European Ears

It turns out that he sold roughly four times as many records in the Old Continent than in the country that provided so much of the raw material for his scabrous satirising. Gail Zappa thinks it is to do with the centuries-old tradition of church music that has made European ears receptive and sophisticated (”all we have is the marching band in the town square on July 4”); but I also felt momentarily proud of that much-maligned phenomenon, the European sensibility. We got Zappa: his twists and turns, his reckless veering between high and low culture, his sarcasm, his innovations. These were all too much for his own country, which remains, relative to its size and power, culturally simplistic.

Peter Asden meets Gail Zappa

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2 Responses to European Ears

  1. SOFA says:

    That wasn’t an article, that was a preamble…
    David, back me up here; was this an editing hack job, or was there suposed to be no point intended in Mr. Asden’s article?
    It seemed really truncated, after the first few paragraphs.

  2. The article does seem rather fragmented, I agree. And as for the superiority of “European Ears”: I think it’s fair to say we here of The Old World have our own mob of clueless Britney Spears / Beyonce / Snoop Shizzle Dizzle Look-At-My-Rolex Fizzle followers. :)

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