# Amateur analysis of Celtic Woman's blandness **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997 "2009-01-12T22:48:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997/41 "2009-01-14T22:51:31Z")
> [@runcible\_spoon](#): > > I’ll second this. It’s not that the poor white man’s culture is dying, it’s that it’s LAME. I grew up hippie, and I always slightly envied kids who had ‘culture’, however superficial (and in the Pacific Northwest, superficial differences were pretty much all we got). There was always so much emphasis placed on multiculturalism that I felt like I wasn’t special if I wasn’t different. > > I mean, it’s not like this is a huge tragedy or whatever, but don’t tell me you’ve never seen someone take on the trappings of some culture (hick, in my sister’s case) and outdo the natives? It does happen. > > ETA: When I say it’s LAME, I mean from the perspective of one inside. Seriously, my cultural heritage is Laurence Whelk? No wonder the punks are pissed. I’ll let you in on something I realized a while ago: from the inside, _ALL_ “ethnic” or “folk” culture is lame. 😃 It only appears exciting to _outsiders_. What periodically happens is that people who are descended from some ethnicity or other _rediscover_ it, and then, being unfamiliar, find it “cool”. Like the resurgance of Klezmer music among young, hip Jews - my grannie thought it was utterly bizzare, that the kids were freaking out to what amounts to Jewish polka, considered in her day the _height_ of lame-ness – the sort of thing her parents would have listened to at a wedding, while the kewl kids rolled their eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997/42 "2009-01-15T01:48:55Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > That, sir, is a rather pathetic demigration of an actual problem. It may not be the worst problem in the world, but measured against that standards virtually no one on the verge of death ought to complain. The plain fact is that young “white” children, males especially, are pften treated like human water - a tasteless thing to which other ingredients are added to make it palatable. Where are you seeing this? From my point of view, it seems like mainstream entertainment targeted at kids is overwhelmingly white. High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Zack and Cody…all white kids. Okay, it’s not any good, and yeah, there are famous non-white kids, but I’m not seeing how white=bland. ---
**Author:** ![EpiGirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8c91f0/32.png) [@EpiGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpiGirl)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997/43 "2009-01-15T02:37:58Z")
Part of Celtic Woman’s appeal, IMO, is the ethereal nature of the singers’ voices. The music is supposed to be angelic, pretty, and aesthetic as opposed to drenched in the pain, pleasure, or heartache of the singer. I don’t think the singers are completely devoid of passion, but I can understand why others would find the singing very vanilla. I don’t think the emphasis on technical singing somehow denigrates the music or makes it inferior to music where “passion” is preferred to technical perfection. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997/44 "2009-01-15T02:58:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Like the resurgance of Klezmer music among young, hip Jews - my grannie thought it was utterly bizzare, that the kids were freaking out to what amounts to Jewish polka, considered in her day the _height_ of lame-ness – the sort of thing her parents would have listened to at a wedding, while the kewl kids rolled their eyes. That resurgence was coupled by heightened interest here and elsewhere from Christians and post-Christians alike. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997/45 "2009-01-15T14:48:25Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > That resurgence was coupled by heightened interest here and elsewhere from Christians and post-Christians alike. 🙂 Yup. They of course are even more ‘outsiders’, and thus all the more likely to not realize it was “lame”. Picture some kids in central Asia, grooving to Lawrence Welk. My idea is that, generally, all folk culture is lame to the actual “folk” it was created to serve; it becomes cool by virtue of being exotic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amateur-analysis-of-celtic-womans-blandness/480997.md?page=2)