the modern emo/pop music industry
Tim Kinsella (Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Make Believe)...yes also the brother of Mike Kinsella (American Football, Owen) has put my exact thoughts into words:
"...We must integrate our politics into our lifestyle, acknowledge that every bridge, hook, melody and sales strategy has political dimensions.
Throughout history, music has been at the center of every culture. Music is what people have always had between them to help each other understand how to live. The values of a culture are hidden within its music. And I don't mean that in a Christian-rock or straight-edge way. I mean our culture is not only sick, but it's taking the whole world down with it, and its symptoms are in the song structures and rituals of performance.
The simplistic, sensationalist, emotionalism of soaring crescendos-whose success or failure relate only to how familiar they seem on first listen-must become tired and redundant by design. When you reach your saturation point and can no longer react to these octave chords' urgent demands, then what? Will all displays of emotion seem silly? Mustn't it be true, like the boy who cried wolf, that every feigned-spontaneous emotional signifier thrust upon you by some band will just deaden your sense of empathy in the future? Perhaps even in a real-world situation, with real world consequences? If TV and reality can be to intertwined, past signifiers of rebellion is rebellion, and this is punk rock, why not?
Don't the sensationalist requirements of vicarious catharsis ask so much, that our empathy will be spent before it ever has a chance to blossom? I mean, I might not be able to understand when someone is hurting-and in turn know how to help them-if my formative experiences with understanding emotions is via these fashionable young men and women.
But it's not too late. If the bands break up, maybe we can have music again in the future, and we will be able to hear it for what it is- not what it's being sold as."
"...We must integrate our politics into our lifestyle, acknowledge that every bridge, hook, melody and sales strategy has political dimensions.
Throughout history, music has been at the center of every culture. Music is what people have always had between them to help each other understand how to live. The values of a culture are hidden within its music. And I don't mean that in a Christian-rock or straight-edge way. I mean our culture is not only sick, but it's taking the whole world down with it, and its symptoms are in the song structures and rituals of performance.
The simplistic, sensationalist, emotionalism of soaring crescendos-whose success or failure relate only to how familiar they seem on first listen-must become tired and redundant by design. When you reach your saturation point and can no longer react to these octave chords' urgent demands, then what? Will all displays of emotion seem silly? Mustn't it be true, like the boy who cried wolf, that every feigned-spontaneous emotional signifier thrust upon you by some band will just deaden your sense of empathy in the future? Perhaps even in a real-world situation, with real world consequences? If TV and reality can be to intertwined, past signifiers of rebellion is rebellion, and this is punk rock, why not?
Don't the sensationalist requirements of vicarious catharsis ask so much, that our empathy will be spent before it ever has a chance to blossom? I mean, I might not be able to understand when someone is hurting-and in turn know how to help them-if my formative experiences with understanding emotions is via these fashionable young men and women.
But it's not too late. If the bands break up, maybe we can have music again in the future, and we will be able to hear it for what it is- not what it's being sold as."