Under The Sign Of The Black Marx
Marx, Music & The Undergorund Metal Scene
There’s nothing a really underground metal fan hates more than a really mainstream metal fan. And there’s nothing a really mainstream metal fan hates more than mainstream pop music fans.
It’s a generalisation of course, some people have lives to be getting on with and don’t really concern themselves with what other people are or are not into, but as a generalisation it’s got a fair few hundred thousand people behind it willing to cast all sorts of personal judgements left, right and centre.
Now I’ll agree that it can be easy to get sucked into this sort of mentality and especially so if you’re in an underground metal band or run an underground label or promote underground shows but unfortunately there just isn’t that much weight behind how specifically hard done by our little metal lives can seem.
For every one of us who laments the existence of each fanboy who buys Trivium into fame there is an independent film fan who laments the €10 we spent watching the latest discharge from Michael Bay and a drab coat-clad socialist who laments the litre of watered-down Pepsi we sucked on while we were at it.
DOES MONEY MAKES MUSIC SHIT?
And how on earth not to sound political when essentially talking about capitalism - but all three things have exactly the same cause for existence. So is it pointless railing against mainstream music in general and metal specifically while flagrantly ignoring other aspects of the same problem? And, in a nutshell, does money make music shit?
My first ever encounter of money in metal was seeing Lars Ulrich driving a Porsche in a clip filmed during the recording of the Black Album. At the time I was about fourteen years old and money to me was exactly that: what separated me and things, shiny black high-speed things. Well, money and a driving license.
And while my initial impression on seeing the clip was admittedly “Holy shit that’s amazing, they’ve made money from playing the best music I know!”, it wasn’t long before I began to understand that the link I had had with these people no longer existed.
I distinctly remember listening through to Master of Puppets at around sixteen and during Leper Messiah I thought to myself… make a contribution and you’ll get a better seat… so how much are tickets for the snake pit these days?
We’re meant to mollie-coddle and understand the difficulties of the modern band, we’re meant to sympathise, we’re meant to say “Oh poor you, people downloading your music for free!”, we’re supposed to be shocked that modern metal bands like Mastodon don’t rake in millions, we’re supposed to feel like we have an obligation to the bands we enjoy, to get them up there to the comfort zone and then keep them there. Well sorry but I don’t buy it. Literally.
Money and the metal aesthetic are like oil and water, Jesus and Satan, Rob Halford and women – they just don’t go together. I’ll happily support an underground metal band but I’ll also happily instantly stop supporting them as soon as they sign up to a money making machine.
Good luck to them, on the off chance they’re still making music I’d like to hear then I will steal it from their money making machine masters and I’ll pat myself on the back while I’m at it for doing the music world a favour by not supporting any aspect of it involved in pure product.
For Older Metal Fans
Do you know what free downloading of music does? It almost returns the dynamic of music to where it was around 1930 and before. So let’s say 80 years ago, that’s where it brings us back to. Now, I would like every short-sighted, uninformed person who has ever suggested that illegal downloading of music is killing the music industry to ask themselves if music existed before being widely available as a physical product, a piece of merchandise. I’ll give you a few minutes to look up ‘history of music’ in wikipedia if need be.
What then was the dynamic of music before 1930? Well, if you wanted to listen to music you could either play it yourself or you could watch someone else play it. And if you were a musician in those days, how did you make money? First of all, you didn’t make very much of it and second of all, what you did make was made through live performance. You travelled around, you sacrificed your life but you sacrificed it only out of obsession for music, there was just as little if not even less chance of fame back then as there is now.
Music Declared “Insignificant”
For every supposed financial disadvantage the internet age has brought to music there is a potential financial advantage too. But I honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that aspect. As far as I’m concerned the internet has returned recorded music to its rightful place in the big picture of music as an artform – utterly insignificant in terms of any definition of value when compared to the live experience.
Who really gets to share in music these days? The closest the average metal fan comes to uniting around metal in a human way is singing and roaring along to their favourite recordings at a session or in a rock bar… which is excellent. But gone is the spontaneous creation or recreation of music which dominated life before 1930.
