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 Now online (1)belb ...and 379 guests Last 5 registered Oplandisks nothingstar N_loop yipe foxtrotromeo Browse members... |
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i haven't really heard these guy's music much.. and i'm not really sure if they are doing something at all positive by pointing out certain things inherent in society. that's not to say that it can't be done.. for example, it's possible for someone to make an extremely violent film that uses violence to show the actual reality, pain, and negativity in it.. instead of hollywood's usual purposeless "gore-fest" type of violence, usually with little or no implication of consequence or shred of human compassion inside the fictional culprit's mind. but even if the film is done in a way that is gruesome and overwhelmingly unwatchable, there will be some person out there who will watch it and enjoy himself and completely ignore the redeeming meaning in it. the film could need to be extremely over-the-top to really speak directly to those kinds of people who are ignoring the underlying message.. through the excessive violence portrayed the viewer may reconsider their "attraction" to the thought of the violence, since they are witnessing a fleshed-out portrayal of the reality and consequence to those impulses/fantasies/actions. i'm really not sure if violent art is in any way positive to society as a whole, but i would think there are certain people in a certain "psychotic-middle ground" so to speak, who may have violent impulses but do not wish to act on them, who could possibly benefit from viewing/reading something with a purpose to inform and, in a way, inflict shame on the viewer for not repulsed by it.. it's up to the individual to decide whether they want to rehabilitate, or if they just want to continue the numb-path they've been leading. i don't know if there have been studies confirming whether or not exposure to violent films/art/etc increases or decreases their violent compulsions, but i think the intentions of the creator are very important. for example, someone might watch a snuff film and be shamefully entertained/excited by it, but if you were to show that person a document |
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{cont.} ...but if you were to show that person a documentary about the victim's life, i doubt that would be appealing to them, unless they haven't a single shred of human compassion left in them. but in music, it's really not as easy to express a coherent and literal idea clear enough to cause someone to actually reconsider their lifestyle/mindset/inclinations because of it.. and i really doubt that whitehouse is trying at all to do that with their music.. it seems more like simply a group.. a group that other people who feel the same way can listen to and relate to, and not feel so 'different'.. but i suppose there are fans who might just like their sound and dislike the 'meaning' behind it.. i really don't know if it makes sense to disagree with the message behind something but enjoy the sound of it.. ..seems to me that you need, to some extent, to accept the whole package of it.. i'll shut up now.. |
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you have no control over how someone will respond to any sort of stimulus... there's no difference between whitehouse and care bears in that regard... |
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thank you for contributing your thoughts on this subject, by the way.... i'd just like to say that i don't believe there is a fixed semantic relation between the music of anyone and whatever their politics may be... that's what makes music special<-- it's will to "play"... and thus i don't think it's necessary to "accept the whole package" that you speak of, because i don't think it exists... just my opinion, of course.... |
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true, but what's important are the intentions of the creator. they will usually have a general idea of how it will be interpreted/received. in music with any "generally acceptable" motive, the majority of the listeners will be able to appreciate and understand it in a way that has a positive or at least slightly therapeutic effect. if the music is made without any other intention than to shock and inflict pain on the listener, then there's not much in it that someone can benefit from positively. i know you can make the point, "not everyone finds the same things acceptable" but it seems that no one finds the celebration of, or complete fixation on, death or violence to be acceptable, unless they've had some violent trauma in their past or have been desensitised to it at some point. people don't want to "hurt for the sake of hurting" unless they've been hurt themselves. they have felt the pain and powerlessness, and it seems they consciously or subconsciously wish to reverse it, and "get even" with the world for their own suffering. people would not release their music if they thought that no one could appreciate or relate to it in any way. i think it's naive to think that the artist doesn't have at least have a general idea of how their music will be understood or interpreted, and to use the fact that we all interpret things differently as an excuse to only do something in no way positive with your music, seems kinda ridiculous to me. music is a lot like a voice. you can use your voice to say something important or you can say nothing with it. and a certain level of restraint is crucial; if you are walking down a street, you might have the impulse to shout "fuck" at the top of your lungs, but since you see some young children nearby, you reconsider. you aren't quite sure if the kids have been exposed to swearing before, but you don't need to take the chance of having the kids recite that word to their parents, not knowing what the word meant, just so you could fulfil a selfish want. |
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but the role of art shouldn't always be to please the receiver... artists can and should aspire to challenge the preconceptions of their audience by presenting them with defamiliarized views of the world... just think how infinitely worse off we would be if we had no artists to portray all the nuances of that which we consider "unpleasant"... if the only way we saw death was through the completely unsympathetic gaze of your average hollywood blockbuster, how much value do you think the average individual would place on the lives of those around them (particularly those, with whom they have very little direct contact)... if music is a voice, then the language with which this voice articulates its views is much less stable than the voice that speaks through a language which is bound by the semantic conceptions of the society which it holds together... music is an infringement upon the ideological fixity of language... particularly music that does not acknowledge the normative structures of musical composition (you need only look at the charts to see that such structures do exist)... and the value of foregrounding fixed conceptions of the world which are better served in a state of fluidity (which is something that a piece of art that doesn't fit into the standard ideology will do) is great imo... |
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WHITEHOUSE, PETER SOTOS, JIM GOAD, STEVE ALBINI, APHEX TWIN, VICE MAGAZINE AND YOUR MUM ARE ALL TAKING THE PISS |
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