Maybe there genuinely is or was someone on this sick planet for who the pinnacle of popular music was Dire Straits Brothers In Arms. By this same token maybe through some twisted fluke Adele’s 21 will be the moment that defines the current state of play. In a sick way it does - a double dip recession, highest rates of unemployment for years (and I’m writing this as one of many “flowers in the dustbin” stuck in this situation), a right wing government, and the far right enjoying a resurgence. None of this reflected in the mainstream or even the tastemaker's picks.
Our situation is very close to the endlessly revived and fetishised 1980s - back then we were all out of work too but this piece of writing would've been written in my neatest handwriting, photocopied and embedded in a fanzine, not an RSS feed. Way back when in a time I wasn’t even around for, you had voices crying out for help in the mainstream - The Smiths, Public Enemy, even Depeche Mode - all charting somewhere. What you saw of hip hop was the part that has now been replaced, typically, by the conservative version - patriarchal, homophobic and lusting solely for money - when it was (and still is, don’t get me wrong) a cry from the disenfranchised. The racial tensions hip hop shone a spotlight on are still there, and our Prime Minister recently echoed the language of the EDL in an uncanny echo of the Iron Lady's tacit support for the fascist NF.
They were shit times but if you read the right papers and went to the right places, what a soundtrack! Instead in 2012 we're drowning in a sea of endless blank faces and apathy, closed minds and open, drooling mouths. “It’s all about the music, we don’t really think about that” - you can safely read that as “Our agent told us to keep our mouths shut so we don’t run the risk of alienating anyone, anywhere, or inspiring anyone to do anything they wouldn’t already do.”. Studied blankness. Kick against the pricks? I dunno. Some of those pricks may want to use our song in their advertising campaign. A voice for the voiceless? Well that sounds nice but the voiceless don't do endorsements.
I know times are hard, I’ve just said they were above I don’t really begrudge any of these Apathy Merchants any money they can make, but at the same time there’s always going to be an element of nostalgia for a time I wasn’t around for when the voiceless were briefly, well, given a voice. Of course, its still out there but in no way will it cross over to the mainstream. Nice as Lady Gaga’s stuff is and I’m really not having a go at her she’s not going to have the same effect on a troubled young kid as Bowie putting his arm round Mick Ronson or Soft Cell singing about crying in the rain outside (both on Top of the Pops on primetime); she may make it easier for some, sure, but when the people who’re beating you up, saying you’re disgusting and making your life a misery, driving you to the edge are listening to the same supposed message songs as you (like Born This Way) and still pushing you about isn’t that going to be all the more demoralising? They’re listening to the same shit as you, homo, its homogenised (and the ghetto has been Guettaised). There is an enjoyable irony to the large amount of homophobes listening to Lady Gaga and the "chart hip hop" where a Swedish house producer has grafted an Autotuned and impossibly preened moron spouting drivel about his shorties on top of the cheesy Eurohouse that originated in gay clubs but that's another rant entirely.
Even though Bowie or Almond or Morrissey were in the mainstream there was still a hint of outsiderdom about them, something separate from the lumpen production line pop that surrounded them. Something separate from the music that THEY listen to, in a good way, to mirror how separate and Other you feel. Take Morrissey (and I wish someone would) and contrast “Beautiful in my own way because God makes no mistakes” with “No it’s not like any other love - this one’s different, because it’s us”. In the Gaga example we’ve got sympathy while offering no comfort. With Morrissey there’s a nod to the loneliness of being a young gay kid, the knowledge that while you shouldn’t be thought of as Different and Apart, you really are! You need a different soundtrack to that of the morons giving you a hard time, something BETTER ideally, because hearing the right song at the right time is better than any patronising speech or It Gets Better video.
In the charts in the 80s, that last time things were this dire for this many people in the UK, there was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax, Depeche Mode poncing about in bondage gear and singing about pretty boys and the stuff I’ve already mentioned in the charts alongside Annie Lennox and Grace Jones’ androgyny. There was also, in Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, a song about the loneliness that sometimes comes with people not liking something fundamental about you. And it was in the charts. No, not Gaga’s technicolour gay dance party where we look after her bag while she’s in the toilets and help her pick out men. A song about running away from a bunch of meatheads who want to kick your face in. A reality loads of us have faced and will continue to face. Can you imagine that in the charts now?
