Wow, if you want to see people on a mass scale commit mental hari cari, just look around in the Bible belt during wartime. Anything, any message whatsoever sent from our government is accepted, and people will offer up every emblematic token of their possessions for patriotic displacement. Coercion is had, and radio music is despicable, taking itself too seriously.
I got on the topic of this seriousness, because I was thinking, there should be SOME conventional rock in the new lineup of 2007-and-after urban pop music. And this would be Oxford Collapse, and Mike Pace’s new Child Actors. Highly intellectual and culturally askance, Pace also catalyzes an iTunes radio show called “Worst Gig Ever,” which is sort of a platform of artist catharsis topically handling tour-time catastrophes. Like certain novels by Saul Bellow and Milan Kundera, I had to stop indulging in it, because it was actually too good.
But the main galvanizing music of our time is Battles and St. Vincent. Amidst an omnibus of errant sounds, timbres and melodic or tonal appendages, they stand as human within the middle of it all, both commenting and preparing, crouching at the crux of enlightened state and ideal condition, some of which involves sense of humor. The unexpected is a cornerstone of this new brand. Cultural bulwarks are eschewed in favor of fresh, unprecedented individuality, and if music isn’t to stand for this, it’s null and void, send it to Guantanamo.
If not the legislature or Supreme Court, New York’s government, for one, is entering a liberal time, or has entered. Per the 2014 election, all three of the mayoral candidates offered the raising of taxes as a campaign objective. This behooves small businesses, and the bridging of the socioeconomic gap, so at least by logic, the reaching power of independent music in this city should be of an increased stature. Sirius satellite radio is now a “serious” competitive stock, so let’s let music speak for itself and start chipping away at the domination of Clear Channel, which has been an insult to listeners’ intelligence, probably since Elvis.