The Lost!-Patsy Cline-45 RPM Record-Johnny Cash-Hip hop connection

Wow. Now that's quite a string of random thoughts.

Or is it?

Let's take a wonka-esque trip through the wanderings of my mind from earlier today.

So any of you Lost fanatics out there might recognize that the show, particularly episodes that center on Kate, have a tendency to feature music by Patsy Cline. Now generally chances are pretty slim that I would take an umprompted interest in Patsy Cline's music, but the liberal use in Lost was just the catalyst to make that happen.

Connection 1 = Lost --> Interest in Patsy Cline

While doing some last minute stocking stuffer shopping at Target, I came across a budget hits CD for one Patsy Cline, the last one in stock nevertheless. $6.99 for her greatest hits PLUS a DVD documentary on her life? YESSSSS!

I spent most of the day listening to the cd and it is quite good. The average length of each song is 2:34 seconds which is great cause you never get to the point of twang saturation on any one song. Now how in the world could have Patsy Cline realized that twangy ass music gets old after the 3 minute mark? The fact of the matter is this, she didn't. The length of her songs was most likely determined by the popular medium at the time, 45 records, which on average hold just over 2 and 1/2 minutes of music.

Connection 2 = Length of Patsy Cline's songs driven by the 45 record

Being the popular medium, everyone put there music out on 45's. Radio stations based the programming based on the length of 45 records. As paid advertising became more important/promenient so did radio station's program formatting, thus if you were an artist and you wanted airplay, you were limited to make songs that were only a few short minutes.

There is a parrallel here that I wish make. I once read Johnny Cash's thoughts on modern country music and he expressed that country music was once a product of culture, but now country music produces culture. He didn't feel that one form was necessarily any better or worse than the other, just different.

Connection 3 = 45 records shift from product to producer, as did country music.

Ok, you've probably stuck with me so far, but wonder how the heck do you make to hip hop, right?

Well, stand back and watch.

Connection 4 = Fo' shizzle! Holla! Tru dat!


Yup that's it.

No it's not.

I would make the arguement that, believe it or not, Rap and Country music share the same family roots. It's just that one genre is rooted in the farmland and the other on the other side of the tracks.

Both grew from an impoverished seed, told the stories of the source, and sometimes offered a sense of hope or a cap in the ass. Both were 100% products of their culture, both grew in popularity to the point of being raped and pillaged on an industrial scale. Both genres went on to produce culture rather them stem from it. Both genres are considered dead in the eyes of purists or maybe just me. And both can be found on my ipod.

Connection 4 (for real) = Rap music = Country music in terms of the progression/life cycle.

Nothing especially funny here. Just a lot of random thoughts.

Welcome to my mind.

Wu tang muthaf@ckers!