Punk rock WILL be great
That is to say, the next four years are going to give American punk artists the chance to become a Western Pussy Riot.
I am not a big fan of Amanda Palmer's music. But I'm on her Patreon and every so often she writes stuff like this, which I'm just going to bucket-quote. (ETA: in some views it's not clear what are my words, above, and what are afp's words, below. I'm inserting extra lines to try and help that.)
bjork just published a great interview in the guardian about sexism in music. she says:
“Women in music are allowed to be singer songwriters singing about their boyfriends [...] If they change the subject matter to atoms, galaxies, activism, nerdy math beat editing or anything else than being performers singing about their loved ones they get criticized. Journalists feel there is just something missing … as if our only lingo is emo [...] If we don’t cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives we are cheating our audience.”
when i read this, all i could think of was how easy it would be, in the next four years (for female artists especially) to resist controversial, or even unusual, topics, even if only *slightly* political. why risk pissing off a person on facebook? why risk getting yelled at? why risk having a bad morning like amanda palmer?
it's a micro-decision every artists makes when choosing what words, what topics, what sentiments she knowswe will have to "defend". and defending, for many artists, is becoming a second full-time job if you want to hang out on the dregs of facebook and twitter and instagram trying to wave people over to your jukebox.
it's so easy to make "easy" art choices to avoid angering anybody. there are so many people out there who are so ready to be angry right now, and female creators are especially delicious targets.
so while we may have a mainstream world of supermarkets and top 40 radio playing what i like to call "ooh-baby" songs about heartbreak and jealousy, THERE IS ALWAYS THE OTHER THING, the OTHER ART, the inheritors of punk and folk, the other voices who have so much more to consider and to share than "ooh-baby" fare. the darker, blacker, punker song topics. the political fury, the rapes and abortions, the local pain and neighborhood disenfranchisment, the hilarious satirical absurdities of how we do and don't and can and can't treat each other...the poetry of a truer, richer tapestry of life. the visceral reflections of our times. and THIS is the music, the punk of which i speak, that will thrust up like flowers and weeds from the sidewalk-cement of a donald trump presidency, where it feels like the most materialistic, wealth-worshipping and non-compassionate oppressors of our times are taking the reigns of the white house.
And this is why I support Ms Palmer, because the world needs more of this and less of the "ooh baby," however much I enjoy it.
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth, at http://drwex.dreamwidth.org/937980.html. You can comment here or there.
I am not a big fan of Amanda Palmer's music. But I'm on her Patreon and every so often she writes stuff like this, which I'm just going to bucket-quote. (ETA: in some views it's not clear what are my words, above, and what are afp's words, below. I'm inserting extra lines to try and help that.)
bjork just published a great interview in the guardian about sexism in music. she says:
“Women in music are allowed to be singer songwriters singing about their boyfriends [...] If they change the subject matter to atoms, galaxies, activism, nerdy math beat editing or anything else than being performers singing about their loved ones they get criticized. Journalists feel there is just something missing … as if our only lingo is emo [...] If we don’t cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives we are cheating our audience.”
when i read this, all i could think of was how easy it would be, in the next four years (for female artists especially) to resist controversial, or even unusual, topics, even if only *slightly* political. why risk pissing off a person on facebook? why risk getting yelled at? why risk having a bad morning like amanda palmer?
it's a micro-decision every artists makes when choosing what words, what topics, what sentiments she knowswe will have to "defend". and defending, for many artists, is becoming a second full-time job if you want to hang out on the dregs of facebook and twitter and instagram trying to wave people over to your jukebox.
it's so easy to make "easy" art choices to avoid angering anybody. there are so many people out there who are so ready to be angry right now, and female creators are especially delicious targets.
so while we may have a mainstream world of supermarkets and top 40 radio playing what i like to call "ooh-baby" songs about heartbreak and jealousy, THERE IS ALWAYS THE OTHER THING, the OTHER ART, the inheritors of punk and folk, the other voices who have so much more to consider and to share than "ooh-baby" fare. the darker, blacker, punker song topics. the political fury, the rapes and abortions, the local pain and neighborhood disenfranchisment, the hilarious satirical absurdities of how we do and don't and can and can't treat each other...the poetry of a truer, richer tapestry of life. the visceral reflections of our times. and THIS is the music, the punk of which i speak, that will thrust up like flowers and weeds from the sidewalk-cement of a donald trump presidency, where it feels like the most materialistic, wealth-worshipping and non-compassionate oppressors of our times are taking the reigns of the white house.
And this is why I support Ms Palmer, because the world needs more of this and less of the "ooh baby," however much I enjoy it.
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth, at http://drwex.dreamwidth.org/937980.html. You can comment here or there.