Two Excerpts from 1978 Black And White Minsterel Show and some questions

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

some questions for the britshes:

1) is this really what punk was working against? because if this went out to 18m homes, and sold number ones, that is the story of punk defeating traditional middle class culture? i dont have my reynolds with me, but i do not remember he mentioning this?
2) why are the men blacked up and not the women?
3) Why was this so popular, between the stage shows, the traveling revue, the tv show, the singles, the albums, the charting--this was a massive success.
4) How do critics of pop integrate this kind of material into the narrative of the UK? If we are poptimists, is there a way of redeeming this? I mean Where Dead Voices Gather by Tosches has a connoisseur's taste, a crate digger's sense of history, and founding mythology to rest his rennovation of Emmet Miller on, if one was going to write about this, what lens would you use?

I am mostly thinking of Tom's upcoming entries on early 70s pop on poptimist, an the comments about the history of UK no. 1s, but anyone can pop in.

Comments

[koganbot]

And if one is thinking of punk as a "sweeping away" (should one think of this), isn't this an acting out of imperatives within the culture? Isn't it part of the middle class "tradition" (or whatever) to sweep things away?

(Also, why associate the Black-And-White Minstrel show with the middle class in particular?)

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of Lawerence Welk, more then anything, like Lawerence Welk with black face--and Welk is not only v. much pop music, he is nostalgic pop music, he is unfashionable pop music, and he is ignored...(or Liberace, really)