Fascism, rock and roll, and hip hop

nrsair said:
Propagandi has been around forever, but hardcore in general is having a resurgence, and almost all of those bands are, to put it mildly, in your face with their politics. There’s a band called No Cure that is one of my favorites at the moment, they’ve got a song called Hang Me From the Bible Belt:
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This sounds more metal to me than hard core. Of course there was never a blight line between those sibling genres, but it might be a sign of how metal came to eat everything heavy.
 
BlooVooDoo said:
ANTIFO!
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LOL. It's not quite the same thing. The anti-folk movement was more busker, whereas that track had more of a song structure and more than just guitar strumming in the background. But it's spiritually similar.

It's funny. The most famous anti-folk singer was Ani Defranco, who graduated from anti-folk but got her start in that scene. And though she was once a big deal, I haven't thought about her in at least 25 years.
 
superrific said:
LOL. It's not quite the same thing. The anti-folk movement was more busker, whereas that track had more of a song structure and more than just guitar strumming in the background. But it's spiritually similar.

It's funny. The most famous anti-folk singer was Ani Defranco, who graduated from anti-folk but got her start in that scene. And though she was once a big deal, I haven't thought about her in at least 25 years.
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I’d totally forgotten about her. I think the last I remember hearing her was maybe like 2003?
She was definitely a darling of the indie radio scene.
 
superrific said:
This sounds more metal to me than hard core. Of course there was never a blight line between those sibling genres, but it might be a sign of how metal came to eat everything heavy.
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Yeah I reckon their sound best fits in metalcore… I first heard them when they toured with The Acacia Strain. But they have a bunch of songs about being straight edge which I associated strongly with hardcore.

Hardcore’s become a much bigger tent sound-wise lately but other new hardcore/hardcore-adjacent bands like (off the top of my head) Fit For An Autopsy, Dying Wish, End It, The Callous Daoboys and Better Lovers all have recent releases that are overtly political.
 
superrific said:
Note: I've lived my adult life convinced of the ethical and political importance of music and art, and conformist versus non-conformist art in particular. I'm a follower of Adorno/Marcuse in that regard. Music can be a source of critical thinking, or a form of herding behavior. That's not exactly what I'm talking about here, but it's in the ball park.

Anyway: has our fascist moment been created in part because rock and hip-hop no longer function as oppositional voices?

1. I'm sure many posters can speak to this personally, but of course music was a huge galvanizing force behind the social movements. The anti-war movement, in particular, was inseparable from rock and roll, but obviously the civil rights movement too. Bob Dylan was extremely influential, as was Woody Guthrie. Edwin Starr (War); Barry Mcguire (Eve of Destruction). Fortunate Son. Other artists brought a more radical edge -- "Volunteers" (of America, Jeff Airplane), MC5 (all sorts of songs), etc. In the 1980s, it wasn't quite as ubiquitious, but U2 rose to fame with explicitly political songs like the whole War album and Pride (In The Name Of Love).

There's little of that today. Rock is dead. Metal has never been all that politically conscious, but there were bands like C.O.C. Nowadays, most metal is focused on juvenile satanism/paganism/norse viking shit and anyway you can't understand the lyrics and anyway you definitely cannot sing along. You won't find protest anthems in metal.

2. Punk was only inconsistently political, and not always salutary in the lyrics, but punk offered something else -- a radically oppositional, liberational form of expression. The whole point of punk was to give a middle finger to the whole world, or at least all of Western society. In many ways, rock music in the 60s and 70s did the same. "Smoke weed" isn't exactly a protest message, but it isn't exactly not a protest message in a world of stifling conformity. And liberation itself birthed radical politics, or at least liberal politics. Make love, not war is trite and sort of silly, but it shows how cultural liberation can offer resistance to a repugnant status quo.

Punk is mostly dead and has been for a long time. What remains has mostly been stripped of oppositional content. I'm sorry, The Revolution Won't Be Sung By Green Day. It's not only oppositional lyrics, but also oppositional style. Green Day is bubblegum punk, more suited to frat parties than communes. And anyway, American Idiot was 20 years ago.

3. Hip hop? Man, how I long for the days of Public Enemy. I don't know much about the current state of the genre, but my sense is that the oppositional content has mostly been neutered in favor of lifestyle braggadocio. I don't know if it's quite "Money Cash Hos" but Drake ain't gonna be singing the revolution either. What rappers today are edgy in any socially conscious way? Kendrick Lamar has his moments, but his most famous song is just a diss track. One could argue that the rise of diss tracks -- which exist because they are tailor made for popular consumption -- was a major factor in the abdication of hip-hop of its role as "CNN of the ghetto." Anyway, Ice Cube ain't taking time away from his Budweiser ads and whatever else to launch a revolution.

4. So what we're left with is generic, smooth and unruffled pop music with little lyrical content and no musical adventurousness. Worse, music criticism has seemingly abandoned its traditional role in mainstreaming underground music (genres or bands) and has turned into celebratory jerkoffs of pop music. How many "music critics" debased themselves by favorably reviewing Sabrina Carpenter? Too many for my liking.

