Outlaw Camouflage: Slumming in the “Underground”
When a member of ancient nobility accepts a Grammy award, and does so wearing shit-kicker boots, denim, and a street-skater key chain, isn’t that as much—if not more—of a make-believe cartoon than KISS’s makeup or Daft Punk’s robots? It is as incongruous as a jailhouse face-tattoo on a WASP’y sorority girl or as inappropriate as suburban surfers’ habit of appropriating African American slang as if it were their own. By all appearances, colonialism is alive and well, it has just shifted into the realm of culture.
That many roots-artists’ sound features the banjo, a hillbilly instrument whose prototype was imported to the Deep South from Africa by slaves, only adds insult to injury. Is this not the twenty-first-century equivalent of playing in blackface . . . or maybe more apropos in this instance, “red-neckin’”? The musical counterpart of linoleum, hardwood floors, or a fake raccoon-fur, Daniel Boone hat?
Folk music has been appropriated from the actual “folks.”
With singers like Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga having had their ventures into music careers underwritten by their East Coast millionaire businessmen daddies, and “underground” bands like Vampire Weekend being comprised of Ivy Leaguers that shoplifted the musical styles of Afro-pop, it is hard to make a stand for the relevance of rock music in the current landscape and instead not admit that it has fallen into the wrong hands. In this case, wealth has not been passed down, but been greedily and unashamedly siphoned upward. That one of the top “indie” bands in the land was founded by a duo who met at the same New England prep school as Facebook uber-nerd Mark Zuckerberg attended (as well as a Rockefeller or two), should rightly turn at least a few conspiracy-theorist heads.
To steal another’s voice, particularly when personal expression may be the only power left in the possession of the unheard and/or underrepresented, is a staggering arrogance and assault. Much like when actors stoop to play disabled or gay people, as if there is no one among those populations qualified enough.
None of this is to disregard that these “tributes” might not sometimes benefit the pioneers, due to their consequently receiving the scraps and leftovers of the fraction of the audience that is willing to dig deeper following the inroads made by the commercial copping artists (e.g., those that later discovered T-Bone Walker by way of the Rolling Stones).
As Elvis was to Howlin’ Wolf and Fabian to Elvis, Vanilla Ice was to MC Melle Mel and David Guetta is to Aphex Twin, ad infinitum, and the current crop of “modern” bands are again merely understudy, white-bread substitutes for the real thing. What is worse though than the thievery is the disingenuousness of their adopting stances as to being authentic or cutting edge in even the most remote way. It’s a bit too much like watching diminutive, preppy posers like Tom Cruise handily take on droves of herculean villains and walk away with hardly a scratch or seeing pretty boys such as Brad Pitt that are seemingly driven by a compulsive, over-compensatory need to slum it and act tough, deifying hoodlum and serial-killer roles.
And isn’t that why music always trumped Hollywood in pop culture? That it was real people, oozing sweat, spit, and flubbed notes onstage, instead of make believe.
In the final analysis, “keeping it real” is mostly a concern of those who are counterfeit and faking it. When you’re being real, you don’t have to work at it, much the same as with lying, which measurably drains more mental energy than telling the truth.
Now we are carried awash in a system where mediocrity is celebrated so as to not prove too threatening to the audience and thereby helping make them feel closer to the action. One of the most disturbing elements about Coachella and the like is the creeping sensation that out of the eighty thousand+ people in attendance, almost all of them have been, will be, want to and/or know someone who is performing or has performed at that same festival as a DJ or in their own fly-by-night, between undergrad and postponed-med/law school adventure, “alternative” band.
The underground has given way to the self-congratulatory dilettante sound. Yet, the actual relevance of the majority of the slot-filling musicians in the machine at these massive events is much like extras on a summer-blockbuster action film. The event itself has become the draw, and the content secondary (as is proven by many established festivals now selling out of tickets before any of the performers are announced).
