Conservative Music / Conservative Politics

Besides which, all I have to do is look around me at people here in OC, hell at UCI, and think, "Okay! Bright young things who enjoy That Hip Music of Today that ILX Talks So Much About Lately and a huge chunk of them are right wing assholes."

For example, the folk scene, which my father was very involved with, was incredibly culturally conservative - they didn't even want to get involved with the Demon Electricity! yet they were capable of being very politically liberal. (Perhaps that in itself was a throwback, because many of them were hippies, and they were re-living their radical politics of the 60s.)

As I started to say, I was drawn to the 60s garage scene because I was attracted to many of the elements of psychedelic music, the amazing technological leaps of the time (hey, amplified music, feedback, effects pedals, that sort of thing were technological advances!) leading to experimentalism. Also to the expanding social consciousness of music and culture to encompass the budding of womens lib, racial equality, the pacifist movement. I liked the forward thinking and radical-ness of that music scene WITHIN ITS TIME AND SOCIAL CONTEXT. This stuff was radical in 1965.

However, flash forward to 1995, and many of the people who were attracted to it were attracted to the conservatism of the scene. I found myself dating men who would talk about enjoying the "purity" and "social innocence" of the time, as a code-word for wanting a society where there had been no progress since 1965, where minorities were only there to provide "soul" and women were there to do the housework.

In 1965, a Vox amp with a tremolo was the cutting edge of musical technology. In 1995, it CAN BE pure reactionary fetishism. (I say can be because lots of people just like them cause they sound nice.) "Ooh, samplers and computers and pro tools are EVIL in music" sayeth these people. Disregarding the fact that the tremolo and phasing and other George Martin studio trickery WAS the sampling and computer and pro tools of their day.

Yes, that's getting distracted by the music, but really. It's a misunderstanding (to me) of what the 60s were about.

But then again, isn't it amazing how the same musical movement (hardcore punk) can produce the screaming lunatic left wing fringe of Crass and Conflict, yet also produce Oi and Nazi Skinheads?

Damn... x-post...

I would try and illustrate this in slightly greater detail but I'm going home in about ten minutes.

Isn't this a bit of "rightist" comment in itself tho'?

Actually, maybe political extremes go with aesthetic extremes--but the same aesthetic exteme can be put to service by entirely different ends of the political spectrum.

*

It reminds me of when people act surprised that Chomsky is politically "radical" but has a "conservative" concept of hard-wired cognitive capacities, and some sort of relatively consistent human nature and Reason (along Kantian lines).

Even the various issues that line up under the heading of "progressive" or "leftist" politics don't all seem to necessarily, logically, go togther.

subjectivity.

Look at the similarity between fascist Italian futurist art and communist Russian constructivism.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), January 23rd, 2004.

NED, for that quote alone, I'm placing you in my Personal Jesus Hall of Fame.

One of the many interesting things about Tom's pop music / folk music dichotomy in the (most recent) Dizzee Rascal thread is that, about 45 years ago, an awful lot of folk music fans in Britain came from the stubbornly culturally conservative and insular, know-your-place wing of the Left who were at least partially responsible for Labour's disastrous 1959 election. A very similar position, dare I say it, to Dave Stelfox's slant.

*bows in acknowledgment*

There was a divided right/left discourse in 80's hardcore but no more so than was around in the county at the time. I am not sure saying hardcore was full of right wing cretins was entirly accurate. It did seem to promote some degree of political discourse though.

I thought that was just Johnny who was a fervent Republican.

He had a reality show on VH1 I saw a commercial for where people had to live Nuge-style for a given amount of time.

If not
I think the only thing we learned here is that politics have
fuck-all to do with music tastes.

class warriordom = an excuse for small-c conservatism in 99.9% of cases. that really is all I have to say on the matter.

i like both nick and robin so i'm keeping well out of this - but just to clarify...

nick, claiming to understand their culture better than they do without having ever experienced it first hand

doesnt this tie into the recent relevancy and grime threads? While you didnt claim to do this, you did seem to dismiss the role of culture in those threads? the subjectivist position you took there, wouldnt that render the argument in italics invalid?

Robin's accusations have upset me more than anything else I've come across on ILX that I can remember. His first reference to me (and Dom) on his blog blindsided me; I'd never read Robin's stuff before and wasn't really aware of who he was outside of an occasional poster here, so to suddenly find myself specifically mentioned by name as being a conservative, or whatever he was insinuating, was a shock, as I'm sure it was for Dom (who pointed out the initial reference to me) and Dave. To be equated with the BNP and therefore fascism when Robin has never, to my knowledge, communicated with me in any way, certainly never beyond the confines of a fucking internet messageboard, is something I can neither understand or countenance. I feel like I'm being demonised (by one person whom I do not know) and I have no idea what for. It's not just upsetting; it's offensive. Two of my best friends are black (I know that's an awful fucking faux-liberal cliché) - the guy who directed the film I was in last summer and the guy who's lived down the road from me since we were five and four years old and who's now doing a physics degree at the university where I work - and they'd be horrified if I was in any way associated with fascist politics; likewise the italian, irish, french, tunisian and french-african people I played football with on Thursday: a; they'd be disgusted to share a pitch with me if I was BNP and b; I'd be disgusted to share a pitch with them if I was.