We humans don’t love music any more now than we did before - but beforehand the enjoyment of music necessitated the coming together of people, it was a link between men and everyone present was partaking in a creation.
Whether spurring an orchestra on with thunderous applause in Paris or Vienna or raising your voice in accord with your neighbours in a local pub to an aul Irish air – you were actively involved in an event which had never happened before and would never happen again. Moments of pure authenticity.
Further High Falluting Ideas
When comparing the experience of the theatre to that of the cinema Walter Benjamin said, “The most lamentable production of Faust in a provincial theatre is superior to a film on that same subject.” Why? Because a recreation is still a creation and man is an animal who creates. A reproduction at its very highest function can only remind us or tell us of a creation which we, probably, had no part in.
I’ve almost forgotten what I’m talking about here… ah yes… capitalism. Listen, be glad of and cherish the fact that you have a genuine underground metal scene to partake in. Sure it’s nice to have these recordings, these reminders and informers of what other people are creating but the scene is alive, music is alive and every person who stands in a dingy bar watching a band struggle or shine is taking part in creating something new.
Every musician who complains about music downloading is missing a fundamental point which only really smacked me in the face when people started illegally downloading my music. It’s not the job of the audience to pay the musician to play music. A true musician has an obsession which nothing will quench except the creation of music. Don’t you be worrying about musicians and how they make their bread… and if this means that they can only put up with the lifestyle for 5 years instead of 50 – so what?
And who knows, maybe after thinking about this long enough you’ll see what it means for the other aspects of life we allow be run by other money making machines and you might just think twice about buying into the whole anti-human experience, product-churning monster we’ve let the world turn into. But that’s quite enough of my ranting for now, there’s a market here I want to check out that sells the most wonderfully drab coats…
Thumped
Metal Ireland
Fastfude
December 18th, 2009 at 7:23 am
As always, interesting chunter.
A few points to add though.Music is fundimentaly a social activity. The communications revolution cannot be ignored. It has fundimentaly changed the ways in which humans can socialize,express themselves and keep in touch with other humans, perticualrly over distances.
HOWEVER, the production and consumption of music ‘products’ be they Vinyl, CD, MP3, shirts,zines, whatever, is still fundamentaly social. Just because people arn’t physically comming togeather in a bar or around a pile of djembes does not mean they are not active participant in for instance, the underground metal community. Whoever made the music, or album art, or whatever else, is activly engaging in the social life of that perticualr culture each time someone listens to,reads or ponders their ‘product’. It was probably recorded in near isolation, and will be listened to by someone most likely alone in there room, or car, or whatnot. There is more pysical distance (and money) involved , but the ‘product’ remains an essentialy social, HUMAN event.
Just worth pointing out.
I do agree that the shift from music as an event, to music as a product is interesting, and a little sad. Call me old fashioned but i have to experence a band live to finalize my opinion of them.
December 19th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Good points made there.
Aside from the attention and social status to be gained from being in a good band, I still think the hope of making a little bit of money (even just enough for the time and expense they invested in their craft – paying for the priviledge of being in a band just doesn’t sit well) motivates most musicians, because they’re entire experience of music has been through the commercialisation and commodification of music as it exists today. They were (and still are) fans who bought recorded media, be it, Vinyl, Cassette Tape, CD, T-Shirt, Posters, and concert tickets, so it’s only natural that they would place high value in that system. However, societal and cultural shifts are always subject to change and evolve. And more importantly, not everyone gets their moral compass from manmade laws, or the laws of businessmen who have an industry to protect.
With the intellectual property debate, one man’s taking is another man’s copy and paste. They can pass all the laws they want, but it won’t change the way people think. Just like the way the institution of the church were once the law makers in this country (which we’re seeing unfold rather quickly), society began to replace religion with something else: celebrity worship and consumerism for one, but that’s a discussion for another day.
