Monday, April 04, 2011

Music Mondays

I saw this video last week and thought I'd share it. It's a catchy song and has a flashmob in it, if you're still into that sort of thing ;) I am not going to link to the lyrics, because that's not why I'm posting it.



What is remarkable about this video is the diversity of the band. Three of the five members are people of color. When I was in high school, bands pretty much either looked like this:





or this:



There wasn't a whole lot of overlap.

Another thing: while it is a rock(?)/pop song, in order to get the full meaning of the chorus, you have to be familiar with a certain rap song. In general, I think there is a lot more fluidity with race and music than there was when I was younger. I wonder how/if this affects race relations among the youth of today.

I might be remiss in my bloggy duties if I didn't mention that, as usual the lead singer (aka the person who gets the most attention in any band,) is white. And some might argue that their homage to 50 cent is actually ripping off his idea, furthering the long musical tradition of white people ripping off black people's mad musical skillz to make a buck.

However, today I choose to focus on the positive--this nice, United Colors of Benetton band singing their infectious song to their nice United Colors of Benetton audience.

Comments? You know what to do.

2 comments:

  1. I love the Temper Trap. Only one person of color, BUT he is the lead singer. Yes!

    I love The Airborne Toxic Event. There is only one person of color, but there is also a woman. Yes!

    I love the Black Kids. They are not all black kids. LOL. Yes!

    And what about Linkin Park? OG Smashing Pumpkins? Hootie and the Blowfish? Dave Matthews Band? Hoobastank? Ok, so Hoobastank is barely a band. I'm digging deep. ;)

    And, out of these last few, I only like Linkin Park and Smashing Pumpkins. LOL.

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  2. I watched the next video up, and it is the same band, same song, different venue. And it has an interview. Funny, only four guys not five, three of color out of four. Only the lead singer was white -- he was kind of obnoxious. Maybe just being spacey because he was nervous. The other guys were laughing at him. I really didn't like his bragging about having 2 filipino girl friends. Made me wonder if they know about eachother. Maybe they each have two boyfriends too?

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