Musicians no longer socially relevant?

[panten]

I am ashamed of this forum.

You're not the only one. Why do you think Ableton hid the link on their main site?

[Galt]

Musicians have never been socially relevant.

[Galt]

Yup, and you're so irrelevant, you can't even work for food.

[beats me]

For an alternative viewpoint…

How about we STFU on political discussions until The Lounge returns to a good balance of active topics that are entertaining and interesting, and have nothing to do with politics. Shit, maybe even something music related. For at least the last month or two The Lounge has been dominated by the same 3 or 4 topics that are mostly myrnova regurgitating his same views on the crimes of America throughout history to the present and to a lesser extent your commentary on different political ideologies. Then there’s the picture thread and the iPad thread. All other topics largely get ignored.

As myrnova rightly pointed out if you’re tired of him then just ignore him or don’t engage him, but some people just can’t let it go. Even if one person can’t let it go eventually others can’t help themselves but to rejoin back in. It never ends. If he would just leave for a couple weeks I guarantee this place would have a far greater range of discussions and with less insults.

If the goal was to turn this place into a heated political think tank then mission accomplished. But trying to control how that discussion takes place is going to hit a brick wall with the DNA of The Lounge that is mostly just a bunch of bored music producer goofballs trying to kill some time.

[Galt]

I'm currently looking for a way to distribute a combined comic strip/video project, and I was wondering what platform would be most suitable in terms of visibility and monetisation. So far I've looked at basic website/blog solutions as well as Apple's new interactive iBook format.

Any thoughts?

[crofter]

For an alternative viewpoint…

How about we STFU on political discussions until The Lounge returns to a good balance of active topics that are entertaining and interesting, and have nothing to do with politics. Shit, maybe even something music related. For at least the last month or two The Lounge has been dominated by the same 3 or 4 topics that are mostly myrnova regurgitating his same views on the crimes of America throughout history to the present and to a lesser extent your commentary on different political ideologies. Then there’s the picture thread and the iPad thread. All other topics largely get ignored.

As myrnova rightly pointed out if you’re tired of him then just ignore him or don’t engage him, but some people just can’t let it go. Even if one person can’t let it go eventually others can’t help themselves but to rejoin back in. It never ends. If he would just leave for a couple weeks I guarantee this place would have a far greater range of discussions and with less insults.

If the goal was to turn this place into a heated political think tank then mission accomplished. But trying to control how that discussion takes place is going to hit a brick wall with the DNA of The Lounge that is mostly just a bunch of bored music producer goofballs trying to kill some time.

This is true.

[myrnova]

In the the old days they wrote songs like 16 tons or Imagine. Now, they write about bling and hoes.

Musicians used to be interested in social and political movements. On here they call things they don't like 'gay' and think it makes them cool. Any attempt at serious discussion on here is simply ridiculed and reduced to farce by most of the few people who comment. These trolls call the few genuine people on here trolls, like the Nazis called the Jews and communist names before rounding them up.

Judging by this forum, 'musicians' no longer have anything socially relevant to say.

I would welcome debate with people of any views, but there is no debate on here. Name-calling is the only thing offered. It's pathetic. People should be ashamed of themselves. I am ashamed of this forum.

I've noticed this attitude only in angloamerican users, actually. For example: some time ago I started a thread called "antifascist songs and influence of music", which I thought could be an interesting matter of discussion. Here are the results:

MYRNOVA

01 Alan Stivell - Delivrance (example of socialist independentist celtic song)
02 Joan Baez - Here's To You
03 Inti Illimani - El Pueblo Unido (anti-yankee most important song ever)
04 Bella Ciao (italian partisan most important anti-yankee song ever)
05 Berlusconi Pezzo di Merda ("Berlusconi piece of shit")
06 Brendan Perry - Babylon
07 Richard Stallman - Hacker Freedom Song
08 The Clash - I'm so Bored with the U.S.A.
09 Public Enemy - Fight the Power
10 Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade (anticapitalist)
11 Rammstein - Amerika (best anti-yankee "moon hoax" satirical german song ever!)
12 Frank Zappa - Dumb all over (antireligious)
13 Public Enemy - Burn Hollywood Burn
14 Rammstein - Mein Land (antiamerican)
15 The Beatles - Back in the USSR
16 Body Count - KKK Bitch (antiracist)
17 Pink Floyd - Waiting for the Worms (antifascist)
18 Inti-Illimani - Cancion del Poder Popular
19 Sepultura - Territory (pro palestine)
20 A las Barricadas (one of the most popular songs of the Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Civil War)
21 The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television the Drug of the Nation
22 Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
23 Peter Gabriel - Biko
24 Il Teatro degli Orrori - A Sangue Freddo (dedicated to nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa)
25 Ton Steine Scherben - Keine Macht fuer Niemand
26 Brendan Perry - This Boy (antiamerican antiwar song)
27 99 Posse - Yankee Go Home
28 Canzoniere delle Lame - Yankee Tornatevene a Casa
29 Richard Thompson - Yankee go Home
30 The The - Sweet Bird of Truth

SHADX312

1 LV & Dandelion - CCTV
2 Debbie Downer - America Will Destroy Humankind Forever

JANNISPABLO

1 JannisPablo - Ton Steine Scherben
2 JannisPablo - Der heimliche Aufmarsch (german antifascist song)

(TROLLS)

Hanil Yoo (trolling) Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
Seriously (trolling) Mary had a little lamb
Seriously (trolling) Italian National Anthem
Crofter (trolling) Deutschland über alles
Docprosper (trolling) On top of Spaghetti I lost my poor meatball



As you can see, the results are embarassing.

[myrnova]

By the way, another reason for this "dumbness" in american and british "posts" (trolling or OT songs) is this: generally angloamericans completely ignore international music (for "angloamericans" I mean all the people living in U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.: english mother-tongue citizens, not "race").

I can notice that people from UK and U.S.A. when talking about "music" only mean "american and english songs and artists". They ignore 99% of music is neither american nor british. This is due to imperialism, which massively spreads those 5-10 american $$$ songs a month all over the world (all rather idiot: kety perry, etc.). This is because american corporations monopolize the music market. Actually, UK and U.S. music is nowadays not so important as it was years ago worldwide (expecially during cold war), because of discography "crisis" and because the new avant-guard today is in africa, asia and middle-east. The utmost americans can listen to, when referred to not american/british songs, are some covers with translated lyrics and an american singer singing them, or funny not-translated songs like the "viral" gangnam style or such. Not because of the song, but because they find it "entertaining", "funny" etc. That is the reason for those embarassing results, in my opinion: once Lennon died and the punk disappeared, UK/USA songs became very stupid. In the 80s and 90s there were only the african american rappers and bands like the RATM... nothing else in the UK/USA mainstream. Maybe the U2 (irish)?...

Sometimes (very rarely) not american artists can sing their songs in America, because maybe they hope to become famous there, but they always have to translate the lyrics in english (for "american taste"). The results are sad and... pathetic?

[andydes]

Oi Myrnova,

I answered your thread, saying very similar to funken's first point.

I'm happy to discuss that part of it, but not get into yet another conversation about how rude everyone here is. You two post as much as everyone else put together.

[myrnova]

U2. Were they political?

Yes some of the early rap groups were quite political, and as you say RATM. I'm sure there are a few others. Things definitely went quiet in the 80s and afterwards though. Here we are in a global recession and the planet on it's way to destruction, and still nobody wants to discuss anything important, such as politics. What's wrong with people?