One could argue that copyright exists so that nobody can profit from something you did without proper authorisation and compensation. It shouldn’t exist so that someone can dictate when and where someone else can hear the music. The same music that they put out there in the first place for mass consumer consumption.
Perhaps one day, music will be like water - ubiquitous and free flowing. And certainly, even now, there are creators who are more than happy to share their works with others, so long as people never profit off of their creations (black market traders flogging burned copies of DVD’s, CD’s, etc).
You have to wonder, where did this entitlement attitude come from? As if a person is entitled to a wage for just doing something that pretty much everyone does these days (play music, play in a band, write songs, you name it). Just like there are a whole range of DSLR cameras on the market that cost next to nothing, we now have an unlimited number of amateur photographers who think that just because they can take a few nice shots, they’re someone entitled to make some money.
But isn’t it funny how, with music, art, photography, etc, the real creators keep at it for years, even when the money has yet to materialise?
December 19th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
All valid points Amelia, about the social involvement of the purchasing but I would see that still as product being sold to entice us into a superimposed community spirit. The great thing about free-downloading is that you get the same superimposed community spirit but without having to have invested money in it - does the investment of money make you appreciate the music more or does it just make you appreciate the product more? I would say that it is the later, it increases your satisfaction of a desire to possess, a desire which I, and many others, think many would be better off without - in a utopian existence of course.
If you want scientific sources for the live music experience and the actual physical coming together of humans under a shared umbrella (not literally) and the synergistic affect it has on us then you could read up a bit on neuron-mirroring which has shown then when we watch somebody else perform an action the areas in our brain which would be required to carry out that action activate. So I’m talking about a very real and scientific response and connection between humans which can only exist in the live, in-person environment. When you listen to music on CD or mp3 there is no mirroring, it’s just sound and the only parts of your brain activated are those involved in sound processing and then whatever memory connections etc. The real human element is missing.
Now that aspect may seem somewhat apart from the general anti-capitalist vibe of the article but if you think about it this way: capitalism thrives off convincing the general population that they need things, objects, products in order to find enjoyment and pleasure but actually all of these objects serve more as barriers between man and hence between the connections he can have which most stimulate his brain - himself, each other. Which in a very schmalzy, Hallmark, nutshell kind of way leads back to the adage: money can’t buy happiness. Well, science now effectively tells us likewise, our pleasure is synergistic and shared experience in a face to face environment is what leads to these sort of euphoric experiences you get at a truly amazing gig. This too is abusable (charismatic churches, mob mentality) but the basic principle is the same - as the old Greek himself more or less put it (except in ancient Greek): man is a social animal. All our science just leads us more and more to that maxim.
December 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 am
All very true sir, I was not trying to insinuate that the at home listening experence can replicate or come to replace a live gathering. I was just meekly pointing out that humans are essentialy social creatures, suspended in intricate webs of meaning which they themselves have spun. Yes, society is lubriacted by money, and capitalism is a intricate and powerfull web, but hey, its essentialy created and maintained by us. Music has been commoditized, undeniably, yes, but it is still a social product, as well as a commercial one.
Weather or not that makes ranpant capitalism justified is a value judgement I’d rather not make, although I personally feel that when art is produced explicityly to be packadged and sold, rather then for the sake of expression and social exchange it cheapens the art form somewhat. However, that doesnt mean that just becasue something sells it because morally devalued, unless the selling was the main goal.
A random note to the whole marxism thing….the argument that capitolism causes people to become alienated from there own labout..they produce annonymous objects which they have no personal interest in, only becasue they need to earn a living. I would suggest that the music industry alienates the producer from the product a bit less, if we consider the product the music that pops out the other end of the headphones, not the actual material its made out of. The musicions, or at least the band as an entity are still closely associated with the product. Infact they kindof ARE the product. So there suffering from capitolism a little less then someone who makes, say, infomercials or bean bags or burgers.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Interesting read Chris. I have to say you’ve got me thinking. Not *entirely* convinced, but you’ve definitely got the hamster spinning the wheel in me head.
March 13th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
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