Joe Boyd, record producer, strikes close to home:
“I don’t think in history — you look back, I don’t think there’s that many examples of the middle class inventing anything you know, culturally. So when I put on a tape and I hear, you know, well-educated-white-person strumming a guitar, I’m looking at my watch, I’m saying ‘I’ll give this another fifteen seconds.’”
— ‘Three Records from Sundown’, 99% Invisible, ep. 141
Sure, this is subjective. But it still stings, in a real ‘the-truth-hurts’ kind of way. I think about this a lot lately: the more I take on to cement my own and my family’s security and comfort, the less I have to say.
I’m sorry, but that’s complete BS. Iannis Xenakis was a demonized ‘well-educated white man’ that has culturally enriched the music scape. Beethoven had many benefactors that ensured his well-being, a polar opposite of Mozart’s poverty-stricken life. John Cage? Copland? Bernstein? The Medici family?
Talent lies not in status; causation can be easily struck down with any introductory history lesson.
— Lance ·