Daily Disclaimer:
Please note that this is going to be a lengthy article that requires patience. Not only that, actually, it's also going to raise many different questions. So, if you're impatient or don't have divided attention, be warned: it's not going to be easy. For either of us.
***
For starters, let's state the obvious. The subject of this installment of BDSM is unpopular music. In other words, the absolute opposite of popular music (which is also going to be tackled in this article). It is, in fact, unpopular for a reason. Many reasons, actually, the main one being that it doesn't get any promotion in the mass media, whereas Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Justin Bieber get all the hype. While it used to make some sense in the past, as pop music of the 70s/80s was actually listenable for the most part, it appears to be rather counter-intuitive in the current era. My question is: What the fuck happened? Is this what we are? That's two questions, actually. "Amongst our weapons!..."
Ha, I tricked you into thinking this was going to be just another stupid rant about how terrible the society has become, meaning how poor we, the elite, crème de la crème, are marginalized and oppressed by stupidity and aggressive consumerism. Now, there's a little bit of that already, haha, well... Still, the real question is "Why did this happen?". And another one is "Is there any correlation between popular music and state of society?" Can we judge the society by the stuff it listens to? And last but not least, "Why do we call this era postmodern and how no one seems to remember that?" That's a fair share of questions, yet they're all linked to each other, I swear. The answer to the first one is easy and convenient if you happen to be a lefty. To cut a long story short, as I'm not an expert, the society is corrupted by capitalism. Your status is determined by wealth and everything is subordinated to ownership of goods, position or even people, as we're always happy to objectify others. Resulting from this state of affairs, that has been around for the last century, is the devoid of finer feelings, divided society we live in. Many people go with the flow, some try to oppose it, but most are too poor to even care, "Hold your horses, bartosso, no one has ever come up with a better system!" Well, fine, it's a music blog, not a political one, so I'm not going to argue... even if I could... and I would win.
The society is not doing well, that must be obvious even to the most stubborn optimists out there. And that's where the second question gets in the way... and the answer is "yes, kinda". There is indeed a correlation between music that is currently popular and the state of society it is popular in, even though the connection is open to interpretation. Let's focus on the most shameful and disgusting branch of pop music that also happens to be most popular among the youth. All Satan's spawn seeping out of TV, radio and YouTube, you know exactly what I mean. Do the people behind all this have no trust in our intelligence? Do they have no conscience? Again, all that matters is money. "Kids are being brainwashed while we could at least try to show them that there's more to life than just sex and new iPhones?" Oh, no biggie! Let's fuck with these half-wits a little more! Okay, you probably think that that's always been like that and I just exaggerate, as usual. Alright, we always had, have and will have a population dominated by people that, to put it mildly, refuse to think for themselves. That's how it works. Still, there's always been a strong opposition to these trends, a noticeable minority that listened to rock music and opposed the system. Let's face it, rock played on the radio these days is nothing it used to be in the 70s/80s. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Queen. All those bands were super popular all over the media. And now what? Muse? Coldplay? Arctic Monkeys? Oh, come on! When exactly did rock stop to be genuine, I wonder?
The answer is - it didn't. It still does what it used to do, and in fact so much more. The problem is that "true" rock went underground. As it becomes less and less engaged in social activities and more focused on consumption, the general public can go without good music. Good music has almost entirely vanished from the map of pop culture. Okay, we have this ever growing indie pop scene that is somewhat encouraging but still. The world has changed. Artists that push the envelope are numerous and more varied than ever, but they have to strive for survival in a world that has no interest in them. We live in a postmodern age, an age of adventurous experiments, crossovers and general eclecticism. Music has reached the point of discharge as every genre fulfilled its potential. Chamber classical mixed with extreme metal and jazz? Here you go! Black metal and shoegaze? Dream pop and atonal noise rock? Why not! Anything's possible, so it's all the more depressing that so few are willing to enjoy that.
No comments:
Post a Comment