Well, no, because while the British charts used to have room for the outsider now its the oppressor's turn to stand in the spotlight, be they England's sweetheart who married a black footballer to distract from her fondness for beating up black women in toilets or a violent misogynist thug duetting with the very woman he beat up. Even our supposed "innovators" repackage tried and tested established conservative viewpoints in fancy new packaging. Look at Odd Future. Now I like Odd Future a lot because they’re funny, prolific, Frank Ocean is as near as we're getting at the moment to a progressively minded hip hop sex symbol and Syd tha Kid is a great step forward for hip hop, a sexist homophobic genre. She’s not just a lesbian she’s the lesbian who makes a lot of their beats and engineers their stuff. I'm a fan but who do they think they’re foo…oh shit they have actually fooled some middle class critics by being “delightfully un PC” and “brave”. It’s a sad day when someone apparently educated talks about how brave rape jokes and saying faggot all the time is (at a time when politicians are still advising women not to dress provocatively and "bring it on themselves". Makes my blood boil).
Tyler just said "faggot"! What a blow against the establishment who still inconvenience LGBT people that is at a time when homosexuality has only been legal for forty five years in this country and you can still be put to death for it in other countries who cannot be held accountable as they are following their imaginary friend’s doctrine. Yes. What a blow against the establishment calling a gay man a faggot is, or endlessly talking about bitches. These fools forget (or just try to block out) that this is just safety valve rebellion. Demonise "political correctness" all you want, you're just toeing the party line of the conservatives who are in power. But even this, irritating as it is is way preferable to the studied blankness of a lot of musicians just out for a quick buck. I don't know who to blame - the X Factor "pop music minus the glamour, sex and emotion" culture that nearly made Theodor Adorno rise from the dead is a tempting one to blame but its easier than ever to find some exciting new music!
Frankly it’s not for me, I’m looking for a job at the moment and while it would be nice to one day do what I enjoy and live off it I know how unlikely it is. So I’m not going to make any compromises for what I make or apologise for it. I will not be self deprecating from this point on as I know there are enough others out there who are happy to put my stuff down. But above all it’s because I’m not cut out for it. Call me self indulgent, say I’m missing the point, call me a cry baby, I’m not going to say I don’t care because I do actually, more than you'll ever realise. For me the best music has usually been an expression of emotion, a way of getting stuff off your chest and communicating your darkest thoughts, your greatest joys and your own unabashed uncensored truth to someone in a way that can make them want to dance, cry, break things and/or get off with someone. It appeals to our primal instincts as the more sophisticated side of us can enjoy the space in the music or the interplay between elements. When that first caveman played that first note it was because he wanted to express something about himself, not with a view to a potential lucrative sync with a cave painting or a sponsorship deal with pictures in the fire. Its an obsession for me, my first love and it will be my last, it just keeps on giving even now as I write this. So why, knowing I’m never going to be the next big thing, would I dilute my output? This isn’t the time to keep your mouth shut if you can’t think of anything nice to say.
"Not everything has to have a message", no, it doesn't. But SOMETHING has to have a message.
Our situation is very close to the endlessly revived and fetishised 1980s - back then we were all out of work too but this piece of writing would've been written in my neatest handwriting, photocopied and embedded in a fanzine, not an RSS feed. Way back when in a time I wasn’t even around for, you had voices crying out for help in the mainstream - The Smiths, Public Enemy, even Depeche Mode - all charting somewhere. What you saw of hip hop was the part that has now been replaced, typically, by the conservative version - patriarchal, homophobic and lusting solely for money - when it was (and still is, don’t get me wrong) a cry from the disenfranchised. The racial tensions hip hop shone a spotlight on are still there, and our Prime Minister recently echoed the language of the EDL in an uncanny echo of the Iron Lady's tacit support for the fascist NF.
They were shit times but if you read the right papers and went to the right places, what a soundtrack! Instead in 2012 we're drowning in a sea of endless blank faces and apathy, closed minds and open, drooling mouths. “It’s all about the music, we don’t really think about that” - you can safely read that as “Our agent told us to keep our mouths shut so we don’t run the risk of alienating anyone, anywhere, or inspiring anyone to do anything they wouldn’t already do.”. Studied blankness. Kick against the pricks? I dunno. Some of those pricks may want to use our song in their advertising campaign. A voice for the voiceless? Well that sounds nice but the voiceless don't do endorsements.
I know times are hard, I’ve just said they were above I don’t really begrudge any of these Apathy Merchants any money they can make, but at the same time there’s always going to be an element of nostalgia for a time I wasn’t around for when the voiceless were briefly, well, given a voice. Of course, its still out there but in no way will it cross over to the mainstream. Nice as Lady Gaga’s stuff is and I’m really not having a go at her she’s not going to have the same effect on a troubled young kid as Bowie putting his arm round Mick Ronson or Soft Cell singing about crying in the rain outside (both on Top of the Pops on primetime); she may make it easier for some, sure, but when the people who’re beating you up, saying you’re disgusting and making your life a misery, driving you to the edge are listening to the same supposed message songs as you (like Born This Way) and still pushing you about isn’t that going to be all the more demoralising? They’re listening to the same shit as you, homo, its homogenised (and the ghetto has been Guettaised). There is an enjoyable irony to the large amount of homophobes listening to Lady Gaga and the "chart hip hop" where a Swedish house producer has grafted an Autotuned and impossibly preened moron spouting drivel about his shorties on top of the cheesy Eurohouse that originated in gay clubs but that's another rant entirely.
