“there is very little British black music to be found”

writes Hannah Poole in saturdays Guardian mag.

Much of this article annoyed me (what Hannah Poole really means is that there is very little music that I like to be found, and seriously does anyone really want more Craig David records?) but rather than going on about it (as I did in the first draft of this post before I decided that no one wants to read a whole 2 pages of my unstructured rambling) let’s just look at the premise i.e. that black music is under represented…

Current top 40 album chart only the UK bands/artists.
White = 21 (87.5%), Black = 1 (4.17%) (not including bands which have black memebers as according to the article that doesn’t count as ‘black’ music further confucing the allready ridiculous label)
UK population breakdown
White = 91.3%, Black = 2.2%

If your premise is wrong you’ll get the wrong answer if your argument is logical. The argument in the article isn’t logical, so bits of the right answer get through in places i.e.

1) Pete Doherty, The Kaiser Chiefs etc. are bad.

2) The attitude of the mainstream white bread indie boy media towards black artists is generally one of confusion and stereotyping.

3) Often the underground avoid commercialisation, though this can a self preservation instinct, the mainstream can have a sterilize once fertile scenes (worth noting though that the defense mechanism sometimes takes the form of damaging orthodoxy leading to stifling of innovative qualities which once defined the scene cf Drum and Bass, Post Rock). I think this is an area which is very interesting.

4)Stylistic diversity = good. Though I’m not sure she’s saying this or if I’m projecting.

The other thing I was interested in in the article was how notions of authenticity and credibility are all over the place and never examined (did anyone think the Sugababes really lose credibility by replacing Mutya so quickly? Why doesn’t the Bloc Party get to be ‘black’ music?), when will ‘real’ journalism (which this article clearly isn’t, you know, research etc.) catch up with the internet discourse in this respect? the whole authentic/credible thing is just a shell game really.

Oh yeah, only 17% of the chart position holders are women.

The other interesting thing I wanted to mention was the way that the rock bands in the charts use genres as a way to be inclusive and superior at the same time in what is quite a British way. So they’ll say in interviews “yeah we’re not really part of $GENRE” but actually what they mean is “we’re much better than all the other bands in $GENRE” then they’ll follow up with ” we’re justa rock band really” which means we’re so important that we now constitute the definition of rock, we’re taking our place in the Beatles, Stones etc. lineage of GREAT BRITISH ROCK BANDS(TM) ” so whilst they get to be self deprecating AND superior at the same time (have cake + eat) they also get to broaden their potential audience by marketing themselves as just plain old rock and roll so that people like my Mum and Dad will be OK buying the CD becasue it fits in with points of reference they’re happy with.

God that sounded patronizing.

OK it turned out long again. But it was still shorter than last time.

Actually whilst we’re talking about the charts and music and stuff I may as well mention my annoyance at the way that the Radio One chart show no longer plays all the songs from 40 to 1.

Wankers

The show’s still the same length but the devote portions of it to amongst other things the download chart (meaningless) and whats going to be coming out next week (advertising). I used to like the chart show because you’d get to hear things in the lower reaches that weren’t normally given air time. Now it’s basically an excuse to go through the play list in the most rigid and unimaginative way possible. Also the presenters fail to inject any kind of excitement into the proceedings.

Bruno Brookes MP3

Now it’s about the same length.

A few years ago, or maybe last year, I heard Simon Singh talking on the radio about his number series which would also be on the radio in a couple of weeks (from then not now). He mentioned that the distribution of digits from any source (lengths of the worlds rivers, scores in bridge, distances of stars, prices on the stock market etc.) were not evenly distributed but followed a pattern with 1 being the most common. *

Since that fateful day, all that time ago, I managed to totally forget what the theory/law is called and whenever I’ve tried to tell people they look at me like I’m stupid or boring. Luckilly the popular advertising weblog boingboing has picked up on it so now I know that it’s called Benford’s law and there’s a pretty good page on Math[s]world about it. What the Math[s]world page doesn’t tell us but I would like to know is: What happens to the distribution of digits if you render all the numbers in a different number base, like binary or hexadecimal. So if you, or anyone that you know, is good at maths and stuff or has plenty of spare time on their hands can you let me know please? Thanks!

Interesting things I read on the internet this week :

Common-Sense Religion - Daniel Dennett

According to surveys, most of the people in the world say that religion is very important in their lives. Many would say that without it, their lives would be meaningless. It’s tempting just to take them at their word, to declare that nothing more is to be said — and to tiptoe away. Who would want to interfere with whatever it is that gives their lives meaning? But if we do that, we willfully ignore some serious questions. Can just any religion give lives meaning, in a way that we should honor and respect? What about people who fall into the clutches of cult leaders, or who are duped into giving their life savings to religious con artists? Do their lives still have meaning, even though their particular “religion” is a fraud?

Dennett is so much better than Dawkins at dealing with the subtleties of the Religion thing.

Is my red your red?

Do all peoples see and recognize the same colors? Scientists disagree on the question. Two studies have shed new light on it, by examining how some of the world’s most remote cultures view color.

(includes a really nice piece of information visualisation and horrible web design).