so now that we've estabilished that you really have nothing to say and can't even answer that question clearly, will you just give up now, because we are moving on to fugazi. thanks.

i dont listen to the gossip. all ive been saying is that kids need that. its simplicity might have more of an impact when ur 12 you know.

I hear many religious refrences in SY. Especially in thier newer albums. I think they got alot a spirituality.

Music and politics are a marriage made in hell if the bantering is too explicit on the records themselves. That's not to say sometimes a song can't have some sort of political resonance on the listener because an issue is brought up by mean of thinly-veiled reference in a song. Fugazi are too explicit and too preachy to start with, plus they focused too much on the negative aspects of things, forgetting to highlight that not exactly everything is shit.

too late knockers

i like the dead kennedies.

and xiu xiu.

god i love the politicalness of xiu xiu.

you´re an idiot.
don´t talk to me, at me, or about me.

also, people with something to say are posting now, that made you redudant.

Ok knockers.

For someone with a lot of things to say, your posts on this thread are rather less verbose than others.

Let thier be peace on SYG! Let us all agree to disagree. Dk & Fugazi were cool back in the day. I'll put em on fr nostalgia sometimes. That shit is good fr youth though cause it puts a fire up thier ass to do something besides besides sit around.

I don't really have a problem with their music, per se. I just think it's shit. Really shit. Like, tuneless, lumpen bullshit shit.

The main problem I have though is with this ideology - I know they work hard at various things, keeping control over the dissemination of their music, encouraging straight edge and all that, and it just strikes me as massively sexless, sanctimonious and patronising. I don't really see what it achieves. I realise that most 'political' music is like that, but I think something like Nation of Ulysses, for all their sarcasm, were much more damning in their critique of America. NOU were never 'we are opposed to x', they were always 'we're all in the shit, but we look cool as fuck'.

The other thing is, I've never known anyone that wasn't white and a bit middle class who was into Fugazi. Shouting about social injustices to the most priveleged teenagers in existence, in one of the richest countries in the world strikes me as whole heap of pointless.

One last point is that Fugazi also seem to get into the heads of a lot of British people; obviously, this isn't really Fugazi's fault (in fact, very little of my criticism is), but it really pisses me off that so many Brits look to America for their anger and just do a facsimile version thereof. I've seen punk bands singing in fake American accents (Fugazi covers quite often) who don't understand why I call them poseurs or shills.

The things they did outside the records are pretty cool, though, all that DIY stuff, plus helping other bands. Some of their songs I like, it's just the lyrics that generally put me off them.

I won't even go into the whole "i'm more of a feminist than you are" arguement, because that is just pathetic and counter-intuitive to what feminism is (you know, cuz feminism is supposed to be a movement that is accessable to all and meets people where their at - not about who posesses the most knowledge)

I enjoy Fugazi. My gf was a band coach paired with Ian McKaye's sister at Girls Rock camp in DC this past summer. I don't fully understand why this board tends to shy away of anything at all political.

About the "middle class" thing - i mean, wasn't that a problem with a lot of punk in general?

Just because political shit doesn't obtain everything that it strives for doesn't mean it's worthless. That's a really apathetic viewpoint.

I'm not sure how much of this is directed at me, but I think it's really important to not assume that my dislike of Fugazi is the same as not liking political music.

I really don't believe that a lot of punk was middle-class. Someone like Crass didn't belong to the middle-class, although some of their members came from that background. I have no idea of the background of someone like Le Tigre, and less does it matter. Le Tigre are effective in their message whilst also appealing to both girls and people who want to dance.

In that regard, bands like Atari Teenage Riot, Asian dub Foundation, Adrian Sherwood, Public Enemy or even ostensibly apolitical things like Underground resistance make much more sense to me personally. Shouting at white kids who've come to be shouted at doesn't really change anything so much as it edifies an existing antipathy; shouting at people who are out for a good time on the dancefloor is arguably more 'subversive' (to use this thread's watch-word). Sizzla is more interesting than Fugazi simply because his message is not an easily-digested 'the political situation is bad'. It's much more complex and personal than that.

I suppose I'm not saying that Fugazi are bad, but I don't think they speak to Europeans so much as they speak to Europeans who look up to Americans. That's arguably elitist but I'd rather have a million Tystions or Datblygus or even fucking Y Crwyffs than I would one Fugazi.

...

....

