i don't know about the rest of you, but i find the 'protest' song an egregious mis-step. by 'protest' song, i mean it in the cannonized form - a long haired, dirty man or woman with an acoustic guitar, singing in plain language about issues that *matter* to a near-exclusively sympathetic crowd (apparently, this act often aids in copulation)
it should be clear from the get go that i obviously disapprove of such an unholy concoction of earnesty and self-righteousness, of populism and arrogance, of bloatedness and understatedness.
but more importantly, i detect a massive schism between form and function.
the primary subversive gesture proffered by punk rock ultimately boils down to amplitude. ditto for metal. structurally, harmonically, and in all other sonic regards, these musics are based on bubblegum garage pop and blues. the main formal addition to the equation is simply distortion.
while distorted mid-range frequencies occupy the same psychoacoustic space as a primal war scream - does the music amount to more than that? an impotent warble directed at nebulously oppressive forces? a teen-angst tantrum railing against those oh-so-cruel authorities that pose barriers to indulgence in ever blossoming libidinal yearnings?
the supposedly deviant lyrical and iconographic moves made by such artists generally pack a similarly feeble wallop. i mean, let's be honest, how subversive is sniffing glue? how unique is it really to feel alienated?
additionally, because of these musics structural familiarity, because of their accessible production values and (generally) appealing messages of hedonism and one-dimensional rebellion, benign transgression, they have fallen almost entirely prey to the machineries they purportedly oppose.
of course, i suppose the initial (unasked) question was:
how DOES one create a protest song? given the failure of 60's counterculture, the failure of mclaren's pranks (although from his perspective, perhaps not a failure), the collapse of the 90's rave movement, and the subsequent necromantic reanimation and uber-commodification of all previous subcultural endeavors - all this with the backdrop of our currently dire political situation stateside, and an utter dearth of other interesting cultural output (art art art) - it seems more important than ever to address the issue of resistance.
why is it that aestheticized order remains such an impenetrable barrier, culturally? why is repetition so taboo (aside from the languid output of phillip glass's arpeggio factory, the beauty of which is apparently so *irrefutable* that even the casual filmgoer is made rapt by the unending cascades of blandness)?
of course, the 'fascist' connotations of much electronically generated music are off-putting, particularly for us god-fearing, guitar-stroking americans.
(tangent: it is perhaps then, not entirely surprising that synthesizers and drum machines found much of their initial stateside embrace in one of our most historically disenfranchised populations - the african americans.)
does this sonic order, rigidity, "fascism", whatever you'd like to call it, somehow call into question the illusion of *freedom* , that which is regarded so highly in our nation, in a manner that commercially-sponsored genres fail to?
(for what it's worth, europeans at large seem to be comparatively unafflicted by the technophobia that is so rampant here. perhaps the absence of *freedom* as such a loaded word from their psychonational vocabulary allows for a less uneasy relationship to inorganic sounds)
(tangent: one musical attribute which has never found much of a home in any kind of market is dissonance, that ever psychically and politically charged force. beloved by kooky auteurs (harry partch), academics (schoenberg), and bedroom-studio nutjobs (for the past 5 or so decades)... )
errr, i'm losing a bit of focus here, the caffeine has made my head a bit spinny, and this chapter
oh!
of course if we're dealing with dance musics, eventually one must address the body. how does one interact with the music? in what environments, under what circumstances?
farley mentioned that he enjoyed dancing to cold, mechanical, dissociative music.
i think this kind of music appeals to those of us who view humanity in errm...well, an ambivalent light. the very nature of mechanical music questions our own human architecture.
while i am not against academic music, i heavily privelege music that has some active presence in, well, the *real* world. and while music should be fun, and obviously i think people should dance and have a good time, purely hedonistic goals should be eschewed.
grr..ok, toodistracted to keep thinking right now....not very clear at this juncture....will write more on dance and the body in a bit....
12 comments:
Are you asking what can be done to steal back the protest movement from the people you describe at the outset?
well, not the "protest movement" per se, because that's an institution i don't really approve of.
i'm meaning to more question the ways in which one could reinfuse (music/art/life) with that errr...well, *dangerous* subversive energy, without falling into the traps of the past.
while i do not really think maclaren was that much of a mastermind, i do think that the punk movement did more than just offer loud noise at a grea frequency. i mean....think about pogoing....pretty much my staple dance move at this point. it takes an incredible amount of energy...at least for me, to "pogo"....something i never call it....lets just call it jumpingupanddownalot....for an entire song, let alone a whole dance party, and i have done it...it just sort of leaves me very sweaty and out of breath. and this is the dance move that i apply to any kind of music. now...i dont think the punk movement is exclusive to this kind of dancing, but it did start with them....supposedly with sid vicious, of the sex pistols....who suck. but what they were trying to do was release the youth energy, and i think they did it successfully, but that kind of energy release through dancing i think really continued. and i think when any group of kids get together and release that kind of energy it can be "dangerous"....as in a possible protest. and like i said....i do this move to ALL kinds of music...and i dont know whether this is because i really have no dance move repetiore...or its just how i dance....but it seems to me that its not the music that needs help....but the gatherings where people dance to the music...as in...there arent any that really matter. but also...i just woke up.
