Talk:Grebo (music)

Untitled
I have added a few bits and pieces and tried to make it look better. kHiTe

The last part of this article was written by an baffoon.


 * Really? Shouldn't that be "Anne Baffoon"?

'Grebo's are a thriving teenage culture in Britain today, the Grebo's are from predominately middle-class backgrounds, unlike their natural enemies, the chavs who are from working-class backgrounds. Grebo's traditionally listen to heavy/death metal e.g. Megadeath and Metallica. they don't have a clothes style as such, but they tend to wear baggy denim jeans, dark t-shirts, much like Goth's, they are also easy to spot as they usually have long messy hair. They resent being associated with the anti-social chav's in Britain's current wave of anti-adolescentism.'

'Natural enemies'? He/she obviously likes apostrophes a bit too much, and since when did Goths wear baggy jeans?

That end part sounds to me like a current day teenager writing that....just showing how that term Grebo has been taken from its original description of a certain scene of a certain time of music, to (sadly) now being lazily used to describe practically anything vaguely rockish......"baggy jeans" i guess would be meaning skaters.

I added the explanation of where the term came from - "Greasy B**stard" - previously it had merely said Greasy Boy....the PWEI Clint Mansell origin from a cinema encounter is widely credited as being the origin....thought it needed to be included.


 * I never thought it was derived from "greasy bastard", but always understood it as a colloquial alternative to "greaser", the term used in parts of the UK at least 50 years ago for a member of a motorcycle gang. Some later became known as Rockers. At least, I remember it that way.  Leather jackets, greasy hair, BSA or Triumph 500, etc....


 * that bit on top is classed as vandalism and should be removed. Anything like that is use to describe against a person in a negative manner should also be removed. I hope you do know how to revert, just look up on revert on this site. Willirennen 15.12 8 March 2006 (utc)

Re: the second para in the article - I'm reading it as Grebo being called the Scene that celebrates itself - which is obviously wrong. If there are no objections I'll change it. Also - not sure about the "..in order to fill the period in the late 80s before Grunge music and other forms of American Alternative rock broke through." Seems a peculiar perspective on things as I remember them. NickW 00:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

To me, the paragraph about chavs/greebos (which I understand has been edited since the above comments) still reads too in favour of goths/skaters/whathaveyou. Now I'm supposedly a goth and all that, but this section isn't fit for an encyclopaedia. It could very easily be summed up just by keeping the first half of the first sentence (the second half, "who choose to dress to suit themselves and their peers", is not very NPOV; what are we suggesting chavs and everyone else do, then?). Talkingpie 17:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is badly-written. It also contains major errors:
 * 1) 80s-90s Grebo was both a scene and a musical genre.  As a scene it included Pop Will Eat Itself, Gaye Bikers on Acid, the Wonder Stuff and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.  Zodiac Mindwarp probably should be included.  I question whether the Levellers, Carter USM et al have anything at all to do with Grebo.
 * 2) As a musical genre, Grebo refers to the mixture of guitar rock and sampling exemplified by Pop Will Eat Itself and Gaye Bikers on Acid.  I don't recall any other bands who actually did this (certainly not NAD or the Wonder Stuff)
 * 3) 'based in the North'.  Except most of the bands listed are from the midlands or the south.  The Grebo scene was Midlands-centric (PWIE, NAD, Wonder Stuff from Midlands, not sure about GBoA or Mindwarp).  The southern bands listed (Carter from London, Levellers from Brighton) just shouldn't be mentioned here.


 * 1) Even though the article acknowledges that 'Greebo' has different connotations, it incorrectly uses that spelling throughout.

subculture status
I searched google books and google scholar to source the subculture status on List of subcultures, and I couldn't find anything clear. Instead, I found that the "Subcultures Reader" only talked of Grebo as a scene.

Also, a subculture is "a subculture is a group of people with a culture", and, looking at the culture article, I don't see that the members of grebo share any social value, as norms of behaviour or systems of belief, so it wouldn't fit the definition of subculture even if you can't find direct sources calling it subculture. So, if no one can source the subculture thing then I'll replace it with "it's a genre and a fashion style". --Enric Naval (talk) 17:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Late '80's / early '90's?
The term "grebo" was in common useage when I was a lad in the late '70's & was generally applied to somebody of "rocker-" or "biker-" -ish appearance (generally denim, leather, long hair & scruffy). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwladys24 (talk • contribs) 00:55, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, but this article isn't about the term, its about the genre/subculture of the late 80s/early 90s, which is diferent from the term of abuse used earlier for bikers/metal fans.--Michig (talk) 06:53, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I started at secondary school in Suffolk in 1972. On the first day I was asked if I was a 'grebo' or a 'smoothie'. Whichever I answered guaranteed a beating so it was lose-lose. 'Grebo' wasn't an abusive term. It was meant more like a 'rocker' or 'greaser' .... 'smoothie' I would now take to mean a 'casual' or possibly 'soulboy'. Off-topic possibly but information is power. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.159.165.51 (talk) 15:52, 7 August 2014 (UTC)