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[in-sepiatones]

Ohh

[kxixrxixsxo]

[zombieh-horizon]

[wordsnquotes]

Too often, the only escape is sleep.

Charles Bukowski  (via s-t-u-p-o-r-e)

[anasvault]

Feeling down or blue?

Try necromancy! It's sure to... Raise your spirits...

[mortisia]

May all your photographs be as beautiful as David Bowie’s mugshot.

[catsbeaversandducks]

Dragon Backpack by Bob Basset

Via WYRD WORDS & EFFIGIES

[cosmic-noir]

[anasvault]

NEED. NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

[labyrinthnook]

Waiting on that windswept mountain.

[labyrinthnook]

I’ve moved away from home now, but my mum regularly babysits my three-year-old niece, who I’m happy to say I indoctrinated educated in the marvel that is David Bowie. This included watching Labyrinth with her and teaching her to recognise various iterations of Bowie before she was two.

Last night, my niece asked to watch Labyrinth. My mum duly obliged, and when David Bowie came on screen, my niece got very excited and said words to the effect of “Look Nanny! David Bowie’s alive! Tell aunty!” 

I found that supremely touching, and in a sense she’s absolutely right. David Bowie is alive, because he lives on through his art and the myriad creative projects he instigated or inspired. And that’s really rather wonderful.

[raised-from-the-grave]

[deadlyart]

“Dreaming of Another World” by Tim Walker (film by Guy Stephens) | Vogue Italia, March 2011.

[corpus-vertebrae]

[maudit]

Gwynplaine’s (Conrad Veidt) fixed grin and disturbing clown-like appearance was a key inspiration for comic book talents writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane in creating Batman’s greatest enemy, The Joker.

“Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, “Here’s the Joker.” Bob Kane (x)

[powerevolution]

Why Are SO Many Millennials SO Uncool?

*For the purpose of this writing, I’m defining “cool” as those who don’t conform, who don’t always fit in nor do they try to, and who follow their own path; and “uncool” as those who dress, act, and have the same tastes as the masses and are vulnerable to corporate influences.

One night a few weeks ago, a group of twenty-somethings came into the bar where I was working and headed for the jukebox. It’s digital, which means it’s not curated, which means I immediately felt the familiar knot of dread form in my stomach that’s always accompanied by seeing young people approach the jukebox. It usually means my ears are about to be violated by a string of cheesy Top 40 songs for the next hour or so. Sure enough, Taylor Swift’s voice invaded the room, and some members of the group started singing along. Proudly. Feeling no sense of shame for doing something that, fifteen or twenty years ago, would have gotten them laughed out of the bar. And this wasn’t the first time I’ve noticed this recently. While grocery shopping a few days ago, a shopper started singing aloud to Adam Levine’s latest tragedy that radio tells us is a song. Where’s the dignity!? How can these people, people who moved to a neighborhood because of its supposed “cool” factor, not know that singing along to whatever is saturating the airwaves is one of the uncoolest things they could do?

Patti Smith sporting an edgy personal sense of style - Cool

Grizzly Bear looking like their mothers still dress them - Not Cool

In all fairness, it’s not entirely their fault. They really just don’t know any better. Their lack of knowledge of anything other than that which is spoon fed them is the byproduct of a global media oligopoly. To quote Robert McChesney in his book “Rich Media, Poor Democracy, "it happened to the oil and automotive industries earlier in the 20th century, now it is happening to the entertainment industry.” Media has been completely overtaken by major corporations and unless people choose to think for themselves, they’re going to believe that what’s put in front of them is the only thing that exists. And the talent show hosting, product endorsing “musicians;” along with the latest string of tame bands major labels tell us are “rock,” are unfortunately the spokespeople for getting us to think the music we’re having shoved down our throats is all there is, and that it is somehow relevant.

Shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice” trick viewers into thinking that having a pitch perfect voice is the only skill necessary to be a musician. Content, a message, is not a priority. Imagine if Neil Young needed Simon Cowell’s approval in order to get the label backing necessary to become a known musician. And can you picture Kurt Cobain nervously standing in front of Adam Levine to find out what he thought of his cover of “Man Who Sold the World?” If relevant rock ‘n’ roll were more accessible, I wouldn’t care what goes on in the talent show circuit. But corporate media has made intelligent music scarce, and what does exist is nearly impossible for the masses to hear.

Kurt Cobain - Cool

Adam Levine making grunge-inspired clothing for K Mart - Not Cool

Every recent decade up to the 90s had a music revolution that inspired a counterculture. One that challenged the status quo. Political and psychedelic rock during the 60s encouraged young people to leave the safety of their parents’ homes, fight in the streets for civil rights, and protest war…while taking acid and smoking lots of dope. The 70s challenged youth to question the establishment with punk rock, which was still alive and well in the 80s; and along with it, bands like Devo sang about the devolution of the human race. The 90s had grunge, which was an outlet for the pain and frustration that accompanies feelings of isolation and disenfranchisement. It discouraged consumption and showed that opulence was uncool. Along with the music bands were playing, was a lifestyle that inspired it. Punk bands like Crass lived on a commune to prove humans can govern themselves. Nirvana rehearsed ten hours a day before recording “Nevermind” because their house was so freezing they tried to stay away from it as much as possible. My point being, popular musicians prior to the 21st century were actual artists, on a path of self discovery. They either never had comforts, or they gave them up to pursue their passions and find themselves, not allowing themselves to be told who they should be. The best art is usually born out of struggle, whether personal or sympathetic. And most of today’s popular musicians’ lifestyles are anything but difficult. Their music is not based on life experiences, hard knocks, or political and social themes. It is self-absorbed, mindless drivel that would make John Lennon blush with shame for the human race. Today’s popular “artists” are a constant stream of sell outs who can’t be content with the mansion that their music affords them. They need a fragrance line, a fashion line, a job hosting a talent show, and commercial endorsements so that they can buy even more stuff they don’t need. And too many of today’s millennials buy into it.  They believe that if they keep their noses to the ground, stay out of trouble, never challenge the system, and work to maintain the same sort of lifestyle as their role models, they’re doing the right thing. Oblivious to the fact that they’ve been turned into total nerds.

John Lydon - Cool

Mumford & Sons (we’re supposed to believe they’re a rock band) - Not Cool

So what happened after the 90s? Did musicians just stop caring? Has there been nothing going on in the world that needs to be changed, so therefore no music asking for it? Or could it possibly be the passing of The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that kept inspiring, rule-breaking, boundary-testing music from reaching our ears?  Again, from “Rich Media, Poor Democracy,“ "The core premise of the act was to eliminate restrictions on firms moving into other communication areas - for example, phone companies moving into cable television and vice versa, or long distance phone companies moving into local service and vice versa - and then to eliminate as many regulations as possible on these firms’ behavior…And the one media sector most thoroughly overturned by the Telecommunications Act has been radio broadcasting. The Act relaxed ownership restrictions so that a single firm can own up to eight stations in a single market. In the twenty months following enactment of the new law, there has been the equivalent of an Oklahoma land rush as small chains have been acquired by middle-sized chains, and middle-sized chains have been gobbled up by the few massive giants who have come to dominate the national industry. Since 1996, some one-half of the nation’s eleven thousand radio stations changed hands, and there were over one thousand radio firm mergers." 

So the 90s was the decade when radio stations got taken over by corporate giants (with corporate, not cultural, interests in mind), and, not coincidentally, when radio went to shit. Joy Elmer Morgan, founder of Future Teachers of America, predicted that "as a result of radio broadcasting, there will probably develop during the twentieth century either chaos or a world-order of civilization. Whether it shall be one or the other will depend largely upon whether broadcasting be used as a tool of education or an instrument of selfish greed. So far, our American radio interests have thrown their major influence on the side of greed….there has never been in the entire history of the United States an example of mismanagement and lack of vision so colossal and far-reaching in its consequences of our turning the radio channels almost exclusively into commercial hands…whoever controls the radio will in the end control the development of the human race.” Scary. Especially when noting that Morgan died in 1986, and in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the majority of news media. Now six corporations control it. One of them is Walt Disney, which would explain why Adam Levine is touted as a “rockstar.”

