kill your wife

Misogyny usually. But dare I say that it's a thin line between Nick Cave and Eminem?

Thats the point i am making .
What is the differnce between eminiem, johnny cash and childs

eminem has tourettes, johnny cash has parkinsons.

Are you looking to assign blame or find a scapegoat for violent actions?

It's in the ear of the listener, I'd wager.

I do not want to scapegoat
I want to discuss violence as an aesthic and liteary form

If "Prayer to God" is art, then Eminem is sure as fuck. Violence is never gratuitous, on principle. People never simply thirst for violence, but forms of emotional release, redemption, or expression which violence can address. Actually, violence can be gratuitous, if it's put in to pander to the imagined public bloodlust. But then it usually flops. Works which have "gratuitous" violence (so-called) usually have violence so central to their aesthetic that it is actually far from gratuitous. To remove the violence would be to do violence, so to speak, to the integrity of the work.

Another thread for Nick to link back to, although I've forgotten what the title was.

Anthony, if you can find it, there's a great old book called "American Murder Ballads" which might be of interest to you. It's written by a woman from Idaho, but, being far from my books, I couldn't give you her name. She's quite humorous on the subject of topical ballads. (Goldarnnit, wish I had it here to quote from!) Anyway, what I like about these "Johnny Cash" brand of murder songs is their juxtaposition of pretty if melancholy melodies with the grisliest of lyrics--this subtle kind of ironic distancing is exactly what so many rappers lack. It is important to note that many of these songs took decades if not centuries to develop, so who is to say what 22nd-century versions of Eminem might sound like?

"The subtle kind of ironic distancing is exactly what most rappers lack" -- BZZZZT! Sorry, but I don't feel like backing that up right now, though.

Sorry, but I must ever so faintly raise my voice here and defend myself from what might otherwise grow into an angry mob clutching their Public Enemy CDs--I said "THIS kind of ironic distancing" and "what SO MANY rappers lack"--certainly not ALL. Of course I should have included metal groups, industrial rockers, lounge singers, and any other categories of performers who all too often go out of their way to sound belligerently stupid while parodixically taking themselves too seriously. In fact, now that I think of it, this includes just about all musicians and artists at one time or the other. Nevertheless, I hope this doesn't detract too much for the original worthwhile question.

are you taking the piss..

murder bllda uis cool

why dont you lik them

murder in pop = cool aesthtc thing

Violence in art is not necessary, but if you can get away with it, great! And if you can't it just means you're not very good!

Smart move, Reynard ...

It is interesting to observe that although the history of violence in literature is nearly as bloody as history itself, violence in song is still very often seen as controversial--at worst a reason to condemn if not abolish, an anomaly at best. Was it Andre Breton or one of his associates who said that the ultimate Surrealist act would be to fire a gun into a crowd? Art is what you make it: If you happened to hit the President of the Academy, that might be considered A Statement, rather than another mundane assassination. But if you were so unlucky as to have as your victim a beautiful young woman, as in so many murder ballads, you might be taken for a very poor shot, indeed. Sing about the girl's murder at the time in the voice of the murderer and you might find yourself hauled off to prison; sing about it fifty years from hence, and you'll be considered a balladeer carrying on a fine old tradition.

Few people would fear that someone like John LeCarre is an actual murderer, as often as I assume he knocks off characters in his books. But if Mr. LeCarre were to put on the latest "urban gear" and take microphone in hand to rap about garotting a mistress at his villa on the Midi, his neighbors no doubt might start locking their gates at night, if they haven't previously. Once again we have the problem of "distancing"--the singer on stage who comes into our living rooms to croon out of our stereos might very well seem too close for comfort, especially if he purports great sincerity and great affection for other seemingly real characters in other songs. A great or even mediocre singer, of course, should be able to handle this problem in depth- perception; after all, no one but the paparrazi would be afraid of Brad Pitt when he's not shooting gangsters on screen--and few would accuse him of being a great actor.

Enter a parodox. The sincere and talented rap singer who comes out of a life of violence into the erstwhile pretend world of violence in gangsta rap has a shorter walk than, say, Nick Cave had from contemporary Australia to the deep South of America, circa 1901. Unfortunately black people still scare white people-- and white people pretending to be black might scare us all even more, if we're not grimacing too hard at the modern-day minstrel show. Gratuitous violence is violence that loves to show off more than it begs us to contemplate inequality or broken lives. The violence life does to the characters in Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" is more poignant than a thousand drug-related murders in the latest rap-metal extravaganzas. In short, a lot of those sorts of artists are not very good artists and therefore can't pull off the guns-and-gang-rape thing, no matter how they protest in their interviews that they want to "keep it real" while saying "but it's all just role-playing." Doesn't work for me--does it for you?