over 10 years later.
Anecdotal evidence of the decline of rock in the USA?
"Steve,
You should close comments. This thread is cooked and done. 99% of the damn thing is some kids who were wearing diapers or weren't born in 1980 and limp-carrot grabbers (linking this to your next post). None of this gay circle-jerk needs to continue. Half of these groups are 100% not rock.
And to those posters who think music is more homogenous now, you're under thirty aren't you?"
Nice. You want to shut down discussion when it doesn't strictly adhere to your cultural orthodoxy. That pretty much goes against two of the primary values of this blog: free speech and free thought. By the way, although homophobia and slurs are tolerated here, I believe I speak for myself and many others *who regularly read Steve Sailor's writing* that those attitudes are disgusting. I understand people need a place to vent, but don't assume that just because you think something is gay, you are entitled to censor it for everybody else.
Londoner I find it incredibly amusing that you find the absolute WORST song of the era ( "Boys of Summer") the best
The only song possibly more annoying is "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats.
Ever heard "Don Henley Must Die" by Mojo Nixon?
If not you should. Henley managed to represent everything punk rock was against
"By the way, although homophobia and slurs are tolerated here, I believe I speak for myself and many others *who regularly read Steve Sailor's writing* that those attitudes are disgusting."
No, the concept of 'homophobia' is disgusting. It's a form of PC hysteria. Except in rare cases, 'homophobia' doesn't even exist.
even your trump cards Lennon and McCartney had to go back several generations to find a meaningful link with Ireland
Fair enough. Although they were also Catholic, and the original anti-Irish nutcase I responded to was extremely hung-up on whether various people were born Catholic or Protestant. But lets assume that you are above such silliness.
the comfortable majority of great English musicians are just that. And as has been discussed above, many of Ireland's most cherished musical sons are a bit more English than you might think
Really, that's just pathetic. So the Irish in England are English, and the English in Ireland are ... also English?
How can you write this nonsense and not be aware of how stupidly bigoted you sound? Pick one standard and stick with it.
.. were Englishmen with Irish surnames, nothing more. Certainly not "displaced Irishmen" anywhere other than your imagination.
It all seems to depend on whether you want to claim them or not. For instance, Shane MacGowan was born in England - to two Irish parents, one of whom was an Irish dancer and singer. If he'd blown up Parliament you'd have no problem at all in identifying him as Irish! You're busy acting like some pathetic Afro-centrist claiming that Cleopatra and Aristotle were black. Are you really that insecure?
Regardless of whether Anglicans are Protestant or not, Catholics would not be the majority in Northern Ireland. Anglicans could all be Muslims or Baptists or atheists and it would have zero effect on the relative size of the different populations.
Say what? Look, just take the Anglican proportion from the Protestant side of the ledger then add them to the Catholic side and it most certainly does make a difference. For most of my life anglicans have been 20% of the NI population - the second largest Protestant denomination - but according to the 2001 census they dropped to 15% - probably because they are less religious and so when Anglicans marry Presbyterians their children are usually raised as the latter.
And it's a petty dumb proxy for ethnicity.
Religion has been a proxy for ethnicity in many societies throughout history. In Ulster, in particular, if you are Anglican then you are of British, not Irish stock. In the Republic being Anglican has been closely associated with being Anglo-Irish though it's not entirely accurate.
"No, the concept of 'homophobia' is disgusting. It's a form of PC hysteria. Except in rare cases, 'homophobia' doesn't even exist."
What planet do you live on?
The fact is that gays are protected by PC *and* homophobia is still common in many places. You can only argue that it is rare in the liberal enclaves of NY, LA, SF, etc. Why do you think gays flock to these places? To go where they are accepted and get away from where they are not.
Say what? Look, just take the Anglican proportion from the Protestant side of the ledger then add them to the Catholic side
Why? Anglicans not being Protestant does not mean that they are Catholic.
I know this must be a completely mind-blowing and incomprehensible concept to a guy from Northern Ireland, but the world is actually not divided into "Protestants" and "Catholics"!