I like notyourfiend.

dead kennedys rule.

xiu xiu rule like a motherfuicker toooooooo

and fugazi's first 4 records are fucking CLASSIC. classic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fugazi has always been about personal politics, not national, at-large politics.

i dont know about you but
when i listen to support the troops
i start laughing nervously - in a good way

the personal is political man

right back at yah!

people get real passionate about horrible music

so, apart from trite slogans like ''the personal is political'', is there anything else to be discussed on this thread?

music for men is pretty good

I'd be interested if you had any thoughts on the differences between American and European political music, beyond what you've said already in this thread. Personally (which is politically) speaking.

Politics in European music always struck me as being mixed with the effects that descriminatory policies have on the personal, if we're talking songs with lyrics. Then you have bands like like Plastic People of The Universe, where lyrics are absent altogether, yet they are a highly politicised band. I think in Europe in general there is way more a tradition of non-musical protest, therefore the graphic sloganeering present in, say, your Bob Dylans etc, tends to be more filtered through the results of injustice. On the other hand you have the right wing bands, though, and they spout the sort of hatred, in a clear lyrical manner, that is expected of them.

unless we refer to what you mentioned earlier about bands that take the American way of musical protest as a model. And that is a popular way in Europe too, these days.

I believe it's indirected at me, if anyone.

However, I think I really look for something very different from music than notyourfriend by not knowing how music and politics go hand-in-hand. I wonder where this assumption comes from, that because politics is not an element of taste in music, that politics is not an element of my life in any other capacity.

Not sure I follow you Bradders - you're saying you don't understand how music and politics go hand-in-hand - do you therefore understand politics to be a rarified field distinct from artistic endeavour?

I find it very odd that you, of all people, would consider politics to be something distinct from other areas of understanding. I'm not criticising, just... well, I'm not sure what you're saying.

Well, no, I think that is a misrepresentation of my opinion. I meant in my first reply on the subject to explain that I believe that it is a matter of ethical sentiment that connects music to politics. Political music that lacks an ethics also lack a pathos. As it were, my taste in music is centered around pathos, which might be why I am such a prick against objective criterias of quality. In what might be complete contrast to the slogan that "the personal is political," I believe that the political in relation to the individual is the making of the personal into the impersonal in order to influence other persons. I think the value of music on politics is its ability to articulate sentiment in a way sloganeering simply cannot match. Artistic endeavor that engages in the political (with the ethical sentiment as an assumed premise) is entirely possible but I think it fails both as an artistic endeavor and as a political endeavor.

^^Why I usually ignore most of your posts.

:-)

what. there is a way to try and deny or ignore it, but there really isnt a way to live in which politics is not influencing your life.

Fair enough.

Are you replying to anyone in particular or just stating the fact?

To put it in simple terms I like music that moves me. Therefore, I often relate to music with political messages that I relate to/agree with.

I probably said this already (so gag me), but I tend to veer towards tracks without vocals.

At this point, when things are political, I feel like its not so much political as much as preaching to the choir. That can serve its own purpose, but it's fucked when terms like radical and urgent get associated with anything of the such. I dont think that kind of music ever changed any minds so much as revved up opinions that already existed.

"that kind of music" can certainly vary. To be broad, I think the first thing that comes to mind is rage against the machine and anything riot-grrl related.

They dont even try to relate to anyone outside of their own group. Which is fine, for their own group. Get all excited, and stuff. Its a cultural thing, and thats awesome.

the ppl who were involved w riot grrl recongized that one of the reasons the movement failed was because they were having a difficult time getting the message out to others outside their own community. a part of that is because the media totally spun it around...but that's a whole other story.

that being said, even if you are techinically speaking to the crowd, music can still provide a sense of solidary which can be just as important.

im just saying.

Thanks Glice, I really need that daily dose of pop shit pandering from you IN EVERY FUCKING THREAD

Yeah, Knox has a problem with that. You are boring.. all of your posts are basically retarded. You aren't actually trying to discuss whatever the fuck this thread is about, obviously


Well, I think that "Anti-Orgasm" has some politics in it. Also, sure most bands might be "against" fascism, but they don't write songs about it. And do you even remember the lyrics to that song, because it talks about a lot of political issues that were going on at the time.. almost like it was an effort to get their fans to look it up and see what was going on in the political world at the time.

And of course you would post a link to Miley Cyrus. How is that any different or better from any punk band that you hate, beside the fact that it's a shitty pop song with terrible singing and lyrics that are even worse than anything by the millions of Black Flag wannabes that churn out similar garbage?


Well that depends on whether they get those kids- who are the only ones who can change anything, since the privileged are the only ones who can really affect change- to do anything about it or change their ways.

And notyourfriend is right, almost all punk was middle class.

I've never listened to Fugazi and don't plan to.