Even though Bowie or Almond or Morrissey were in the mainstream there was still a hint of outsiderdom about them, something separate from the lumpen production line pop that surrounded them. Something separate from the music that THEY listen to, in a good way, to mirror how separate and Other you feel. Take Morrissey (and I wish someone would) and contrast “Beautiful in my own way because God makes no mistakes” with “No it’s not like any other love - this one’s different, because it’s us”. In the Gaga example we’ve got sympathy while offering no comfort. With Morrissey there’s a nod to the loneliness of being a young gay kid, the knowledge that while you shouldn’t be thought of as Different and Apart, you really are! You need a different soundtrack to that of the morons giving you a hard time, something BETTER ideally, because hearing the right song at the right time is better than any patronising speech or It Gets Better video.
In the charts in the 80s, that last time things were this dire for this many people in the UK, there was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax, Depeche Mode poncing about in bondage gear and singing about pretty boys and the stuff I’ve already mentioned in the charts alongside Annie Lennox and Grace Jones’ androgyny. There was also, in Bronski Beat’s Smalltown Boy, a song about the loneliness that sometimes comes with people not liking something fundamental about you. And it was in the charts. No, not Gaga’s technicolour gay dance party where we look after her bag while she’s in the toilets and help her pick out men. A song about running away from a bunch of meatheads who want to kick your face in. A reality loads of us have faced and will continue to face. Can you imagine that in the charts now?
Well, no, because while the British charts used to have room for the outsider now its the oppressor's turn to stand in the spotlight, be they England's sweetheart who married a black footballer to distract from her fondness for beating up black women in toilets or a violent misogynist thug duetting with the very woman he beat up. Even our supposed "innovators" repackage tried and tested established conservative viewpoints in fancy new packaging. Look at Odd Future. Now I like Odd Future a lot because they’re funny, prolific, Frank Ocean is as near as we're getting at the moment to a progressively minded hip hop sex symbol and Syd tha Kid is a great step forward for hip hop, a sexist homophobic genre. She’s not just a lesbian she’s the lesbian who makes a lot of their beats and engineers their stuff. I'm a fan but who do they think they’re foo…oh shit they have actually fooled some middle class critics by being “delightfully un PC” and “brave”. It’s a sad day when someone apparently educated talks about how brave rape jokes and saying faggot all the time is (at a time when politicians are still advising women not to dress provocatively and "bring it on themselves". Makes my blood boil).
Tyler just said "faggot"! What a blow against the establishment who still inconvenience LGBT people that is at a time when homosexuality has only been legal for forty five years in this country and you can still be put to death for it in other countries who cannot be held accountable as they are following their imaginary friend’s doctrine. Yes. What a blow against the establishment calling a gay man a faggot is, or endlessly talking about bitches. These fools forget (or just try to block out) that this is just safety valve rebellion. Demonise "political correctness" all you want, you're just toeing the party line of the conservatives who are in power. But even this, irritating as it is is way preferable to the studied blankness of a lot of musicians just out for a quick buck. I don't know who to blame - the X Factor "pop music minus the glamour, sex and emotion" culture that nearly made Theodor Adorno rise from the dead is a tempting one to blame but its easier than ever to find some exciting new music!
Frankly it’s not for me, I’m looking for a job at the moment and while it would be nice to one day do what I enjoy and live off it I know how unlikely it is. So I’m not going to make any compromises for what I make or apologise for it. I will not be self deprecating from this point on as I know there are enough others out there who are happy to put my stuff down. But above all it’s because I’m not cut out for it. Call me self indulgent, say I’m missing the point, call me a cry baby, I’m not going to say I don’t care because I do actually, more than you'll ever realise. For me the best music has usually been an expression of emotion, a way of getting stuff off your chest and communicating your darkest thoughts, your greatest joys and your own unabashed uncensored truth to someone in a way that can make them want to dance, cry, break things and/or get off with someone. It appeals to our primal instincts as the more sophisticated side of us can enjoy the space in the music or the interplay between elements. When that first caveman played that first note it was because he wanted to express something about himself, not with a view to a potential lucrative sync with a cave painting or a sponsorship deal with pictures in the fire. Its an obsession for me, my first love and it will be my last, it just keeps on giving even now as I write this. So why, knowing I’m never going to be the next big thing, would I dilute my output? This isn’t the time to keep your mouth shut if you can’t think of anything nice to say.
"Not everything has to have a message", no, it doesn't. But SOMETHING has to have a message.
