(Editor's note: there's a little game in this post - see if you can spot the one-liner I stole from a Robert Christgau review.)
Happy May Day, everyone! It may be tougher to find Commies these days, but leftism is never in short supply and today is traditionally the day that Soviets used to roll their weaponry in front of the refugees from Madame Tussaud's who were up on the Kremlin balcony. But when all that was happening, there were plenty of leftists who were busy making money in the music industry. And that's who we're looking at today.
Our first choice came out of Leeds, quintessential university Marxists. They were critical darlings mostly because of their politics, even though their music was sometimes hard to listen to. They were the Gang of Four and our choice today is their off-kilter, vaguely Human League-like UK dance smash from 1982,
About five years later, another group of dyspeptic lefties emerged from Hull, cleverly disguised as a fresh-faced vocal harmony group. See if you can spot the thinly-veiled disgust in this one from the Housemartins,
Meanwhile, down under we had the hectoring 7-footer, Peter Garrett, at the helm of Midnight Oil, complaining about all manner of Australian injustices. Presented for your approval, a video complete with burning Union Jack and just about every agitprop image from the Eisenstein playbook except the Odessa Steps, is their hit (sort of) from 1993,
I actually like these songs, but they are grim stuff. Maria noticed that, too. So she's asked me to add another song for this vote. Something that's less grim-visaged than these angry white dudes. So Maria, what do you want to propose?
Well, let's go back to one of my favorite movies, Shrek 2. This song is one of my favorites. Can you guess? It was originally recorded way back in 1980, 20 years before I was born. It's
Cast your votes and savor the irony of voting among choices from people who sneered at Western freedom. Except the proud local entrepreneurs that Maria has recommended.
6 comments:
TALK ABOUT,TALK ABOUT MYYYY VOTE!!!!!!!!! FUNKYTOWN!!!!!! thank you very much.
On behalf of my daughters (also fans of Shrek 2), I also have to go with Funkytown.
I'll have to take these under advisement, and perhaps with a stiff shot of Scotch.
But was there ever a more inane agitprop song - albeit with a killer hook - than Midnight Oil's "Our Beds are Burning?"
The first two songs are awful on their (de)merits and the third song just makes me laugh because the dude is so earnest and so bald. Oh, sorry Stover. So I'll go with the Funk.
Uncle Ben's comment reminded me of the P.J. O'Rourke quote that I've been featuring on my blog this week:
"Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college."
Funkytown!!!!!! You go, girl! Good choice, Maria!
Ben
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