{"id":13574,"date":"2011-10-14T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=13574"},"modified":"2011-10-14T06:00:43","modified_gmt":"2011-10-14T11:00:43","slug":"people-call-me-rude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=13574","title":{"rendered":"People Call Me Rude"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was thirty years ago today that Controversy <\/a><\/em>by Prince was released.<\/p>\n

We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Rhythm and Blues – R’nB – music had been through several phases over the decades, intertwining with “white” pop music on and off (on in the fifties through the late sixties, off in the seventies).<\/p>\n

And in about 1990 it went back to “off”, and stayed there.<\/p>\n

But for a brief stretch of time – part of a decade, really – R’nB and rock and roll and white pop co-mingled in a dizzying melange of creativity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And after about 1990, black and white music split again, never again to meet.<\/p>\n

So for about five years in the eighties, black and white music intersected and overlapped again – rock, R’nB and everything in between…<\/p>\n

…when “everything in between” included everything that was going on in the early eighties – twitchy synth-pop, the fragments of punk, the beginnings of rap, and of course classic rhythm and blues.<\/p>\n

And Controversy <\/em>covered it all.<\/p>\n

It started with the title cut, a slinky funk rave-up:<\/p>\n