You say you've moved to Canada. Are you aware that you've moved to a country which is 43% Catholic? That Catholics are the biggest religous denomination in Canada? I think you'll find that Canadians are not on board with your stupid 17th century beliefs. Outside of the rancid lttle cesspit you were unlucky enough to grow up in, nobody thinks like that the modern world. You have to look to the Muslim world to find modern parallels to your mindset.
Religion has been a proxy for ethnicity in many societies throughout history.
Yes, religion has been. This is apparently news to you, but Protestants and Catholics do not have two different religions. Protestants and Catholics are intermingled throughout Europe. Germany is one third Catholic. In Scotland one out of every five people is Catholic. The former Prime Minister of the UK is Catholic. As I noted above, Catholics are the biggest group of Christan's in Canada. Of the 64 per cent of Australians who describe themselves as Christian, 26 per cent are Roman Catholic and 19 per cent are Anglican. There are even 4.5 million English Catholics in England.
For a man who twitters on about Protestants and Catholics all the time, you are remarkably ignorant of even the rudiments of religious knowledge. The Church of England itself says that it is "catholic and reformed". Those words have immense meaning to people with even a rudimentary knowledge of theological issues.
"I believe I speak for myself and many others *who regularly read Steve Sailor's writing..."
...Many of whom can even spell his name...
For most of my life anglicans have been 20% of the NI population - the second largest Protestant denomination
The Church of England is not a Protestant denomination. Crack a history book, please. The Church of England was established by Henry VIII, and he copied the Roman Catholic church in several fundamental respects. The Church of England is the Catholic church but with the British monarch (or nowdays the Prince of Wales) as its head instead of some foreigner in Rome. That was the entire point of the C of E - religion controlled by the state.
"Every man his own priest", the cry of the real Protestants, is as repugnant to the Church of England as to the Roman Catholic church. That's why the English shoved the Presbyterians (and other Protestant groups such as the Quakers) off to NI and to America in the first place - because Protestantism is at least as incompatible with the Anglican church as is Catholicism.
"The fact is that gays are protected by PC *and* homophobia is still common in many places. You can only argue that it is rare in the liberal enclaves of NY, LA, SF, etc. Why do you think gays flock to these places? To go where they are accepted and get away from where they are not."
No, PC doesn't protect anyone. It just clamps down on free speech.
And it is not 'homophobia' that is rampant in many places but anti-gay feelings and attitudes. Being anti-something isn't necessarily 'phobic'. Phobia is a mental malady where someone is extremely afraid of something that is harmless. It's like when a big guy freaks out over a little mouse or when a man panics in an elevator. And when some people faint at the sight of blood. And people with rabies have hydrophobia. They freak out in front of water.
I agree there is anti-gay feelings in some communities, and some of it is nasty and vicious. I don't condone such behavior; gays should be left alone. Even so, anti-gay feelings are natural among straight people. Normal people naturally find something funny and ridiculous about guys acting like girls and have weird fecal penetrative sex. That is just ewwww, and it's not phobic to think, feel, and say so.
Now, PC isn't so much trying to protect gays from bullies but defaming everyone opposed to the gay agenda as 'mentally sick'. And PC is spreading the homophilic notion that gays are more normal than normal, cleaner than clean. And this BS is being pushed on kids as well. A fringe deviant sexuality is being elevated as equal or even higher tahn real sexuality. PC is a form of mental and moral violence against nature, truth, and morality. Indeed, there is silence when black flashmobs attacks whites but a BIG FUSS in the media if some ballplayer or comedian mutters 'faggot'. US threatened to withhold aid to Uganda over some anti-gay issue but looks the other way over all other kinds of violence. As with Jews, gays have become more equal than others in the PC West.
As for gays flocking together in big cities, it's cuz they wanna hang out together. Since your average community is only 2% gay, it's difficult for gays to find partners unless they are in a commuity with lots of gays. Same with artists. Why do they flock in big cities.
Because they are afraid of getting beaten up by surbanites? No, it's because they wanna work with and share ideas with their own kind in places like Greenwich Village. And geeks flock together in university towns and become professors. It's not because of academophobia among the larger population.