Yea, there always seems to be this divide where there are great shows, with amazing music, and no one moves. People have this feeling out period where they need to get comfortable with a band before they can start dancing to the music.. I think I hear what you guys are saying, which is that somehow punk music was universal in the sense that, whatever band you went to see, there was no awkward period, you could just start dancing right away.
ohh, ok, wow
lots to say here, but brain otherwise occupied -
points for henry for pintpointing that punk's positive influence was on sociological grounds and not formal. i neglected to explore that, out of kneejerk bias.
(although i might make the argument that aggressive/kinetic dancing didn't necessarily originate with punk - the northern soul and early disco scenes were full of people going NUTS, although perhaps in a flashier, more stylized (read: competent, and thus perhaps, less appealing) manner than punk's pared-down pogo romp)
i think what i was meaning to get at earlier, though, is that music needs to be both formally AND sociologically risky for it to have any true destabilizing potential. while punk was a brief shock to the system, it was quickly re-absorbed by consumerist machinery due to it's formal roots in such widely appealing music. (which is why john lydon's subsequent project, PiL, one in which he consciously set about to make more risky and unpalatable music, remains to this day a much less popular and accessible band - and of course, infinitely better)
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"and i think when any group of kids get together and release that kind of energy it can be "dangerous""
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this is why i'm terrified of anyone under the age of 17 :P
while this may be true, i am not party to mclaren's visions of channeling youth energy as a destabilizing force. the youth are dumb, irresponsible, too easily impressionable and unfocused at large. any movement built solely upon youth support is incredibly likely to fall apart within 3-4 years, as the bulk of its supporters "grow up" and become "real people" with "jobs". this is in part why mclaren's efforts come across as snide pranks instead of legitimate threats (compare punk's impact to that of the early rave culture! punk scared and irritated parents - rave required MASSIVE policing and heavy handed legislation).
but back to the point of "energy" - a very important thing!!!
is it possible to channel the necessary kind of energy without resorting to the kind of tactics that would allow one to fall into the traps of..errr...co-optation (bad/stupidly loaded word, but all i have right now)?
that is to say, how does one communicate a legitimately subversive message without totally alienating ones audience? or is this a concern at all?
(any thoughts on how to apply this to visual arts are very welcome as well!)
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"which is that somehow punk music was universal in the sense that, whatever band you went to see, there was no awkward period, you could just start dancing right away."
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not sure if i agree with that. i mean, there were really as many WILDLY unfavorable reactions to early bands labeled 'punk' as there were favorable ones (ie sex pistols' US tour, basically any suicide show, etc)...
although i think it is important to note the lack of dancing in all "hipster" circles.
i have my own paranoid theory regarding that - namely that people in control of media in the states have made it a serious agenda to shift 'subcultural' values away from dance-oriented culture since the early 90's, for fear of an outcome similar to that in the uk/europe. thus the heavy media push nirvana/grunge received (again, woefully retrogressive music - pompous zeppelin-esque 70's arena rock with the tamer/more palatable aspects of 80's noise rock, mixed with sulf-indulgent teen angst, ughh). the US media needed to supply an immediate alternative to dance culture, otherwise it faced a destabilizing epidemic. similarly, look at the world immediately post-electroclash - bands like the white stripes and the hives and whoever the fuck else zeppelin-esque "garage" revival bands..ugh...
(of course, more likely and reasonable explanations for stateside dancephobia simply involve racism and homophobia)
ok, i have to stop typing before i start sounding too crazy.
i didnt really mean to single out punk too much. i mean there are obvious problems, and you make a really good point when you talk about youth-based culture. i mean these days it all ends up at hot topic anyway. i guess a really successful adventure would be to drive away the youth...this is sort of a stupid cliche, but often times it is just a rebelious phase, and you are right....most people dont continue it into a point in thier lives where they can start being interesting.
