Just as fast as possible we have to find the Pussy Riot of our own culture. This is not celebrity or international personality consumerism – the Pussy Riot women carry meaning. The fact that they are so striking a presence is a lesson for us. Commercial artists are now an obscure oxymoron. Beyonce, Gaga, Bieber etc. dare us with meaninglessness. All the smooth-skinned human products persuade us that fame for its own sake, product for the sake of selling – is harmless. No, this approach to culture, which infects the fine arts as well as Hollywood and Broadway, must be slain by the meaning they have left behind. The price that is being paid by all of us for these years of culture with no meaning can be seen in our inability to prevent wars, climate disruption, and the extinction of life. The arts should be leading the way toward a new way of living. At this point, because of how meaningless depoliticized culture is locked in place – the artists of the future, like Pussy Riot, must be revolutionary. Must deliver freedom. Must make the cossacks and cowboys, czars and CEO’s show their crazy violence. -rev
via Reverend Billy And The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.
Liner notes.
“Tangentially, its possible that grunge has been temporarily or permanently exiled based on what it begat. Who wants to claim Pearl Jam or Soundgarden as an influence after a parade of Creed and other nu-rock mutants?”
There’s also this authenticity thing where, if I’m playing a piece and it’s not risky for me to do it, if it’s so easy because I know it so well that there’s not risk involved, I feel like I’m cheating the audience and I’m cheating myself.
A most intriguing question: Where has all the protest music gone? Michael Fallon’s “This Art is Your Art” series is a more worthy read than I had anticipated.
“It’s possible that we live in a time when our values have turned so inward into personal introspection and self-regard that we find it impossible to gather together and sing about a common cause. Or else protest music may simply be too embarrassing a relic of the past, of a time when such well-meaning sentiment actually meant something. Today is a different age, we prefer to think, when problems are so complex, so difficult to solve that they’re not even worth bringing up in polite society.”
via The Revolution Will Not Be Spotified — Arts and Culture — Utne Reader.
Are we content to live with the classics of the past that still speak to today? I’m sure there are songs out there expressing the frustrations of the times, we’re just not being exposed to them on a grand social scale. Our options are dumbed down by mass media or the more obscure findings of our own explorations that aren’t widespread.
I’d love to see some good playlists addressing this. The author gives us a good start at the end of this piece. What songs would you add to the mix?
-ag
There is something about a tall man with hairy legs, in a black dress, and singing French love songs that captures the beautiful contradiction of Edith Piaf’s life and music.
DeVotchKa’s 100 Lovers will stream at npr.org in its entirety until its release on March 1.
Thanks to Heather Davis for the heads-up. 🙂
Gregarious Expressions 