You see what a shrill, hysterical and paranoid person you are?
Two points on very different topics:
1. The Church of England is Protestant and has always (except for the very first few years) been considered to be such by the majority of its adherents. Anyone who in the 17th or 18th century who claimed otherwise would have been regarded as eccentric at best and dangerous at worst. Only in the 19th century did Anglo-Catholics arise to express a contrary view. The smarter and more honest ones, such as Newman, came to realize that this was untenable and joined the Catholic Church. The American spinoff is, of course, openly called the Protestant Episcopal Church.
2. Re the Pixies: It is interesting to me that every few years a band from 20/25 years ago that was previously a cult/critical favorite is adopted by the mainstream, which decides to pretend it loved their music all along. First it was the Ramones. (I don't usually care for Chuck Klosterman, but he had a good essay about the contemporaneous deaths of Dee Dee Ramone and the lead singer of forgotten metal band Ratt and how one would never know from the obituaries that Ratt had actually been much more popular than the Ramones.) Then it was the Smiths. (Always superstars in England, yes, but never in the U.S.) I suspect the Pixies are next. (#13 is a remarkably high place on the critics' poll for a band the average person has probably still never heard of.)
"The vocals of Tom Sawyer are so dorky, annoying, and wimpy. It's like geektar rock."
"Tom Sawyer is the soundtrack to dirtbags camping at Lake Havasu."
(sigh)...White people don't know shit about rock and roll.
The Church of England is Protestant and has always (except for the very first few years) been considered to be such by the majority of its adherents.
The Church of England is not Protestant and does not describe itself as such. It describes itself, today, as "catholic and reformed", which is an accurate description of its position midway between Catholicism and Protestantism. You could look it up. I'll even give you a link.
http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/history.aspx
Or do you know more about the Church of England than the Church of England does?
Anyone who in the 17th or 18th century who claimed otherwise would have been regarded as eccentric at best and dangerous at worst.
Your knowledge of history could fit on the back of a matchbook. Actual Protestants in the 17th and 18th centuries were called "Dissenters" and encouraged to get out of Dodge. You could look it up.
Wikipedia
"Many of the new Anglican formularies of the mid 16th century corresponded closely to those of contemporary Reformed Protestantism; but by the end of the century, the retention in Anglicanism of many traditional liturgical forms and of the episcopate was already seen as unacceptable by those promoting the most developed Protestant principles. In the first half of the 17th century the Church of England and associated episcopal churches in Ireland and in England's American colonies were presented by some Anglican divines as comprising a distinct Christian tradition, with theologies, structures and forms of worship representing a middle ground, or via media, between Reformed Protestantism and Roman Catholicism; a perspective that came to be highly influential in later theories of Anglican identity, and expressed in the description "Catholic and Reformed"".
So much for the notion that "only in the 19th century did Anglo-Catholics arise to express a contrary view."
To put this in plain English, nobody since 1600 has thought that the Anglican Church is "Protestant". The Protestants certainly didn't. If you were not all a bunch of atheists you'd already be aware of this.
Why? Anglicans not being Protestant does not mean that they are Catholic.
In Ulster Anglicans are Protestants. They participate in the Orange Order - Catholics are not allowed to. They vote for the Unionist parties. They intermarry with Calvinists and Methodists in large numbers but rarely do with Roman Catholics. They play British, not GAA, sports. During the Troubles they joined Loyalist (Protestant) paramilitaries and the virtually all Protestant security forces. I think you're getting hung up on theology. (BTW not all Anglicans are "High Church").
I know this must be a completely mind-blowing and incomprehensible concept to a guy from Northern Ireland, but the world is actually not divided into "Protestants" and "Catholics"!
We're not talking about the outside world. We're talking about Ireland. If a hypothetical Dublin rock star is an Anglican then chances are he's of British background. That is becoming less and less important as the small Protestant community there has pretty much been absorbed into the general population but for most of the last century it was of some relevance. I think that's what the poster who started this was getting at. This is where the famous question are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist? comes in. It's not an entirely absurd question. As I mentioned earlier religion can be a proxy for ethnicity.
