This particular type of intelligence allows the individual to know an insane amount of songs, lyrics, publishing years, chart entries and performance, videos and their aestetics, labels, producers, and of course musicians, writers and composers.
It also allows the person to put all of this hugely important information into context and perspective, thereby being able to analyze for example the significance of the Dead Kennedys for late 70s punk vs the Birthday Party or the Black Seeds. Or the difference between Michael Jackson, Prince, Pharrell, and Justin Timberlake. Or how Patti Smith's style has influenced fashion. You know, all these culturally important things that help at least some of us understand why some things are the way they are and what they might or might not have been.
I say this because recently I had an appalling experience with Danish National Television (I am Danish so it's OK). Their national TV channel, DR1, is a good TV channel, akin to BBC. It's the only TV channel in Denmark with any form of at least semi-serious TV program about music (popular music, that is) - Boogie, it's called. So I watch it as often as possible.
This program has a young host, he's probably in his early 20s. One night recently, he invited a co-host, Martin Hall, a guy who is known in Denmark as an enfant terrible in the late 70s-80s, a cult-ish, alternative, multi-artist type, to comment on a bunch of new videos.
Our young host is very excited, here he is with the graceful, chisel cheek-boned godfather of the navel gazing, black, creative progressive punk underground and he, the host, has a bunch of great new noisy black punk videos to show this seminal figure, he thinks.
So he puts on video after video - the usual suspects of 30 Mins To Mars, Paramore, Linkin Park, Cinema Bizarre, Tokyo Hotel etc - excitedly suggesting to Martin Hall that 'It's like punk, right'. Hall diplomatically replies that punk is a bit different in attitude and expression and was much driven from a place of cold war, unemployment, despair and was a political response to the 60s generation in power, yet idealistic in its 3-chord DIY energy burst. He compares a few of the videos to Hanoi Rocks and Visage who our dapper young host doesn't know.
See, already here something suggests that our host does not have one nano drop of musical intelligence. Paramore is not punk and it's bloody obvious that Cinema Bizarre's video is straight-up Visage.
Our host continues with the videos, one is a new video with the Streets who he categorizes as hip-hop/rap and is flappergasted as Martin Hall places Mike Skinner as close to punk as you can probably get today. At one point, the host openly admits that he has no idea who the Sex Pistols are, and when he one more time tries to persuade Martin Hall that new Danish emo singer Celina Ree is punk ('she has black hair'), the program hits rock bottom.
Seriously, how can DR call Boogie a music program when the host clearly knows nothing about music? I'm sure he possesses a lot of intelligence but musical intelligence is not one of them. DR, you can do much better than that.
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