I don't know much about U2, because I only know their most famous songs, like "sunday bloody sunday", "pride" etc. Aren't these songs "political"? I remember their famous album "war"...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ

[beats me]

If you want other types of threads then post them, what's stopping you? You have a thread about a TV show that has plenty of posts on it. What's the problem? Don't bullshit on about me dominating the lounge when I've only posted on a couple of threads started by our resident right wing pundit.

I’m not entirely blaming you or myrnova. If anything I blame the other people who engage more. “You’re ruining this forum!” There’s nothing stopping them from ignoring people they feel are ruining the forum or starting or participating in other topics.

Here’s 2 recent topics that got completely ignored

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=198922

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=198786

There’s other topics that have gotten ignored but I posted those because until recently they probably would have gotten responded to if people weren’t instead burning a lot of calories slinging the same mud over and over in political threads.

I don’t even care if my topics get ignored. I just see once active members on all sorts of topics coming on here to participate in the ongoing political battles in the top threads and then calling it a day. There’s also plenty of regulars that just said fuck it and left and I’m sure at least part of it is because of the heavy political slant that has become all-consuming on here.

So to that end, no we really don’t need more political topics. By all means start more, but it certainly isn’t lacking.

[Rane]

By the way, another reason for this "dumbness" in american and british "posts" (trolling or OT songs) is this: generally angloamericans completely ignore international music (for "angloamericans" I mean all the people living in U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.: english mother-tongue citizens, not "race").

I can notice that people from UK and U.S.A. when talking about "music" only mean "american and english songs and artists". They ignore 99% of music is neither american nor british. This is due to imperialism, which massively spreads those 5-10 american $$$ songs a month all over the world (all rather idiot: kety perry, etc.). This is because american corporations monopolize the music market. Actually, UK and U.S. music is nowadays not so important as it was years ago worldwide (expecially during cold war), because of discography "crisis" and because the new avant-guard today is in africa, asia and middle-east. The utmost americans can listen to, when referred to not american/british songs, are some covers with translated lyrics and an american singer singing them, or funny not-translated songs like the "viral" gangnam style or such. Not because of the song, but because they find it "entertaining", "funny" etc. That is the reason for those embarassing results, in my opinion: once Lennon died and the punk disappeared, UK/USA songs became very stupid. In the 80s and 90s there were only the african american rappers and bands like the RATM... nothing else in the UK/USA mainstream. Maybe the U2 (irish)?...

Sometimes (very rarely) not american artists can sing their songs in America, because maybe they hope to become famous there, but they always have to translate the lyrics in english (for "american taste"). The results are sad and... pathetic?

Dude, I think you're reading waaay too deeply into this thing. What you're trying to tout as some conspiring imperialistic take-over is simply called culture. Culture has been around since the dawn of time; it's not a conspiracy.

By contrast, I never hear the Mexican gentlemen down the street from me listening to anything but mariachi music. Maybe they're imperialistic swine too?

People listen to music that speaks to them and is culturally relevant to them. Language I think plays a HUGE part. When was the last time you heard an instrumental on the radio? Instrumentals aren't that popular; and a song that's in another language might as well be an instrumental (cultural style and taste differences aside).

[myrnova]

I don't understand why beats me and the others are whining like pussies about my topics, which are ALL about music (but two: one called "the best YGH italian movie scene", about spaghetti western; one posted yesterday and called "a gift for Funken", because of his birthday: a funny scene where a kid reads karl marx).

The rest of my topics (10 in a year and a half) are about music.

Conclusion:





THE PROOF:

(1) called "KKK" (about KVR forum)
(2) called "That's one small step for a man..." (about the german rockband "Rammstein")
(3) called "Dead Can Dance" (about the australian band "Dead Can Dance")
(4) called "Live Logo" (about the new ableton logo)
(5) called "Subliminal message" (about the word "sex" in Ableton Live 9 picture, hidden among the cables)
(6) called "Italian kid loves led zeppelin" (about a young boy singing whole lotta love)
(7) called "Elisabetta" (about a young girl singing a song in rock style)
(8) called "what does a sound like?" (about celemony DNA inventor Peter Neubaecker)
(9) called "influence of music and antifascist songs" (an interview in which DCD talk about the influence of music and how propaganda use it)
(10) called "a gift for Funken" (a scene from a movie with a kid reading karl marx, banned for over 20 years in U.S.)

