Prog's Most Controversial Lyricist |
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17494 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 08:30 | |||
Hi,
I know this may sound a bit strange in its timing, but Lou Reed, deserves a mention here.
That whole NY scene, is not considered "progressive", but in the end, his lyrics, many times had people totally uncomfortable and even scared.
The lyrics were never perfect, but the idea and the feeling came out loud and clear, and if you take a few minutes to read the lyrics in "Sweet Jane" and then "Heroin", there is a "reality" in them, that is real, and in front of us in the big cities, that we ignore.
I've always thought that we were so hippocritical, when we love The Kinks' Lola, but we can not handle Lou Reed's Take a Walk in the Wild Side, when its musical and lyrical context is far better written, than the fun song that was Lola!
RIP Lou Reed, btw Edited by moshkito - October 28 2013 at 08:30 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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dr wu23
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 22 2010 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 20623 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 09:25 | |||
Edited by dr wu23 - October 28 2013 at 09:32 |
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bloodnarfer
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 15 2010 Location: Austin, TX Status: Offline Points: 2162 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 10:33 | |||
How about Daniel gildenlow he wrote an album that begins and ends with the story of his first sexual encounter at age 10 and how that has seriously messed him up for the rest of his life
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Warthur
Prog Reviewer Joined: January 06 2008 Location: London, UK Status: Offline Points: 617 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 11:46 | |||
Surprised that (so far as I've been able to tell) nobody's mentioned Robert Calvert yet - yes, Hawkwind typically weren't too contentious, but Urban Guerilla got him in serious trouble (putting out a song about blowing people up with homemade bombs just as the Troubles were kicking into high gear = poor timing) and the backlash made the poor guy retreat from the Hawkwind fold for a while.
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 12:24 | |||
It also pretty much torpedoed Hawkwind's chance at mainstream crossover popularity.
Speaking of artists that are on PA despite not being fully prog, what about Current 93's suspected Neo-Nazi loyalties? Their older albums have plenty of lyrical inspiration from the more mystical occult side of Fascist ideology, though with bands like this it's hard to tell where the quest for an ever more transgressive aesthetic ends and actual political agendas begin. |
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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matty3198
Forum Groupie Joined: October 19 2013 Location: Bath Status: Offline Points: 51 |
Posted: October 28 2013 at 17:09 | |||
Yeah Sinfield's lyrics are guff, but they never really ruined those King Crimson albums anyway, oh and his worst effort is this number. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_YJX6Tc1o |
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17494 |
Posted: October 29 2013 at 08:15 | |||
Sadly, this was an over-reaction by the media, who did a lot of the same thing to Luis Bunuel ... who had in one of his films a Society _____________________________ to bomb as well! Only 10 to 15 years earlier.
If this had been done by Mick Jagger, both the Rolling Stone, Free Press, and Melody Maker would have come to defend them and help make the band even more "important" than otherwise. But, sadly, many of these rock bands were never discussed or a part of the conversation as the music business those days, was about all those bands that were hurting our album sales! So Calvert and others, were allowed to die, and then told that they brought this on themselves!
Luis Bunuel, did his joke, because of the IRA thing, which was far before the Calvert time, so saying that it was bad timing, the only difference was that the media (tv specially!) were now full on it, and showing the bombings, and that scared the living sh*t out of you, and made it worse. Before, you only had your imagination, and it was not enough to "make you believe" that there was a problem over there, and no one cared! But by the time the war pictures show up in VietNam and the stuff in London, the pictures are so clear, that you can not help get scared poopless!
Calvert, like many others, even the Edgar Broughton Band, which was much more forward and attacking on the ideas, were doing what came naturally for them, but the way rock music went, you liked some, but not the others.
You really think that this is any different/better, than West End seeing cabbages rolling on the stage as an image for heads? Guess what was happening in the street with bombs and then in VietNam with guns and bombs? It was the same thing with Altamont, that made the younger generation look bad, and in the end, it was something else, that brought home the reality of many other things. It wasn't about us, I still don't believe, though it is easy to say that we're mad enough to be stupid and violent, when we don't need to be! But you shouldn't need the media to tell you that! Edited by moshkito - October 30 2013 at 09:44 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Warthur
Prog Reviewer Joined: January 06 2008 Location: London, UK Status: Offline Points: 617 |
Posted: October 29 2013 at 09:06 | |||
Yeah, Current 93's a tricky one especially considering that Current 93 has often worked with/featured Douglas P of Death In June and Boyd Rice of NON, whose flirtations with fascism have been both more overt and harder to dismiss as transgression for transgression's sake. (For instance, even though Doug P is gay and this fact is often used by his defenders to argue that he can't possibly be a Nazi, he's also regularly expressed sympathy for Ernst Rohm, head of the SA - who, yes, was a gay man who was purged and murdered by Hitler and the SS, but was still a Nazi himself, and the leader of one of the most vicious Nazi factions in terms of street violence and sheer bloody hooliganism with it.) Coil almost got drawn into that whole crowd too, but once they became aware of the aesthetic and political agenda at work they distanced themselves from Death In June (and, if I remember right, made it very clear in interviews that they were doing so because of the politics), which Current 93 have notably failed to do to my knowledge. An awful, awful lot of the early industrial and "neofolk" scene got colonised by some very dodgy characters back in the day and the scene has never really made a concerted effort to expel them in the same way that, say, some parts of the punk scene pushed back against far right elements. Who Makes the Nazis?, aside from getting points for being named after a Fall song and despite being passionately ideological, is actually quite good at compiling sources on this sort of issue (see this quite good account by a former Death In June fan who was soured on the neofolk scene as the signs became harder to ignore).