I'm not some kind of class-warrior and I object to being categorised as such. Class isn't something I ever write about for Stylus and it only ever creeps in on my blog in reference to things other people have said about or to me.

Or even just not liberal-leaning? I ask because everytime someone whines about "liberal Hollywood",

I hate this phrase because there are tons of movies that have had mad conservative leanings.

yeah, most of them

^

The Nuge, yeah, and there are other isolated examples - chuck norris, charlton heston, that one really unfunny early 90s SNL actress, etc. But I mean entire creative fields. Like if you picked a random sample of 20 playwrights or sculptors or architects, I'm assuming (wrongly) that they would generally lean left. And I think that's true of most artistic/creative pursuits, except for maybe country music, quilters and scrapbookers. So I'm asking, why in the world would anyone expect that Hollywood would be any different?

I hate this phrase because there are tons of movies that have had mad conservative leanings.

Yep. This whole stupid revive was brought about by thinking around Dangerous Minds.

Because there are many prominent actors and a few prominent directors who talk about their political views to the national news media.

Not many sculptors who do that.

I've never seen Dangerous Minds. What's the conservative slant on it?

Ha, I haven't seen it since it came out, but I just remember that there's a school full of dangerous minds, and only a courageous white woman can teach them how to live

I suppose that's not conservative, just really awkward to watch

I dunno, the main deal is that most creative fields don't lead to big cash for most practitioners, and big cash and conservatism are positively correlated to say the least.

I suppose that's not conservative, just really awkward to watch

I was gonna say, "white person gives the minorities a VOICE/DIRECTION" is liberal boilerplate

lol liberal Hollywood

Hollywood still makes comedies and dramas starring heterosexual couples getting married, right?

xposts Sure, but it seems like the creative-liberal connection comes first, long before money enters the equation.

If big cash wasn't involved Hollywood movies would be way more liberal

I dunno about that

it's one of the most sexist/racist divisions in the entertainment industry, for one thing

how are we defining "liberal" and "conservative" here

From what I've seen so far in the most conventional fashion.

well it just seems so far that "liberal" = "stuff I like" and "conservative" = "stuff I don't like"

Well I don't know, aren't country musicians generally conservative leaning? I could be wrong, but I remember patriotic Toby Keith being huge, and heretical Dixie chicks getting shunned from the community

we're making vast generalizations here, none of which are really accurate, country included. I could rattle off a bunch of country guys who have held liberal positions about various things over the years.

... including Toby Keith, which is the hilarious thing

^^^exactly!

I would venture to say country musicians are more liberal than their audience on the whole

what's going on here?

life

Well I don't know, aren't country musicians generally conservative leaning?

yeah no

Tim McGraw's a Dem.

Brad Paisley

MIranda Lambert and Blake Shelton

there's certainly enough jingoism to go around country music but I wouldn't even call that a conservative trait, really (mostly thinking of Michael Moore's "why didn't we bomb the Saudis?" stance in "Fahrenheit 9/11" here)

What kinds of music do Republicans genuinely enjoy?

SST always had a pretty strong strain of i guess uh...stoner libertarianism or something...but I always though Chuck Dukowski's quote "anarchy for me, facism for you" was a good a description of modern convervatism as anything

really ugly strains of right wing stuff and racism and stuff throughout thrash and metal, some of the thrash stuff i would imagine being handed down from hardcore punk

cf. Lester Bangs' "The White Noise Supremacists" about racism in the underground punk scene circa 1980.

there's certainly enough jingoism to go around country music but I wouldn't even call that a conservative trait, really

I would! but then again I have been nothing but rong in this thread so

that one really unfunny early 90s SNL actress, etc

She had this hilarious -- but not in the way she meant -- video song called "There's A Communist Living in the White House" which was part of the Pasadena Tea Party operation.

"Only Glenn Beck understands me"

"Spread the wealth" is not actually a direct quote from the Communist Manifesto, at least not the translation I have.

If big cash wasn't involved Hollywood movies would be way more liberal

― President Keyes, Friday, July 15, 2011 1:51 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

But "Big Business" is always the bad guy in Hollywood! The venal capitalist out to screw everyone over so he can get paid is a trope!

Yeah he's usually played by Michael Ironside

The last anti-"big business" movies i can think of are alien trilogy and robocop. i'm trying to think of a more recent example, like maybe jurassic park, but they made attenborough too lovable in that.

Generalization from personal experience: all metalheads are stoner libertarians

The last anti-"big business" movies i can think of are alien trilogy and robocop.

What, are you kidding? Off the top of my head I can think of Avatar, Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action and Michael Clayton (three of which were Best Picture nominees), sci-fi crap like Death Race and Rollerball, the Bond flick Quantum of Solace, the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movies . . . if I sat and gave it some thought I bet I could easily come up with 50 or more from the last 10 years.

Wall-E...

victoria jackson is a vintage ws of shame

Obviously a lot of conservative people like "conservative" music, just as a lot of radicals like "conservative" music as well. And the other way round too.

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MIranda Lambert and Blake Shelton

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, July 15, 2011 2:24 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

Is he for real liberal though? I just checked out one of his records from the library and it had some dumb line about "rebel flag flying" that didn't sound too apologetic about it. What's his deal, really?

Hollywood lol. Isn't it Hollywood career suicide to come out too early?