Grace Slick - Cool

Beyonce endorsing a drink that contributes to obesity and diabetes - Not Cool

In 1948, jazz critic Sidney Finkelstein summed up commercialism in music superbly when he said it ultimately leads “to what is really destructive in culture: the taking over of an art by business.” It seems that with the advent of the internet, and the seeming freedom and ease it could provide to get relevant music out there, corporations have gotten even more aggressive to keep people’s thoughts on consumption, rather than cultural and social change. And millennials are the ones most vulnerable because they have no personal connection to a time when music actually mattered. When it was the most accessible medium for getting a message to the world. Now corporations have used the medium artists once used to spread a message of social change, to send the message that they need more and more useless shit instead. Don’t believe the Top 40 hype that pushes singing puppets on us and tries to make us believe that their silly antics and extravagant lifestyles are anything but pathetic. Supporting your local musicians by going out to hear live music is a great way to combat the control media has over us. Checking out music blogs is another way to find out about artists who aren’t corporately endorsed. If you can’t find anything on those, ask around to find out who people’s favorite bands are. Just make sure those you ask are over the age of 30. ;)

Rage Against the Machine - Cool

Arcade Fire - Don’t get me started.

Sources:

“Rich Media, Poor Democracy,” by Robert McChesney

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/who-owns-the-media-the-6-monolithic-corporations-that-control-almost-everything-we-watch-hear-and-read

[anasvault]

This text would be relevant if a) all Millennials were all the same around the world and had the same cultural background (which we don’t) and if b) Radio was the only place where you could get music. and c) If the value of people was truly measured by the type of music they listen to. (It can give you an idea of what they like and what they think of, but absolutely not their worth or, as you put it, “coolness”. Unless they are fans of Bachata or Reguetón in which case please disappear from the face of the earth.)

Millennials range from people born from early the 1980s to 2000-2003. Which means in itself it has three generations of immensely different ways of living. Teens or pre-teens in the 90s are in fact millennials still, and they grew up with radio, a decent mtv and tape trading, whilst millennials born in 1998 had already mp3 downloads in a completely different world and a completely different way of acquiring their information and music. There are also millennials born in the middle (late 80s, very early 90s) with either older siblings or overly enthusiastic parents who gave unto them their own records and tape trading traditions, which means that in the midst of the digital uprising, they also carried the old ways in their bags.

For most of the Millennial generation that is a fan of actual “music” and not celebrities, I can assure you that radio was the last place we looked for new sounds. There were services like last.fm, Real Player radios, music forums, later came Myspace filled with music (present music) that would never, EVER have any radio play whatsoever, even if we were in the 90s.

The only think I agree with in this text is the giant monopoly that controls the media in which I agree, lies the problem. People are goddamn lazy, that’s it. They will hear what they receive, no fuss. It’s easy, practical and simple. Vulnerable to brainwashing and funnily enough, gave way to this new breed of counter-counter culture people, who consume mainstream, uses what it needs from it to criticize it, whilst still being a slave to what the media tells them to consume, all the while thinking they’re rebels and free, or giving them the sense like they fight for a rightful cause. It’s fascinating, but I digress.

Music fans desisted on mainstream a long time ago, but it was either because the big corporations who you mention took over our right to decide what we wanted to listen to, or because simply begging the radio station to play something and being completely ignored was exhausting, and all of this came hand in hand with the new found liberty of simply downloading whatever we wanted. Illegally, yes (until we became fans and pay for the music the best way we can). We know we will never have a say in what we want to listen to in traditional spaces like the radio or the TV. That ship sailed looooong ago. Which is why the internet is such an amazing place. We create our universe as we see fit thanks to this tool that allows us access to anywhere in the world, to any culture, to any type of music available. There is a freedom in that sense that has no precedent, and also gives the opportunity to musicians, whether they live off their music or have it like a hobby, to share their music with whoever decides to listen.

