Gnostic Marxist
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One of the many strange assumptions of LBird is that the failure of the Soviet Union was a failure of ‘materialism’. He keeps insisting that Lenin’s so-called ‘materialist’ ideology was somehow important in the Bolshevik power grab in 1917 and its subsequent hold on power. Lenin’s attempt to turn Marxism into an ideology had no significance (apart from confusing the Left) in the rise to power of that bunch of opportunist thugs called Bolsheviks.
Let’s vote on it then.
Bijou Drains wrote: “No doubt if you get your way all we’ll get to listen to will be The Birdy Song and the Feckin Beatles (the world’s most over rated band)”
Hey, I’ve got a soft spot for The Animals, and Eric Burdon’s voice!
Bijou Drains wrote: “No doubt if you get your way all we’ll get to listen to will be The Birdy Song and the Feckin Beatles (the world’s most over rated band)”
Hey, I’ve got a soft spot for The Animals, and Eric Burdon’s voice!
It’s not that I dislike the Beatles, but that I think the view that they were muscial geniuses without compare in their era is an overstatement. I don’t think they were head and shoulders above their contemporaries. The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Who, Van Morrison, Cream, Free (and maybe the Animals) were producing equally good if not better music at the time.
Which goes to show the individuality of musical taste and why Socialism and the release from the fetter of the money system, will unlease an even greater variety of musical talent.
I don’t like the Beatles either but at least they (or a couple of them) composed their own music and lyrics. How many of the others on your list did?
ALB –
With the exception of the Animals all of them
Kinks – Ray Davies
The Small faces Marriott – Lane
The Who – Townshend
Cream – Bruce and Clapton mainly
Free – Rogers and Frazer‘Which goes to show the individuality of musical taste’
Not really BD, if that was the case then how do you explain the ubiquity of the meaningless crap that characterizes popular music today?I forgot, BD, that you won the Chase and are just the person to have on a quiz team.
Is that not elitism, comrade?
DJP – Are you missing my point? BD was suggesting musical taste was an individual decision whereas I’m pointing out the power of marketing and cultural conditioning that lays behind aesthetic taste (or the lack of).
Whilst I acknowledge the influence of marketing on music, I would argue that with greater creative access you get greater musical creativity and that creativity always out does the marketing strategy of capitalism.
Whether it’s Robert Johnson screwing a pick up on a guitar, Elvis Presley blending blues with country music, Charlie Parker using contrafact to change melodies, the 60’s British blues movement sending blues back to America, punk rock cutting out the record companies and making their own records, through to kids now, using YouTube to publicise their own music and blending old with new, the greater the access the greater the music.
A socialist society would surely open up a plethora of musical avenues, not ones limited by “what sells” or whose daddy owns the record company.
L Bird’s concept of the tyranny of the majority, where somehow musical production is based on some kind of voting system where only the popular is produced sounds like some kind of Eurovision hell to me.
Perhaps our feathered friend would benefit from reading a little more William Morris.
It’s an individualist ideology that pretends to workers that ‘no-one’ has ‘power’, and so hides from them just who does have power. And ‘someone’ always does.
Groan. More misrepresentation from LBird!
I didn’t say “no one has power” per se. I addressing your very specific question in relation to BD’s point : “So if everything that is social produced must be subject to democracy, presumably, this would also include music, art, literature,etc. as all are socially produced.”
To which you responded:
“If these social products were not subject to democracy, BD, who do you have in mind that would have power over them?
No one will exercise power over these social products in socialist society. People will be free to express themselves in music , art and literature as they chose.
To reiterate what I said:
This is NOT to negate the need for democratic control, only to limit the extent of its expression to where it is actually needed – in situations where there is an actual or potential clash of interests for example. My liking one brand of music is not going to prevent you from liking another. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
I really wish you would read more carefully what others write before offering completely inapt, not to say, inept criticism of what they write. This is not the first time you have done this either…
BTW LBird you still did not address my point. Do you think Marx was being an “individualist” for coming out with statements such as “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”
I think that a distinction can be made between “individualism” and “individuality” and that what Marx – and I are talking relates to the later not the former. That book written by Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Bryan S. Turner entitled “Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism” (1986), presents a very strong case for making such a distinction
‘Whilst I acknowledge the influence of marketing on music, I would argue that with greater creative access you get greater musical creativity and that creativity always out does the marketing strategy of capitalism.’
That’s a very optimistic attitude emphasising the liberating power of music (art) and it is something I would embrace however creativity is not enough – art is a conversation and needs an audience. Understanding this zeitgeist is not entirely to do with marketing but also with cultural and class conditioning. Claiming that it is purely subjective is like believing in ‘free will’ and we know how determinism works culturally and politically in all aspects of life.
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