Edited by Warthur - October 29 2013 at 09:07 |
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: October 29 2013 at 14:51 | |||
The political landscape of industrial/noise music's pretty weird, since it's from the beginning had a strong presence from not just the far right but also the far left. (you mentioned Coil, with Killing Joke and Ministry coming to mind too right off the top of my head) Can't think of many other musical subcultures where both extremes of the political spectrum are that prominent.
This reminds me that Drudkh happen to be on PA: Their frontman Roman Saenko's previous band Hate Forest was very openly Fascist to the point of dedicating one album to a Waffen-SS division, so Drudkh's often national-romantic lyrics cause a lot of raised eyebrows they otherwise wouldn't. Saenko's supposedly mellowed out later on, but it's hard to tell for sure since he doesn't give interviews. Edited by Toaster Mantis - October 29 2013 at 15:33 |
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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The.Crimson.King
Forum Senior Member Joined: March 29 2013 Location: WA Status: Offline Points: 4596 |
Posted: October 29 2013 at 23:41 | |||
I absolutely love Sinfield's lyrics circa early Crimson and his solo album. The more abstract the better
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17494 |
Posted: October 30 2013 at 09:58 | |||
In Los Angeles, several alternative rock bands in the early 80's sued the big radio stations in LA for lack of representation and intentional mis-representation of the FCC mandates for radio. I believe that Dead Kennedys, X and several of those bands were involved, and the settlement I think required a certain amount of air time for local work.
They won!
This, by the way, has been totally corrupted by selling the stations to companies from different states and jurisdictions, which was a way to corrupt the FCC, by the way!
Ten years later, in the Bay Area, the FCC tried to kill Micro Radio, and at the trial the kids from Stanford and Berkeley that ran the trial made the FCC and Radio conglomerates look like fools and the judge is reported to have said, that if you want to come to court, at least have the presence of mind to be prepared. The FCC folks figured they they only needed to know 2 things, not the rest of the law!
The problem is that too many of these stations are owned by the same media conglomerates, and that means they all stay together and only do what they are told!
Very obvious example. One big FM station in LA was owned by the Warner/Atlantic conglomerate for distribution, and part of a movie studio thing. You NEVER heard a single band, or song, that they did not have in their distribution system!
This is the big issue when things become all conglomerates and corporate! It becomes almost as bad as any dictatorship, or royal'ship, whose machinations always tell you that everything else but what they do is wrong, and you will be punished for it! Or, in the case of the arts, seriously ignored and trashed by the media, so everyone thinks you are not worth the time and place!
Now, guess what a lot of the late 60's were fighting about, that helped create what we came to call "progressive"? Edited by moshkito - October 30 2013 at 10:07 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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WeepingElf
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 18 2013 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 373 |
Posted: October 30 2013 at 15:19 | |||
Yes, parts of the neofolk and martial industrial scene flirt with fascism. Some people out there, such as Von Thronstahl's Josef Klumb, are outright fascists beyond denial. I remember seeing a text calling for boycotting elections in Germany on Von Thronstahl's web site because the mainstream political parties were "controlled by Freemasons" and the (neo-Nazi) NPD was "corrupt". But what do those bands have to do with progressive rock? Not much at all, if we understand the term "progressive rock" as it has been used for 40-odd years. It seems that progressive rock is pretty much incompatible with far-right political views, as a progressive mind set is pretty much at the heart of progressive rock. (Can you imagine a neo-Nazi band that sounds like Yes? The mere idea seems as silly as a rainbow flag with a swastika on it!) But there is that second meaning of "progressive rock", the Tool/Keenan stuff, and that kind of music has recently won appeal in the far-right scene. |
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Sheavy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 28 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 2866 |
Posted: October 30 2013 at 16:12 | |||
Genesis also (or did at least) dislike the work of Maurizio Bianchi as well. Maurizio put a quote from Genesis on the back of the Neuro-Habitat album calling his work "boring, meaningless, pathetic". |
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Sheavy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 28 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 2866 |
Posted: October 30 2013 at 16:16 | |||
There was plenty of very left leaning Prog bands. RPI band Area are notorious for their Communist ideas. Lokomotive Kreuzberg are another good example, and both these bands operated during the 'heyday' of Prog rock. |
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WeepingElf
Forum Senior Member Joined: August 18 2013 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 373 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 11:40 | |||
The classical prog bands were mostly leaning to the left, but not very radical; most neo-prog and later bands in the classical tradition are also more or less tending towards the left or at least the left-center. RIO was a pronouncedly radical-left, anti-commercial movement. You mentioned Lokomotive Kreuzberg (not really a prog band, though). I cannot think of any prog band that was pronouncedly right-wing, not even Rush, whose lyrics are often accused of colporting the ideology of Ayn Rand, but in fact, dealt with it in a critical way. |
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 13:03 | |||
I mentioned Current 93 because they are on the archives for some reason. Bizarrely enough there actually was a '70s prog group that espoused far-right ideology, an obscure Italian one named Janus.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Sheavy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 28 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 2866 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 13:09 | |||
^ Frank Zappa is the only one off the top of my head that I can think of. Edited by Sheavy - October 31 2013 at 13:09 |
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 13:10 | |||
I'm pretty sure Zappa's political views didn't fit very easily into the traditional left/right spectrum, or popular ideological categorizations at all for that matter.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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Sheavy
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 28 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 2866 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 13:13 | |||
Still. I'd say he is far more 'right' than 'left'.
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Toaster Mantis
Forum Senior Member Joined: April 12 2008 Location: Denmark Status: Offline Points: 5898 |
Posted: October 31 2013 at 13:23 | |||
He's not at all the same kind of "right-wing" as Roman Saenko, David Tibet or the Janus guys though.
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"The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook
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