I know and share the melancholy of the times where you would just turn on the radio and instead of assholes talking shit and playing the same fucking hit over and over again, you could actually listen to music and be introduced to new, different and rich things and had a lot more variety. Things you could connect with, that had depth and had more purpose other than “make you want to dance”. Though, this isn’t to say that listening to fun, stupid music just for fun is bad or makes you “uncool”, because it’s not, it’s a part of being human which art is all about. Life can’t be taken so freaking seriously.

And even then, there were even more awesome bands who would never ever have any airplay at all and thrived in the underground. The underground has always been the place where iconic and revolutionary bands were born and did whatever the hell they wanted because they had no artistic limits nor ties telling them what doesn’t sell. It was pure, unapologetic self expression, which mainstream culture robbed of its essence to translate it into something more digestible for the radio. It’s ALWAYS been this way! Even now! But people have always had the option to either stay in the surface or delve deeper, and that was their prerogative.

The truth is, people hate to think and they hate to feel, and the art of their time reflect exactly that. The mainstream today is so blunt and overly simple that anything that kind of defies that even in the simplest way is treated like a work of art, like something inspired by the gods, completely out of this world. And it kind of explains artists like Adele and the craziness surrounding her success. We can agree that she has a kickass voice and an impeccable presentation, but her music, even though kind of melancholy in nature and pretty, is far from being something as extraordinary as people paint it to be. It’s another evidence of “going with that mainstream flow”.

You also need to consider that current music will sound different to you as it does to a younger person, because whatever they listen is new to them, and it will sound fresh to them, and they will like it. Who are you or me to tell them what they feel with the music is not true?

This if finally the point I wanted to make with this blabber jabber: you can’t accuse all millennials of being as superficial and blunt. Neither the people who create the music nor the people who consume it. Because if people truly cared about the music, they would feel unfulfilled enough with what the mainstream offers them, that they would feel the need to go find it somewhere else. As much as today’s mainstream tries to make you a zombie with their soulless crap, every human being has the capacity of feeling or needing to feel something greater. Granted, it’s by far not the majority. But that is the faith I still have on humanity (even if I have been beaten down by society time and time again for not agreeing with what they consider “culture” and the social isolation that comes with it), and I have hope for the people to believe in richer music again. It’s already happening: leave the radio, MTV and Spotify latest hits playlists to the people who treat music as a passive thing. Leave it to the hardcore music fans to invest their hard earned money in what they consider to be the best way to support that art which is seen lately in the form of the Vinyl uprising. It’s already happening.

As music fans of ANY age, we need to stop putting all our faith in humanity in artists that had their prime over 15 years ago. I can assure you every day I find current bands and artists with the ability to crash my soul and rise my spirit as the best musicians of yore did (and yes, sometimes even in the mainstream still). They are just not on the radio, not always on the mainstream and are perfectly available for anyone to find in this glorious land called the internet. And they can exist and thrive in the real world. I live in a third world country where even here we can have concerts of an unknown Norwegian band that never had any airplay and fill the room with a thousand of their fans. Wealth, popularity, groupies, the rock n roll life, lines of coke backstage, and all that you think makes someone “cool”, that is all in the past, and thank God. Artists can actually live without all that nonsense. They will not live in mansions or have the latest car model, but they can live a life just like any other human being that works. With so many new and affordable tools it was meant to happen. It’s part of the reason why record labels are dying (finally). This is the future of music. And the circle will give another turn and start again. Nothing remains static, but we can’t give hope; without it, there would be no new artists who create new awesome music, because there will be no one left to hear it. I seriously doubt this will ever happen.

[coltre]

the problem is that the past wasn’t as beautiful as nostalgia swears it was

[segoviaamil]