Are you aware that you've moved to a country which is 43% Catholic? That Catholics are the biggest religous denomination in Canada? I think you'll find that Canadians are not on board with your stupid 17th century beliefs.
You're ignorant and hysterical. I don't have 17th century beliefs. I don't go to church. I've visited the Vatican without pissing on the steps. I enjoy Catholic art. If it weren't for its views on immigration I would respect the Catholic Church. My own ancestors were Catholics at some point. You are guilty of thinking you know how Irish Protestants think when in reality your thoughts are based on media propaganda.
Yes, religion has been. (A proxy for ethnicity)
It still is, not just in Ireland.
Protestants and Catholics are intermingled throughout Europe. Germany is one third Catholic. In Scotland one out of every five people is Catholic.
And though religious identification isn't as important in those countries as it used to be one can still see differences, including voting patterns, in those countries. Protestant areas of Germany (and I believe the Netherlands) have been more liberal than Catholic areas like Bavaria. Protestant French are (or at least historically have been) more leftish than Catholic French even though few of either go to church. In Scotland where most Catholics are of Irish background they've always had much higher rates of criminality than Protestant Scots. One can also see differences in the US. For example Protestant whites are more likely to be in the Tea Party than Catholics. Protestant Americans are also less likely than Catholic Americans to suffer from Ellis Island syndrome no doubt because Protestants are more likely to be from America's founding stock.
For a man who twitters on about Protestants and Catholics all the time, you are remarkably ignorant of even the rudiments of religious knowledge.
I've rarely (if ever) discussed theological differences between Protestants and Catholics. The subject is uninteresting to me.
"You see what a shrill, hysterical and paranoid person you are?"
If I were "shrill, hysterical, and paranoid," I wouldn't agree with 80% of your post, which I do. I am much more calm, cool, and collected than you might think. The fact that you took the effort to clearly explain your position makes all the difference. My use of the terms "protect" and "homophobia" was sloppy. I didn't feel like making the effort to be precise, but you ended up doing that work for me. That's one of the main reasons I like this blog. People here tend to make an effort to rise above (or cut through) sloppy, mindless language, which as you correctly pointed out is PC at its core.
The main point of disgreement is that gays flee areas where they feel discouraged to live out of the closet. The fact that they go also go to certain areas to flock together is not mutually exclusive of this irrefutable fact. Also, I believe you underestimate the uncivility with which they are treated in many regions. Perhaps you are a rational, fair-minded person of high morals, but you probably are above average in that regard (based on the intelligence and tone of your post). Don't assume that everyone who shares your *feelings* behaves with the same civility.
@Truth ~ Fair play to you. Steve SAILER. Apologies to Steve.
This has now gone way OT, (for which I take full responsibility) so I shall give it a rest.
I suspect the Pixies are next. (#13 is a remarkably high place on the critics' poll for a band the average person has probably still never heard of.)
I think the most highly praised band in history that the mainstream has never heard of is the Velvet Underground. The joke about them was that they sold very few records but everyone who did buy one became either a famous musician or a critic.
"Reformed" means "Protestant" - in fact, it usually refers specifically to Calvinists (although obviously not here).
Puritans/Dissenters were more extreme forms of Protestants - that doesn't mean Anglicans weren't also Protestants. If you read your Wikipedia quotation carefully, it recognizes this. Puritans wanted "the most developed Protestant principles" - the C of E was Protestant, but it did not go as far as they wanted.
The 1701 Act of Union limits succession to the throne to "the heirs of [Electress Sophia] being Protestants." I guess in your view the last three centuries of monarchs have been illegal!
Here's a quote from a character in Fielding's Tom Jones (1749): "When I mention religion, I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England." The character in question is supposed to be a buffoon, true, but not because he thinks Anglicans are Protestant - in all his opinions he is ultra-conventional.
P.S. The Pixies were actually #13 in the Gibson users' poll, not the critics' poll. Sorry for the error.
