I disagree, CP. He's separated from one particular aspect of pop culture, not pop culture in general. No one can be completely aware of every name out there.

Define Pop Culture. I don't think it's a term that can be CLEARLY defined.

And, maybe a Mod should move this discussion into it's own thread. ;)

Are you implying that their lack of knowledge of the artists you mention is somehow more important than your lack of knowledge of BBD? I don't understand that. Sure, I would probably agree that your choice has more taste/musical talent, but that doesn't lessen someone's own personal choice.

To further your musical education, the group is Bell Biv DeVoe, made up of Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe - all previously in New Edition (the group that Bobby Brown was originally in). While I wasn't into their music (though I did play at at the club I worked at), they actually had some singing talent.

Not that I expect you to rush out to buy their records any time soon ;)

Maybe eventually we will will kill the topic and which would earn it a place in this thread :)

Well, i do think I have better taste in music, but that isn't why I said that. My response comes from the fact that music is often sampled without the original source being credited or know about in any way. It's a pet irritation of mine. (Wanna see me go ballistic? Play a TomTom Club song and have someone say they stole the music from BelBivDeVoe.)

I think you over estimate how pervasive such things are when you're not involved to the geek level. After all, I was a college student. A college student living in dorms. A college student who almost flunked out because I was spending all of my time screwing around with college students and consuming an awful lot of pop culture. None of them were particularly bothered by my cluelessness. It seems only in the hindsight of future years that people are shocked that some icon of culture was unknown. Kind of like all the kids in the '60s who didn't care for Rock and Roll or the other kids in the '70s who never heard about Woodstock until well after it was history.

Yes, it was a gap in my caring that lead to me not particularly knowing who Kurt Cobain was (though I'm sure I would have recognized any Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Soundgarden (who were much more prominent to me due to their regular appearances on Almost Live) song as one I'd heard before). But up until the moment he died, I think it would have been much more shocking to my peers that I lived in Seattle and didn't drink coffee than that I didn't know who Kurt Cobain was.

It was when he killed himself that everybody -- to my experience -- started acting like he was the central gravitational force of their emotional/spiritual lives. A bigger version of that thing from high school where some kid gets hit by a car and suddenly everybody was his closest friend.

This isn't to say he wasn't an important figure, just that he wasn't an important figure unless you were already steeped in the relatively limited arena in which he was so important.

And this all completely ignores the fact that by 1993 the general sentiment in Seattle was that Grunge was past its time and wouldn't the rest of the country kindly shut up because most of us weren't wearing flannel and knitwear. We even shaved sometimes.

Just to show that my musical knowledge is not universal, I do know that BellBivDevo is a band that wore silly red terraced hats.

I guess I never, ever thought I'd see NA type the name of this group.
Like ever!
:D

While you have confirmed that you didn't say what I was worried you were saying (long story), can anyone truly have better taste than someone else (in any given topic, but we can focus on music for now)? When you get down to it, it is all about opinion and no one's opinion isn't any more or less valid than another person's. Yes, I believe that the T-Heads, et. al. are better than BBD, but that is simply based on what I enjoy. One could argue that the T-Heads have more complex rhythms, interesting lyrics, and blend styles/influences into a more original sound than BBD, but who is to say that these factors make music better? Yes, you and I do (and many others), but there are some people who have heard the T-Heads and decided that they prefer the sound of BBD - that to them, BBD is better. Sure my opinion differs from theirs and I could make all sorts of logical arguments as to why my opinion was "more right", but ultimately, the enjoyment of art is up to the individual.

For the most part, I don't have any issue with sampling. A situation that you describe above doesn't irritate me, it just me the amusing opportunity to point out what an idiot the person is. I get amusement from belittling others who deserve it.

See, you're wrong again. When Devo joined forces with Archie Bell (after he broke up with the Drells) and Beverly Bivens (previously of We Five), they changed their terraced hats to blue.