why are these boys smiling?
A friend of mine is best friends with the father of a member of the Nationals. The father in question is very, very rich. The boy was born into money and privilege.
Nothing wrong with that, I was raised very priviliged till it was all lost in the Lebanese civil war.
Still it appears to me that there is something solidly upper-middle class, new art schooly about the entire alt, pitchfork fuck brooklyn based, in crowd crawlers who permeate alt rock.
It is all the same bullshit. Politics to the left, inheritance to the right, fuck bush, Obama is my president, seeped in royalty, cool as cool can ho fucking hum bullshit.
There hasn’t been a less working popular movement certainly since the late sixties.
Punk and disco in the 70s were solidly working class fans and bands. In the 80s, all those Duran Duran/New Romantic bands were working class heroes, and hip has only now and only occassionally moved out of a start in the projects. Cobain was the definition of white trash, all those Seattle bands were from working class backgrounds.
But Dirty projectors, Animal Collective, -a thousand too cool to be discovered, come from comfort. From Conor Oberst (successful insurance man dad) to Dave Longstreth (music teacher parents) and at at all points inbetween the entire scene is a wite enclave of dollars.
What this also means, is everything they think they know, absolutely about politics, is, unlike rap or punk, RECEIVED INFORMATION. Everything is once removed. They don’t KNOW what they are talking about my experience but only by theory. When Conor supports a boycott of Arizona he has no feel for the ramifications for the citizens. It is knee jerk. And the reason is is because he has no level of empathy -he has never experienced anything anybody on any side whereas when he wrote Wide Awake, It’s Morning HE WAS LOOKING OUT HIS FUCKING WINDOW.
The middle class concerns of rock seem to closet the schievers. It might not be where Bono was grown, but it is where he lives. It is the sharp left, wunderkind, privilege air so out of synch with Jerry Lee, Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry. or the mMerseybeat sounds. The middle class don’t kill rock but they don’t save it either.
I’ve gone on the record as calling this one of the great periods for popular music and it is, but what it isn’t is one of the great moments for pop music as social signifiers because the top purveyors have learnt their position in the hierachy from old film footage.