Surface over substance is the order of the day, like the tattoo craze, which provides a purchasable salve to those starved for experiences that actually leave a mark—a proxy for anyone who has never really had to fight for anything and, as a consequence, suffers an absence of unwelcome adventure, war wounds, and survival stories, to demarcate their lives.
It becomes a competition of unintended conformity. One trip to the piercing parlor does not a revolutionary make. (Nor a jaunt to Africa, India, or South America, for that matter. People are changed by process, not events. There is no shortcut to interpersonal depth, no nip-and-tuck for the soul.)
Their’s is an empty rebellion, a superficial subversion. Defiance without basis is not a virtue. It is simply going through the motions. Hedonism is no longer an act of defiance in a culture that is already liberated. It is then merely a self-indulgence.
And the charade of the practiced ambivalence toward success of the “underground” is the ultimate insult. With the indie-rock genre, audiences now customarily behave more like the stars, and the stars are disingenuously reluctant.
You are not a progressive because you drink hemp-milk and go to protest rallies. You’re a progressive if you’re willing to have your mind changed and admit rather then defend your existing beliefs.
A willingness to proceed through life with minimal expectation, maximum curiosity.
Though a performer would be ridiculed for staking claim to many visual aspects of a culture—wearing a turban or sombrero onstage, even if only attempted ironically or haphazardly—the musical elements are left unpoliced and free for the pillaging. Whether this is due to ignorance on the part of audiences or a lack of caring to investigate more astutely, the end result is comparable.
If someone appropriated a Holocaust photo for a clothing ad campaign, there would be (befitting) fury. But when a singer hitchhikes a ride from sounds born from another’s experience—aping them sans the suffering—should there not be some similar backlash? Should this not somehow fall under the truth in labelling and fair packaging laws?
Social-tourism that travels upwards is derided as pretentious, “putting on airs.” Someone adopting a French or English accent, or even so much as daring to demonstrate the audacity to correctly pronounce a foreign word, will be brought down a notch. But dumpster-diving and picking through the (white-)trash so to speak, is somehow apparently fair game.
I am far from being a Luddite—the slur that people so gratuitously hurl counterdefensively these days. The opposite is being advocated for here: greater diversity. This runs counter to conservationalism. (Nor is this simply a case of old-fogeyism. I was far more opinionated and less open when I was a teenager, as I fear too many people that I unintentionally offended or put off along the way could account to.)
It would be a very positive development if everyone deliberately created music. But only privately and without aims beyond the process itself.
Untold languages and customs have been lost throughout history and this is not necessarily always a tragedy. Not everything needs to—or even can be—preserved. Furthermore, art is mercurial and embodied. It alters with each inaction. Cross-pollination is an indispensable element in this. But to violently sever ties to and/or seize traditions wholesale that have been thousands of ceaseless years in the making is something that should, at least, stimulate the slightest modicum of pause and not be undertaken too rashly.
Before we deforest cultures, it is best to reflect and more fully appreciate the ecological implications of such massacres.
Any artist—no matter where they are from—will always be changed by exposure and success, and it is for them to then decide whether they want to maintain their original vision by will and choice, versus their previous relative naïveté that gave rise to it. If a “primitive” artist is sullied by the industrialized world, so be it. That is their right.
To someone who faces hunger each day or lives without electricity, discarding such luxuries as red meat and access to technology is unfathomable. It is almost impossible to explain why I am a vegetarian or don’t own a television to someone who lives off the grid or without consistent nutrition, and not end up coming across as completely insane in the process.
But, in a world of social networking, where momentary infamy can be snatched via a single, wobbly, HD-camera YouTube video or a laptop-engineered Facebook single, how are bands who live without running water, electricity, or indoor toilets supposed to Twitter their way to the top, let alone keep up?
And, in the end, it might just be audiences, as much as anyone, who end up robbed when the cream of the crop is obscured and unheard, drowned out by the vacuum of frauds.
The glamour of “show business” where boundaries between guards and prisoners can sometimes get blurry.