{"id":1016,"date":"2010-11-11T00:50:03","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T00:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chocobeam.me\/playground\/2010\/11\/both\/"},"modified":"2010-11-11T00:50:03","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T00:50:03","slug":"both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2010\/11\/both\/","title":{"rendered":"Both"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I read a couple of threads out there about the US and the lack of culture VS Europe and its abundance of culture. I feel I have something to say about it.<\/p>\n

First, it should be separated between output of culture (creation, content gets out<\/em>) and input of culture (consumption, content gets in<\/em>).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no debate about what the US brought in our human culture. I\u2019m just thinking about music and it\u2019s overwhelmingly a US thing since 100 years. The output volume is gigantic.<\/p>\n

In terms of input though, the US are pretty bad and it makes sense because they\u2019re a lot busy creating and thinking $$$. Europe is the consumption place.<\/p>\n

I was thinking the other day that my friend and I had access to US music that was not even commercially successful in their own country at this time \u201394, Korn-. Thanks to a lot of passionate people in the chain, we had access almost in real time to what\u2019s hot in California and across the world, with just one store in the suburbs of Paris.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure people didn\u2019t have access to what\u2019s hot in Marseille or Osaka in a store in Portland at this time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an old thing: English people were consuming US black music like crazy (that\u2019s how the Beatles and so many others are born, playing RnB stuff they bought  on 45s, excited) when all these musicians were poor if not homeless or about to die anonymously in the United States, their country. Hendrix was already a star in Europe and despite having played more than 10 years in his country, the US needed Paul McCartney\u2019s recommendation of Jimi Hendrix band for Monterey to actually approve the talent of the most famous lefty in the world since then. Kind of pathetic.<\/p>\n

This tells so much about what culture is about in the US: making bucks first (Zynga market valuation<\/a>, so not right).<\/p>\n

I remember reading Miles Davis biography being mad because he was unknown in his own country while he was a god in France. Same with Booker T and the MGs. Same with Quincy Jones etc. Once I had a private message on YouTube asking me: \u201chow did you see this band ?? They\u2019re from L.A. I\u2019m in NYC and I\u2019ve never seen them here ever!!\u201d.<\/em> Saw them twice in Paris, for cheap.<\/p>\n

Europe culturally just likes anything new to consume. We had mangas almost fifteen years before they hit the US. In France the connection with what was going on culturally in Japan was as short as a few years. Without internet.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just with culture outside of the country. When I see that the Sequoia National Park, a few hours away from L.A. is almost unknown to people in the city, my European brain doesn\u2019t understand: these trees only grow naturally here, these are 2000 years old living organisms, there are two of the biggest trees in the world\u2026 I mean If California was in France, everybody living in L.A. would have done a trip in this forest and be bored about it. Yeah, yeah giant trees whatever\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Stax Records. Look at this fucking list of artists<\/a>. The legendary studio A recorded some of the most immortal US music ever. Of course it has been<\/a> destroyed:<\/p>\n

\n

The Stax studio was sold by the Union Planters Bank to Southside Church of God in Christ, located nearby on McLemore Avenue. Except for a brief time when it was used as a soup kitchen, it was allowed to deteriorate so it was torn down in 1989.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s like the UK destroyed Abbey Road Studios which started in 1931. Well, they didn\u2019t<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

At the end of 2009, the studios came under threat of sale to property developers, but the studio received historic site status from the British government in 2010 to protect it.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The US have a real problem with long term, sustain and respect keywords. They are too busy creating and successfully exporting entertainment \u2013a big part of culture- while ignoring a bit too much everything else including local things that don\u2019t make a shitload of money. During that time in Europe the creative success is usually weak, unsupported and doesn\u2019t go much further than its own national borders while if you haven\u2019t seen this super weird and obscure movie from New Zealand that just got out you totally suck. And if you don\u2019t know some US trash TV or don\u2019t listen to that 3 month old Canadian indie electro rock band you suck even more. This cultural elitism is so poisoning sometimes.<\/p>\n

To conclude, both world are unbalanced.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read a couple of threads out there about the US and the lack of culture VS Europe and its abundance of culture. I feel I have something to say about it. First, it should be separated between output of culture (creation, content gets out) and input of culture (consumption, content gets in). There\u2019s no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}