I have complete discographies of some plain-ass white bread shit, i.e. Bright Eyes, Pavement, Belle And Sebastian, M. Ward, but that's about as white as it gets.

I have a ridiculous amount of old blues albums, jazz, hip hop, etc, tons of the afrocentric jams, Brand Nubian, Public Enemy et al, some reggae but it's not really a genre I can specialise in. Been stepping up my funk game lately too.

So overall I could have a black guy come over and be like 'hmm ok'

HAHAH YEAH!!

thats what i love to see

once someone (a white person) whilst looking through my music collection, thinking he was clever, asked me why i had so few records by black people, it was one of the stanger displays of ignorance i've seen, as i own about 400 or 500 records made by black people.

I don't really like black music post the civil rights movement. freedom fucks with the funk.

Inappropriate.

Tom Waits, John Fahey, just white excuses to listen to black music.

Not accusing you of this specifically, but I know people who think they can relate to certain people of other cultures just because they profess to know a thing or two about the music that other people like....or perhaps, the music that they think such people would like.

Some dudes I know convinced the owners of this roadhouse out in the boonies to let them play records there one night. Now, this is a "roadhouse" like the kind you might've seen in the movie Roadhouse starring Patrick Swayze. Its regular clientele are your salt-of-the-earth folks who work their own farms which surround the place for miles in every direction. The clientele is perhaps 90% white and 10% Mexican-American. All the Mexican migrant laborers who drink either do it at home or somewhere else...not here! Yet, inasmuch as this clientele might seem ruler-class or manager-class, this is all small-scale farms for the most part, and some of them really do struggle to stay solvent at least. It's not like anyone strides into this place in alligator boots, fancy gallon hat, and giant gold-plated belt buckle or anything.

So, these friends of mine had been on this huge kick for over a year collecting old country & western records, and they'd amassed so many, that they even compartmentalized a collection of just the more depressive/depressing kinda C&W....like tearjerkers from Tom Jones, Porter Wagoner....even all the way to the extreme of Red Sovine. At first, it was just a sorta novelty thing to them, but then they really started to get serious about it.

They got to thinking that this stuff was so great, and that so many people at this roadhouse would enjoy hearing it while they tip back beers after a hard week of working their fields. Of course, these farmers also trudge through some daunting balance sheets, too.

"Ain't you got any AC/DC?" one of the farmboys asked.

The DJs declined, explaining that they had only brought depressing country records. That turned into the beginning of a lecture about how great and overlooked this old stuff was, and how it was better for this environment than AC/DC.

Before long, nearly the whole bar was up in arms about the music. They felt that my friends had overgeneralized about country people and what kinda music they would or should like.

"We don't come here to get more depressed," one guy yelled. "We come here to see friends, feel better about life, and cut loose to some AC/DC! So take your country & western records back to the city where you came from!"

It was seriously like an angry mob.

I told my friends they better not ever try to foist their ideals of what black people would or should like on black people.

I think the more reasonable point about Tom Waits, etc is that they give white 'alternative' types an excuse to listen to black music.

The white 'mainstream' w. classes, at least in Britain, listen to little else but black music, be it hip hop, r'n'b, garage, whatever. It's only the so-called alternative sector that seems to have such a hang-up about it.

Obviously any dive bar prefers AC/DC.

Except TV On The Radio!

what point is that?

also, i'd take ac/dc over any country and western ever made

Good point P. And to think that Dear Science came out the same month that Obama was elected.

This one:

are those guys supposed to sound like black people?

My record collection goes from Burzum (batshit mentalist fascist bleugh) to prime Archie Shepp (in kill-whitey mode). I've not made room yet for some of the more militant dancehall (I have a problem with homo-murdering lyrics - sue me) or Oi punk (facking 'ell, we white, innit?). I love soul, reggae, techno, hip-hop etc.

I am Switzerland, basically. You may laugh now.

Um...I have a Stevie Wonder record. That's about it.

Mine's nearly all white, plus some Japanese stuff.

If you're looking at my vinyl alone, there's very little white people. I am obsessed with buying as many ancient gospel records as I can find.