the kniφe - shaking the habitual

Likewise, there are dozens of perfectly good Silent Shoutalikes out there you could go and see instead. Scott Walker and the Knife aren't obliged in any way to offer what Marcello is asking.

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Thursday, 9 May 2013 10:54 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That wasn't what I was saying.

I mean, obviously there's plenty of "headphone music" on Shaking The Habitual, but stuff like '...Boring', 'Full Of Fire' and 'Networking' makes me wanna shake my rump, rather than sit a dark room dwelling on it with cans over my ears.

"big political records"

i don't even really know what that would mean

feel like people are riffing on some vestigial late 60s "when the music changes, the walls of the castle zzzzz" stuff

pop music, at least lyrically, has not really proved a very good vehicle for political transformation even in the "personal is politic" stuff no matter how many rock critics have said otherwise in a way of inflating their own importance

music can be effective political cheerleading. take pete seeger or thomas mapfumo

but whatever the knife are up to it's guaranteed to be ineffectual

sorry for cynicism, but i think people who expect social change from pop music, or even pointed analysis from pop music, are barking up the wrong tree

the album is still really good

you know what's funny

i only just now realized how heavy handed the title of this album was

and how it relates to their whole "project"

it just kind of _sounds_ good so i didn't think about it

see also: music

Nope, and neither walker nor anybody else has suggested that it is! Plenty of people offering that, no reason to insist that walker/the knife do.

― Moldy ★☆☆☆☆ (wins), Thursday, 9 May 2013 10:51 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That wasn't what I was saying either.

xxxposts The album comes packaged with a comic book tirade against capitalism. It was released alongside a manifesto outlining the group's precise philosophy behind the record - one that answers many of the questions raised in this thread. The most prominent lyrics on the album include: "Liberals giving me a nerve pinch" and "Poverty is profitable". How is this not a political record? How does it fail?

pop music, at least lyrically, has not really proved a very good vehicle for political transformation

I could dispute this till the cows come home but this isn't the thread to do it.

I don't know if StH "fails" as a political record but it's not been widely discussed or reviewed as such - not remotely in the same way that LES was. LES was carefully designed to make its point unignorable.

It fails because, by and large, it just feels like having slogans being thrown at you, which doesn't matter when the music is exciting (as it regularly is here) but there's not much to actually connect with. Like a lot of art that's based around soundbytes and/or theory it misses out on the human element, there are more affecting ways to address issues of poverty or privilege, and with more insight as well. The whole thing comes across as kind of gauche.

disagree, sorry Matt.

xxxposts The album comes packaged with a comic book tirade against capitalism. It was released alongside a manifesto outlining the group's precise philosophy behind the record - one that answers many of the questions raised in this thread. The most prominent lyrics on the album include: "Liberals giving me a nerve pinch" and "Poverty is profitable". How is this not a political record? How does it fail?

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Thursday, May 9, 2013 7:48 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

b/c what do you expect people to do w/ this sort of sloganeering/propagandizing other than reinforce their own beliefs?

i guess if it turns people on to other interesting authors etc.

xxpost

LES couched the politics in deeply personal and moving observations and stories. This is more like philosophy / critical theory than politics.

Matt, would you make the same critique of Gang of Four?

btw i think gang of four's politics were useless sloganeering too, always bored me to death when e.g. greil marcus would celebrate them as "incisive"

haha i actually wrote that before DL posted his question, so profitable xpost

who are LES. i keep thinking of the lower east side.

Let England Shake by PJ Harvey.

Matt, would you make the same critique of Gang of Four?

No, but I barely know them.

xxxposts

- what are lyrics/poetry if not clusters of slogans?
- i think LES is just as cryptic ("a lot to unwrap") as StH. It's really not terribly different in its use of rhetorical, historical and metaphorical lyrical devices as The Knife. They're not at all comparable, but I don't agree that LES makes its point much more explicitly than StH.
- Part of the ethos of StH is how they treat the subject matter, cF the manifesto: "how do you build an album about not knowing?", "We want to fail more, act without authority", "All over the dance floor we’re asking: can this DNA turn into something else?", "It’s not metaphorical. It’s explicit."

Yes the message is obfuscated, but it's very much deliberate. It's asking you, the listener, to work a little, to form your own opinion, to get used to the idea of rule-breaking and going against ideas that have been pretty much accepted as universal truths all through life. It's also a lot of fun - catchy and danceable once the initial discomfort eases, and that's part of it too. The fact it's polarising is a reflection on how people react to what they perceive as "radical".

sorry for cynicism, but i think people who expect social change from pop music, or even pointed analysis from pop music, are barking up the wrong tree

didn't you kind of refute this with your mention of "shipbuilding"? at least the second part of the above sentence?

LES couched the politics in deeply personal and moving observations and stories. This is more like philosophy / critical theory than politics.

― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 9 May 2013 14:05 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd argue there's more than one way to skin a cat.

The most prominent lyrics on the album include: "Liberals giving me a nerve pinch" and "Poverty is profitable". How is this not a political record? How does it fail?

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Thursday, May 9, 2013 7:48 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol at using these lines as evidence of the album's success.

"what are lyrics/poetry if not clusters of slogans?"

Something else.

"I don't agree that LES makes its point much more explicitly than StH."

You don't think its explicitly anti-war?

"I don't agree that LES makes its point much more explicitly than StH."

You don't think its explicitly anti-war?

Of course I do.

So what's StH's political point, in an equivalent nutshell?

it's political you know, it gets people thinking about politics and stuff.

listen to how angry they are, are you telling me that's not politics in a nutshell?

xxpost I have to go back to work now. I'll get back to you.

"what are lyrics/poetry if not clusters of slogans?"

This is one of the most depressing sentences I've ever read on ILM.

Yes the message is obfuscated, but it's very much deliberate. It's asking you, the listener, to work a little, to form your own opinion, to get used to the idea of rule-breaking and going against ideas that have been pretty much accepted as universal truths all through life. It's also a lot of fun - catchy and danceable once the initial discomfort eases, and that's part of it too. The fact it's polarising is a reflection on how people react to what they perceive as "radical".

Often this means the artist doesn't want to say out loud what they mean, usually for fear of being labelled right wing. When I pay a tenner or more for a CD I expect the artist to have their own thought-through opinion and to be able to express it cogently and artistically. If they don't, then they don't get my tenner or more and if enough people feel the same way they might not get to make any more records.

what are words if not a bunch of shit we say

too brain-dead to think about it right now but 'make poetry out of actual slogans' would be a good thread

the knife's lyrics have always been fragmented and oblique, that doesn't mean they haven't conveyed emotion or meaning before

xp I accept that it's political and there are many useful points of comparison, from Gang of Four and the Pop Group to Herbert and DJ Sprinkles, but LES operates in an entirely different tradition.

Picturing Marcello returning a CD to the shop: "Excuse me, the lyrics on this record are too ambiguous. Please exchange it for a more cogently expressed album."

ah no, that's Geir talk, that is! I just don't buy it in the first place. Not giving a toss one way or the other about the Knife is one of the benefits of ageing.

what are words if not a bunch of shit we say

― ... (LocalGarda), Thursday, 9 May 2013 13:28 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Boyzone's other records are just as bad.

So what's StH's political point, in an equivalent nutshell?

#combatliberalism

- what are lyrics/poetry if not clusters of slogans?

is this a real question?

you think poems are just clusters of "slogans"?

FFS

*insert Frank Turner gag of your choice*

wtf?

- what are lyrics/poetry if not clusters of slogans?
is this a real question?

you think poems are just clusters of "slogans"?

FFS

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday, 9 May 2013 15:20 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course not. Well not really - it was more a facetious reply to the claim that The Knife felt like slogan shouting, which I don't really agree with very much either.

So what's StH's political point, in an equivalent nutshell?

To answer this: If PJ's album is anti-war, StH addresses the wider topics of social and economic injustice - extreme capitalism, the poverty gap, gender inequality, corruption by government and business. I don't know if the music itself attempts to make a specific "point" in the same way as LES, rather it encourages and addresses these topics through itself. The medium = the message etc... The packaging, the live show, the interviews, the manifesto are all a part of Shaking the Habitual. That's my interpretation anyway.

Don't think they're good enough socialists or improvisers to prioritise process over result so fervently.

?

In that their methodology in putting the music together is more often than not more intriguing than the end product, and in socialism it's the process that counts (i.e. workers' power) rather than what is finally produced (which quickly gets reabsorbed into the Moebius strip of capitalism).

i'm not sure that's really part of it (other than maybe the drone track?). I think theirs is more of an anarchist or Situationist bent, proved through the way they're presenting this project. The live show especially - it's cut audiences in two (like a knife - aha!)

Very good. Now all they have to do is give the album away for free, oh hang on that already happens.

not sure if you're referring to LOL piracy, but the album is licensed under creative commons, so it actually is free to distribute

the song on this that I keep coming back to repeatedly is "Wrap Your Arms Around Me"

So what's StH's political point, in an equivalent nutshell?

not all valid and interesting political arguments can be expressed as efficiently as "anti-war".

it seems to the that the knife's point is that society is composed of habitual structures of behavior, thought, power, capital, etc. the personal is thus political: to the extent that our habits conform to social expectation, we help build hegemonic power structures. by differing, by inviting and celebrating difference, we combat this.

^ "it seems to me that..."

and i completely reject the apathetic "politics in music means nothing, changes nothing, boring, next" attitude occasionally expressed itt. everything matters and everything changes something. sure, the world will not likely be upended by this album, but that's hardly a damning criticism.