raves are interesting to mention....i used to know some older people who were active in the rave scene before it was actually a scene...sort of like...before glow sticks or something...where they were really just parties with loud music and lots of drugs and people basically just jumping up and down. but i think the reason raves required so much policing and legislation was because they were so heavily drug-related...which i think is one of my main problems with rave culture....that and its too fucking happy. but i think if you can draw any meaningful parallels between raves and punk shows (besides drugs) than it is VOLUME....which i think also demontrates a point...because basically the only place you can listen to music at a volume like that is a show or dancepartyclubthing or something....which is really a place to bring people together, and then make it impossible for them to talk to each other because of the volume...SHUT UP AND DANCE...i guess is the message
which makes me wonder about dancing losing favor in a lot of hipster circles. i think it might be something about dancing where you sort of let yourself go and not really worry about what people think....maybe its dance MOVES that are to blame for a lot of the problems....its like street fighter or some shit....i have always played street fighter by just wildly mashing the buttons, and i usually end up winning....even though there is really no finess or "coolness" about beating someone by mashing buttons...it works! i tohhhhtally kicked you ass, no matter how many times you managed to pull of the "hadouken" move...i think maybe on the dance floor people are expecting more "hadoukens"...but ultimatly...i think its more fun just to mash all the buttons at once and see what comes out....that is such a good fucking metaphor i think i should stop now.
once you get to the best metaphor it is time to stop
What about this monkey business?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qACnquW0y_Y
Look at 'em go! Sure, it follows a brutally simple form -- there's little more than throwing punches and dropkicks, AND just wait for the "BREAKDOWN". But I do see some finesse and physical acumen on display here.
I'm not sure any sort of "Hardcore Dance Culture" can be pinned down sociologically anymore. What spawned from ostensibly sober, white suburban males has gone international (monkey see, monkey do). And I guess this sort of music has a huge aboveground market now, but I don't understand how or why the media or music industry would encourage it.
Of course it's own self-parodying is the telltale sign of its arrival in the purgatory of the culturally impotent.
Check it:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QI5qemFR73g&mode=related&search=
Whatever sells I suppose...
if we're talking about the formal properties of forms of resistance against mass production of culture, and if that mass production consists of the process of labeling and containing creative output into identifiable idioms for resale to the public), i think the formula is found in the act of resisting classification; my two cents is that rebellion isn't in how loud or dissonant you are but in how uncharacteristic of the social norm.
while i very much agree with the sentiment, armondo, it seems perhaps a little reductive.
to probe:
what are these 'social norms'?
how does one go about being uncharacteristic of them?
social norms are a rapidly shifting thing - an overwhelming chunk of things we take for granted now were once totally musically taboo - sampling for instance, on a large scale, but even smaller things, like the spastic hi-hat rolls in juvenile's 'back that ass up' sounded bizarre and avant-garde in 99 - now they sound tired and perfunctory. where does one draw the line between simply being innovative and actually being subversive?
it's a basic human impulse to categorize and classify things - as well as a market-based one. most music finds a genre-home soon enough. those most successful in resisting classification are very often enigmatic personas (off the top of my head, scott walker and jandek spring to mind) - who, while talented and interesting artists, don't necessarily bring a whole lot to the table in terms of formal innovation.
how do you feel about the role of persona in such a model of resistance?
The high-hat rolls of a juvenille song is such a perfect example TCD. That was definitely a shocking element to beats of that nature when they first started appearing (and were probably still a little subversive when ludacris's first album dropped).
The 808 drum set had already been around for some time, and they found a way to break it creatively. That same sound is what I connected with when you first started spinning Adult. records.
In a way the big corporate monster is a great thing because it forces new mutations. It presses us to come up with new food for the beast (which will make someone else very rich, and maybe ocassionaly even the artist herself).
And so TCD I have to now agree with you that the "Spiral of Reciprocal Appropriation" is a very valid theory -- just maybe it's necessary for our cultural evolution.
Hmmm...
When a dance style gets too popular it is not "cool" to do it anymore, but I think this is ignoring the best reason to dance: it FEELS very very good.
The steps that come out of rock - the mashed potato, the twist - these steps feel amazing! The movement of your body, the release of tension, the sexuality of it. I don't care if it's not cool to do the twist - it makes me turn my shoulders one way and my hips the opposite way the way no other dance does.
Now, how about the way it feels to dance hardcore? It feels AMAZING! It is aggressive, angry, and gives you a kind of adrenaline high. It calibrates your sense of space and balance, it makes your body feel dangerous and big, but it also teaches you about boundaries = when you hurt someone or yourself it shows you that the world is not a simulation, or at least not one that doesn't have pain. It also may be a catharitic experience for some, ridding the mind of tension as well as the body. Or perhaps it just incites people to violence. But I think this is a much more interesting way of considering the dance.
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