We're not talking about the outside world. We're talking about Ireland.
What? Since when? This started when an argument broke out over whether U2 are an Irish or British Commonwealth band. That automatically expands the focus beyond Ireland to at least all the countries in the Commonwealth.
In Ulster Anglicans are Protestants. They participate in the Orange Order - Catholics are not allowed to. They vote for the Unionist parties. They intermarry with Calvinists and Methodists in large numbers but rarely do with Roman Catholics. They play British, not GAA, sports. During the Troubles they joined Loyalist (Protestant) paramilitaries and the virtually all Protestant security forces. I think you're getting hung up on theology.
I think you're hung up on the moronic disputes which preoccupy the wretched inhabitants of Northern Ireland. But fine, lets stipulate that in Northern Ireland (if nowhere else) the words "Protestant" and "Catholic" have meanings other than the theological one.
If a hypothetical Dublin rock star is an Anglican then chances are he's of British background.
WTF is "British" background? British is an artificial nationality. I spent a couple of years in Wales once, and the people there are not "British", they're Welsh.
As for the rest of your point, I'm perfectly willing to say that "Irish Anglicans are actually English", if you're willing to say that "English Catholics are actually Irish". But as you may have seen with Lennon, McCartney, and MacGowan, there are people here who insist that Irish Catholics born in England are English.
This is where the famous question are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist? comes in. It's not an entirely absurd question.
Perhaps in Northern Ireland, where time has stood still since 1650, that's the case. But I'm trying to help you realize that the rest of the world has moved on, a lot, since then.
You're ignorant and hysterical. I don't have 17th century beliefs.
Yes, you do. You're some Rip van Winkle who's just woken up from a two century long nap and you think the defining issue of our time is still the fight with the Papists. Everyone else is discussing Muslim immigration into Europe, the Hispanic takeover of the US, the rise of China etc, and you're still stuck cheering on King Billy against King James.
And though religious identification isn't as important in those countries as it used to be one can still see differences
Of course you see "difference". But you do not see the existential struggle which you imagine still exists between Protestant and Catholic. Europe was once torn apart by these wars. Even England was torn apart by a Protestant/Catholic struggle.
But everyone else moved on from that stage centuries ago. When are people like you going to catch up? There are critical issues affecting the West right now, and we're wasting bandwidth on stupid sectarian disputes about whether Bono and Paul McCartney are Irish or "British".
Sorry, the 1701 Act of Settlement, not the (1707) Act of Union. (I hope I get that correction in before my adversary notices the mistake.)
"Reformed" means "Protestant"
I'm aware of what it means, thanks. And "catholic" means "Catholic". And "catholic and reformed" means exactly what "catholic and reformed" means.
Puritans/Dissenters were more extreme forms of Protestants - that doesn't mean Anglicans weren't also Protestants.
The fact that Anglicans say they're not (solely) Protestant would seem to lay the matter to rest, to a normal and rational person. But I sense you're not going to let the Church of England's opinion about itself impinge on your consciousness.
Puritans wanted "the most developed Protestant principles" - the C of E was Protestant, but it did not go as far as they wanted.
That is exactly functionally equivalent to: "The Church of England is a half-way house between Protestantism and Catholicism, and incorporates features of both. It is both catholic and reformed". (Which is what the C of E says about itself)
You're admitting the point, you're just phrasing things to make it seem like you're disagreeing.
You gotta LOVE Steve Sailer's blog: I would wager large amounts that NOWHERE else on the entire web is there simultaneous arguments going over the nature of Irish Catholic versus Anglican versus Irish vs Reformed Protestant ad infinitum along with Rush song Tom Sawyer being mere Havasu hippie whiny vocals vs Rush being Beethoven vs The Pixies being the new Velvet Underground and homosexuals reasons for using the totalitarian term "homophobic" to silence their political opponents.
My two cents- NO mention of the innovative guitar work on RUN DMC's King of Rock?
