I wouldn't call it this - because The Spiritual Danger of Being Bored to Death ain't been my problem - I'm an artist.
My issues are much more fundamental - To be or not to be? What does it mean to be? Will I be allowed to be? That kind of thing.
And by the way, doesn't Foreigner look good?
I remember "Urgent," hilariously reframing the Dirty White Boys as a New Wave band without style, back-in-the-day.
They were, momentarily, traitors to the culture (as we were recently reminded) "the sort of thing we loathed at the time and called 'disco.'"
I wasn't part of the "we" in that quote, for various reasons, but mostly because I can't count how many times I was set upon (sometimes violently) for enjoying music's evolution back then. If you want to know what it was like, imagine the reaction Dylan got for going electric, but following you around for more than a decade.
The future had arrived without warning, in synthetic form - and finally featuring rhythm - and machines! But, by welcoming it, I was the bad guy.
Like it was my fault Led Zeppelin had one of the only drummers in Rock who thought (what we now call) a Rap beat was actually important - and who didn't think he practiced to, either, play metronome or occasionally express how "crazy" he was.
The larger culture waited for Talking Heads' eventual invitation, to join in what David Byrne called "changing my shape," and the rest of us called a party. We'd have to wait a little while longer.
Of course - once the party officially got kicked off - where the future was heading didn't make many folks happy, either, so there was conflict again.
You could say, from 1977 to 1987, it was pretty much open warfare - with me in the middle - until my "side" brought the walls down.
Since then, I don't have to remind you, there's been a few times when we've all had reason to contemplate ending it.
But, like I said - it was because of the unwarranted hostility to change - not because it stayed boring,...
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