It's because music today is so pre-fab, so generic, so made-to-order that young people have so little political consciousness. Or, to put it differently, there is no sustain there. When I was exposed to radical ideas in my youth, I would then hop into my car and listen to "Vote With a Bullet" or "Fight the Power" or "Flowers of Guatemala." It kept me going. It kept the fire raging. And if not lyrically, in musical substance. Jimi Hendrix was rarely overtly political, but he offered a stinging rebuke of the war in Vietnam just by playing the national anthem on his guitar.

Thoughts? Some of y'all know modern hip hop better than I do.
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To answer your question: “has our fascist moment been created in part because rock and hip-hop no longer function as oppositional voices?”

No. I seriously doubt our “fascist moment” has been created because rock, hip hop or any genre of music is lacking a voice. Oppositional or otherwise. I think we all know what has created Fascism today in the good old U.S.A…. And it’s got nothing at all to do with the music industry or what kids listen too, or how much concert tickets cost.

However, I will say America’s continuation of putting the arts - music education included - on the back burner (if not totally abandoned by school curricula altogether) continues the dumbing down of the American populace.

Critical thinking being at an all time low already is not helped by fewer and fewer children and students learning how to play an instrument or learning how to sing in a choral environment. And this is irrespective of style or genre of musical options.

A.I. and tech advances enabling “music” to be created and recorded by anyone with keyboard skills (not piano keyboards) notwithstanding.
 
Centerpiece said:
No. I seriously doubt our “fascist moment” has been created because rock, hip hop or any genre of music is lacking a voice. Oppositional or otherwise. I think we all know what has created Fascism today in the good old U.S.A…. And it’s got nothing at all to do with the music industry or what kids listen too, or how much concert tickets cost.
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I disagree. I think culture and politics are related. The 50s were culturally stultifying and politically stagnant. The 60s were vibrant on both counts.

Every fascism needs the people who aren't fascists per se, but shrug their shoulders at it. In many social theories (with at least some experimental evidence to support), that shrugging is a lack of vision from conformists who have never had reason to step forward and say "stop this now."

I mean, I started the thread because I don't know if it's actually the case, but it's definitely a plausible idea and almost certainly true in some milieux. This is, of course, why fascists try to control artistic expression, which otherwise is no threat to them.
 
If anything it’s the exact opposite. Fascism today in the U.S. may weigh more heavily on curtailing oppositional voices in music today.
Example: Disney to Kimmel… STFU.
Disney to musicians: STFU
Disney: “It’s not us stifling voices… we have pressures on us from the Government, so … sorry artists… write, sing, play, produce what dear leader approves… or… we gotta silence you.”
 
superrific said:
I disagree. I think culture and politics are related. The 50s were culturally stultifying and politically stagnant. The 60s were vibrant on both counts.

Every fascism needs the people who aren't fascists per se, but shrug their shoulders at it. In many social theories (with at least some experimental evidence to support), that shrugging is a lack of vision from conformists who have never had reason to step forward and say "stop this now."

I mean, I started the thread because I don't know if it's actually the case, but it's definitely a plausible idea and almost certainly true in some milieux. This is, of course, why fascists try to control artistic expression, which otherwise is no threat to them.
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You disagree about what… exactly… my comment?
 
Centerpiece said:
I don’t recall typing culture and politics aren’t related.
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I took "No. I seriously doubt our “fascist moment” has been created because rock, hip hop or any genre of music is lacking a voice. Oppositional or otherwise. I think we all know what has created Fascism today in the good old U.S.A…. And it’s got nothing at all to do with the music industry or what kids listen too, or how much concert tickets cost" to be a repudiation of the premise of the thread.

It's fine. It's a reasonable take.
 
superrific said:
I took "No. I seriously doubt our “fascist moment” has been created because rock, hip hop or any genre of music is lacking a voice. Oppositional or otherwise. I think we all know what has created Fascism today in the good old U.S.A…. And it’s got nothing at all to do with the music industry or what kids listen too, or how much concert tickets cost" to be a repudiation of the premise of the thread.

It's fine. It's a reasonable take.
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Your take is not lost on me, and there is indeed a correlation to be drawn. I think the remainder of your OP speaks to that. (Just not the initial question to which I responded).
I just don’t think the Fascism we see today in America is because of the music industry. Cart/horse, chicken/egg dynamic.

I will call attention to a young artist from Liberia… Monrovia to be exact. A political refugee who found a home in the U.S. and is trying to make a go of it in Nashville. A song of his caught my attention called “Heavy Foot”. A true example of the type of musical outreach you may be looking for:
 
superrific said:
I've never heard any of those names. Is that because they are niche or I am old?
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they're not mainstream names, but i think most people who listen to and understand "pop" as an actual genre (instead of "whatever is popular at the time) have probably heard of them. they're all part of the scene i expected chappell roan to inhabit before she blew up out of nowhere.

i'd count people like charli xcx and carly rae jepsen (in her career after Call Me Maybe*) in that circle, too, though their music isn't as political and thus less relevant to this thread. i guess charli also kind of blew up last year, but definitely not to the extent of chappell.

*to anybody reading this who didn't know Carly Rae Jepsen had kept making music, go listen to the entirety of her album EMOTION right now, and thank me later.
 
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