Hell in a Handcart: Music as a Symptom of Moral Decay

[luka]

Hang on there's still loads of love songs in the charts and that?

What am I missing?

Is there? Dunno. What's in the charts? Either I'll have to chuck that idea in the bin or find a way to claim they're not really love songs.

 

[luka]

and definite correlation between politics/realism in music seeming less viable, and the creeping feeling that nothing can ever change for the better. taking refuge in the aether or in violent fantasy or in both simultaneously

Powerlessness and infantilisation are essentially the same thing. So I think you're right.

 

[sadmanbarty]

Give mi a chance fi talk pon poor people behalf
A some question weh Teacha woulda ask
Big man, if the ghetto nah nuh money
And the people dem forgotten
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The pickney wah go school & the mother wah go shopping
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The police beat the cabbi with the baton
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
You nuh see dem nuh give poor people nothing
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
Dead, so dem design dah system ya fi said
So hard we a work & nothing we nuh get
Yea though I walk through the valley of death
Without a pay cheque, mi nuh fear JPS
The water bill last week weh me get
Make me nuh wah watch duppy show again
Cause duppy show never make me frighten so yet
Who Jah bless, Water Commission nuh test
Pothole inna Portmore, the road is a mess
And look how much money the toll a collect
Although dem never tell we yet
Big man, if the ghetto nah nuh money
And the people dem forgotten
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The pickney wah go school & the mother wah go shopping
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The police beat the cabbi with the baton
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
You nuh see dem nuh give poor people nothing
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
Dem leff the ghetto inna trauma
Youth leff school, from the school to the corner
Qualified, but just true him area
Dem say him nuh fit the criteria
We nuffi float, we fi sink like the anchor
First thing, dem divide and them conquer
Politics nuff trap out the Gaza
Politics, that's why me say Gaza
Imagine Tivoli a link Rema
Clans Man dem a link wid One Order
Everybody a build mansion & plaza
That's why me say Gaza
Big man, if the ghetto nah nuh money
And the people dem forgotten
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The pickney wah go school & the mother wah go shopping
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
The police beat the cabbi with the baton
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen
You nuh see dem nuh give poor people nothing
Something aguh happen, so-something aguh happen

 

[sadmanbarty]

Mi nah kill fi no politics weh
Di fuck ghetto man a fight fi
Da upper class fa?

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

Is there? Dunno. What's in the charts? Either I'll have to chuck that idea in the bin or find a way to claim they're not really love songs.

Well it's a load of dross largely I think. But...

Crazy in love
We found love
Hold yuh

Are the towering achievements of our age and all are definitely love songs

 

[luka]

Good point Simon. That idea will have to go in the bin unless I find some genius way to salvage it

 

[sadmanbarty]

 

[luka]

What point are you making Barty?

 

[sadmanbarty]

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-voice-of-the-jamaican-ghetto-mw0002562866

 

[sadmanbarty]

What point are you making Barty?

not much of a point other than he's made lots of politcal songs.

 

[luka]

And they make you cringe?

 

[sadmanbarty]

And they make you cringe?

i love the first two i posted.

i suppose i would say that i'm percieving a disengenuousness in them that i wouldn't with burning spear or someone though.

the voice of the jamaican ghetto thing seems like it was his defence team trying to portray his trial as politically motivated and the other ones seem almost obligatory; every jamaican album has to have one political song on it in the same way every rap album had to have an rnb-ish track on it.

this for example:

 

[luka]

I suppose that's probably what I would say about most contemporary love songs too. It doesn't express love as traditionally understood. It's just a form.

 

[sadmanbarty]

the kartel world government one is cynical. its populist demagoguery; its serving the ends of placating kartel's ego. its him ascending being merely a pop star and deifying himself.

it comes across like farage pretending to care about fishermen.

 

[luka]

Remember Reynolds was saying about Migos that even the materialism is joyless now, going through the motions.... Which does make you wonder what's going on? Why is everything being hollowed out?

 

[sadmanbarty]

the kartel world government one is cynical. its populist demagoguery; its serving the ends of placating kartel's ego. its him ascending being merely a pop star and deifying himself.

it comes across like farage pretending to care about fishermen.

and then with stormy it seems like a career move; he's doing things to get column inches in the gaurdian and for grime4corbyn students.

 

[sadmanbarty]

from innocent this:



to wet dream "turn me on" this:

 

[luka]

You've got me worried Barty you've made this situation sound like a total crisis collapse disaster

 

[thirdform]

Remember Reynolds was saying about Migos that even the materialism is joyless now, going through the motions.... Which does make you wonder what's going on? Why is everything being hollowed out?

could the materialism cary joy indefinitely though? Seems like we're just so used to it. as nerds.

 

[sadmanbarty]

david lynch penchant for that late-50's early-60's stuff plays with how unrelatable it is to us. we can only perceive it as a cynical facade of american life disguising a darker underbelly.