Run DMC started the rap/Metal hybrid that launched the careers of many in the 90's and single handedly resurrected the career of Aerosmith. Run DMC's version of "Walk This Way" gave street cred to the toxic twins and (unfortunately) allowed Steven Tyler to become a household name while 99% of under 30's couldn't tell you the difference between Billy Preston and Billy Squire
"English music is like English boxing in the way that a lot of its stars are actually displaced Irishmen. Off the top of my head, I can think of Lennon and McCartney, Johnny Rotten, Elvis Costello, Shane McGowan, Billy Idol (first mention on an 80's music discussion?)and Gilbert O'Sullivan. Jimmy Page's full name is James Patrick Page which is also somewhat suspicious."
Jimmy Page is an eighth Chinese,
which would explain his appearance at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony.
Speaking of the Smiths (although no one was except me), they were all of Irish descent - Morrissey, Marr (Maher), Rourke, and Joyce. Also their fellow Manchesterites (or Mancunians to use the official term), the Gallagher brothers of Oasis.
Winner Take It All
Against the Wind
OK. You guys are far too serious about your 80's music. I can tell some of you were buying Rolling Stone Mag back in the day as well. Now how could you really be budding disaffected socialists having the money for all those albums and the magazines that filled your heads with inside knowledge about the music world.
I'll stick with my memories of happier, younger days and the pop tunes that accompanied them from A ha, Mister Mister, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, the Bangles, etc.
"That's why the English shoved the Presbyterians (and other Protestant groups such as the Quakers) off to NI and to America in the first place - because Protestantism is at least as incompatible with the Anglican church as is Catholicism."
You know the term "Protestant" mostly gets used to distinguish any form of Christianity that isn't Catholic. Mormons often get thrown in there too without making much fuss about it. What's important in the here and now where there isn't such a huge diverse and active Christian population anyway is how each denomination can be classified in general alignment with others. In this sense, Anglican/Episcopal will much more closely resemble Protestant in relation to political views and the move away from more literal interpretations of the Bible.
Take away the priests, nuns, ban on abortion and the obsession with the eucharist as the Anglicans most certainly have and you get mainstream Protestant (which has also moved towards socialism). I think the more important distinction is between Protestant and what are called Evangelical churches.
It's nice to quibble about what church started when, where and why it is different from all the others but, alas, only those denominations with large numbers matter. So, Catholics stay relevant as do those irksome Evangelicals who keep converting new members and having babies.
You've proved the 80's suck.
You know the term "Protestant" mostly gets used to distinguish any form of Christianity that isn't Catholic.
By who? I know a lot of Christians of different denominations and I've never heard "Protestant" being used to mean "not Roman Catholic". It would be a shock to the Eastern Orthodox to discover that they are Protestant, for instance.
In this sense, Anglican/Episcopal will much more closely resemble Protestant in relation to political views and the move away from more literal interpretations of the Bible.
Good Grief, man! If you know nothing about this topic please don't attempt to talk about it. Protestantism was and is all about "literal interpretation of the Bible". Unlike Anglicism.
Take away the priests, nuns, ban on abortion and the obsession with the eucharist as the Anglicans most certainly have and you get mainstream Protestant
Again you display your ignorance. Protestants are every bit as anti-abortion as are Catholics. Anglicans and Episcopalians are not, but there's some debate as to whether Anglicans and Episcopalians even count as Christians anymore, given their wholesale substitution of po-mo liberal belief for Christian teachings.
And the Eucharist is the central sacrament in all forms of Christianity. The Protestants are as "obsessed" with it as any other Christians.
You gotta LOVE Steve Sailer's blog: I would wager large amounts that NOWHERE else on the entire web is there simultaneous arguments going over the nature of Irish Catholic versus Anglican versus Irish vs Reformed Protestant ad infinitum along with Rush song Tom Sawyer being mere Havasu hippie whiny vocals vs Rush being Beethoven vs The Pixies being the new Velvet Underground and homosexuals reasons for using the totalitarian term "homophobic" to silence their political opponents.
Hey, we're versatile! Renaissance men! (and women)
Post a Comment