[stringtapper]

In the the old days they wrote songs like 16 tons or Imagine. Now, they write about bling and hoes.

The old days.

No, what happened is that during the 20th century anybody with a guitar was considered a "musician" and without having the kind of depth of musical training that people had during the 18th and 19th centuries these pop musicians had nothing interesting to say musically on any comparable scale to the likes of Bach or Beethoven so they had to substitute that with saying something politically. The bling and hoes are just a natural next step of this ongoing, long-term regression of musical culture in western society.

That's not to say that no great musicians of the past ever made political statements. Some surely did. But the music was there first.

For my part I earnestly don't give a shit about politics because it all boils down to human nature and the nature of our existence on this planet which are grim realities. Death is all that's waiting for even the most privileged of us.

Music allows me to forget about these things. To dream of being or experiencing something beyond being human.

So that's why I don't contribute to your political threads. Not because I can't. I used to be into politics. I've changed my mind on several things over the course of my life through thoughtful consideration. Thoughtful consideration that I find sorely lacking in any political debate I've ever read on the internet, especially anything you have ever written funken. It's the arrogant nature of the ideologue that initially put me off of politics. The "right at all cost" nature of the arguments. People not actually listening to each other but only wanting to listen to how right they think they are. And it's on both the right and the left.

tl;dr

No thanks, I'll stick with music.

[myrnova]

By the way, another reason for this "dumbness" in american and british "posts" (trolling or OT songs) is this: generally angloamericans completely ignore international music (for "angloamericans" I mean all the people living in U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.: english mother-tongue citizens, not "race").

I can notice that people from UK and U.S.A. when talking about "music" only mean "american and english songs and artists". They ignore 99% of music is neither american nor british. This is due to imperialism, which massively spreads those 5-10 american $$$ songs a month all over the world (all rather idiot: kety perry, etc.). This is because american corporations monopolize the music market. Actually, UK and U.S. music is nowadays not so important as it was years ago worldwide (expecially during cold war), because of discography "crisis" and because the new avant-guard today is in africa, asia and middle-east. The utmost americans can listen to, when referred to not american/british songs, are some covers with translated lyrics and an american singer singing them, or funny not-translated songs like the "viral" gangnam style or such. Not because of the song, but because they find it "entertaining", "funny" etc. That is the reason for those embarassing results, in my opinion: once Lennon died and the punk disappeared, UK/USA songs became very stupid. In the 80s and 90s there were only the african american rappers and bands like the RATM... nothing else in the UK/USA mainstream. Maybe the U2 (irish)?...

Sometimes (very rarely) not american artists can sing their songs in America, because maybe they hope to become famous there, but they always have to translate the lyrics in english (for "american taste"). The results are sad and... pathetic?

Dude, I think you're reading waaay too deeply into this thing. What you're trying to tout as some conspiring imperialistic take-over is simply called culture. Culture has been around since the dawn of time; it's not a conspiracy.

By contrast, I never hear the Mexican gentlemen down the street from me listening to anything but mariachi music. Maybe they're imperialistic swine too?

People listen to music that speaks to them and is culturally relevant to them. Language I think plays a HUGE part. When was the last time you heard an instrumental on the radio? Instrumentals aren't that popular; and a song that's in another language might as well be an instrumental (cultural style and taste differences aside).

Then you have to explain to me WHY in Italy, Greece, Spain, Mexico etc. 9 songs out of 10 on the radio, tv and movies are AMERICAN since 1945...



Maybe... because we like english tongue sooo much haha
Oh, no... wait... "not american artists are lame and not cool"

What else?...