You Can’t Change The Past You Grew Up With

Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. But you don’t really get it till afterwards, sometimes long afterwards…

When I look back at the kaleidoscpe of sound and vision that influenced my younger years, alot of it was undeniably made by people who have now been discredited as personally defective in some way. Some were merely immature, some where downright degenerate and perverse, and some were criminal.

It becomes very hard to detach the art from the artist, and it also unfairly smears many people by association in those times and places who conducted themselves well, or as best they could given the situation.

I find it pretty hard to disown entire eras and genres outright, based on politics or a bad experience with one individual or subsequent incriminating information that comes to light.

I don’t beleive in utopias, and I can very clearly see now that in disowning the recent cultural past, some people think that we are gonna build a new shining city of perfection. Sorry but perfection doesn’t exist, and you’ll have to accept reality.

As much as I hate to say it, because I love generalizing as much as the next disillusioned straight white male, but there are good and bad in all groups, scenes and movements, even the ones i spent a lot of time heaping scorn on in recent years.

In mentioning and discussing stuff I like about the past, I in no way endorse bad conduct that some people may have partaken in that we find wrong or unseemly.

And with that being said, stand by for an upcoming article where MJ features prominently.