Only if you've never seen Eric Clapton unplugged.

pfft overrated

im not gonna lie, i have a huge boner for that album right now. i have a blues itch and clapton scratches it perfectly. its also not overrated at all. especially when we are sitting here talking about nirvana unplugged.

Eric Clapton, he's done some good stuff, but hearing him sing the blues is almost as funny as hearing Bono talk about poverty. Almost.

this is probably the worst post in rm history.

It's why I never got into the blues. Filthy rich people singing stuff which was born in slavery. Sorry, it's not a self-righteous thing. Like I said, it makes me laugh.

its not really his singing as it is his playing. but i think you reason for not liking the blues is kinda lame. should only poor people play the blues? what if a poor person hits it right playing the blues?

And rock music is only for the young, so what's the age cutoff where you can no longer make rock music again? 27? 35?

I didn't say only poor people should play the blues, I just said that it doesn't resonate emotionally when someone who regularly gets taxied in limos does. Different thing. Anyone's welcome to sing the blues, but it's not going to resonate with me unless they have the blues. Whether that's because they're poor doesn't matter, but Eric Clapton only really did anything for me when he was emotionally honest ('Tears in Heaven').

rich old guys can be sad and angry too!

We're talking about history and legacy with the blues. Rock music is just a genre. It didn't 'begin with the young' and there's no ethical significance to being young or old.

id say he had the blues knowing he was a drug addict, drunk and fell in love with his best friends wife. are limos and the blues mututally exclusive? and you dont think "layla" was emotionally honest? or that shitty "wonderful" song?

I can laugh about Ed doing depressed as much as the next guy, but it doesn't bother me because the roots are Seattle grunge: it's raining all the time, and I'm fucking bored and angry. It didn't get any more important than that, really. The blues is different. Look back to the old stuff, and it was an incredibly heartfelt and significant statement. Rich and poor, injustice, it's all there. It's just been cheapened and equated with shitty Jools Holland boogey-woogey and that kind of pisses me off. I really liked Seastick Steve's version of the blues, until I found out that he'd lied about most of his biography.

Layla and Wonderful Tonight (both good songs) aren't really blues though, are they?

All of that difficult stuff in his history, I'm sure that gave him the blues, but all I've ever heard him do is rip off other people's blues songs. Like I said, it's not emotionally honest. The only songs by Clapton which have resonated with me (and I did say there were some) were the ones where he actually told me why he had the blues, and he wasn't lying. Even then, if I don't care, I won't care. Original blues music makes me care because it's about things which are literally important and depressing. One of those things is the divide between rich and poor. The Blues was political, which makes it somewhat ironic when Clapton sings it. That's what I'm saying, and I'm pretty sure it's a safe (and commonly held) opinion.

Punk is the same. So is hiphop. Originally they were political genres. Not anymore.

well they are blues based rock songs, or i guess you can stretch the definition of 'chicago blues' to include Layla and Wonderful Tonight.

blues music resonates w/ me b/c of the music, not so much b/c of the content of the lyrics. i also think its hard to compare to punk or hip hop b/c blues music has specific scales and structure associated w/ it, i dont think hip hop or punk does.

what do you think of jimmy page?

Blues-influenced rock, I listen to it all the time. Blues itself doesn't resonate for me at all, unless it's a really old recording of Lead Belly complete with vinyl crackle. I don't really have an opinion of Jimmy Page other than in Led Zeppelin. I tend to hate most solo career stuff after these behemoths of rock are ended. I just hate the fact that blues has been turned into the favourite musical style of the middle-aged, white middle-classes. Especially when they haven't even heard of Lead Belly *or* the historical context of Blues. Musically, I'm more interested in old gospel, but they're both interlinked. And how many followers of the 'Blues' are aware of that? Not enough.

Really, now.

I was thinking more NWA and The Sex Pistols, but yeah.

I don't see why you let other peoples ignorance sway your opinion of music. Personally, I think Leadbelly to be hugely over rated and boring. I don't think it's necessary to be informed or care about the historical significance or lineage of music to appreciate a current song. I can appreciate a hot chick and not give a shit if she was a test tube baby or had parents.
Rather than be concerned that blues is now liked by middle aged, white middle class men I'd be more concerned why other more traditional demographics have turned their back on the blues. Blues is a fantastic form of musical expression. It would be pretty much dead as a current art form without the support of middle aged, white middle class men (which you are getting closer and closer to every day), so you should almost be thankful for the people who follow the music because it sure isn't being done to follow a popular trend or to fit in. Just a sheer love of the art.