It's Friday Bob Geldof!

It is time to write about the state of music again.  Really though, it is more about the state of us and our interaction with music.  This post is being prompted by a couple of events that have taken place in the last few days.  First and foremost is the brilliant and moving speech from the great Sir Bob Geldof which he gave at the SXSW music festival.

Bob Geldof may not be as well-known in the US, but is huge and highly respected in Britain for his contributions to music as well as his charitable events.  He is mostly known in the US as the organizer of the "Live Aid" concerts as well as staring as "Pink" in Pink Floyd's The Wall movie.  Bob was asked to be the keynote speaker at the hugely popular SXSW Festival this year.  He gave a strong and emotional speech that is right up the alley of things that I have blogged about many times in the past, which is the idea of the loss of soul in rock music and how it is killing itself due to apathy.  After reading sections of his speech, they sounded like something that I had written, only put together much more gracefully.  He said that he is amazed that with all of the things going on, all of the controversy as well as triumphs in the world today, why aren't the artists speaking out?  Where would the 60's have been if not for the music of the time, defined by it's rock music?  I noted this in a previous blog as well.  The fact that when we invaded Iraq many years ago now, that only a few mainstream musicians had the balls to stand up, write songs or album about the atrocity that we were witnessing.  Most artists were too afraid or did not care. 

This is still the case and I love that one of my heroes, Sir Geldof, stood in front of a large hipster crowd at SXSW and said it to their faces.  He was basically telling the audience and artists to stop being pussies.  I believe that he was trying to say that they are the ones that will drive change and drive the spirit of music but they are too busy inflating their fevered egos with twitter, facebook, and other diversions, too afraid to alienate some of their fan base while truly discouraging the ones that want to care.  The artists, rock musicians in general, need to grow a pair or rock music will lose all meaning. 

I once read that all people feel change, but that the artists are defined as being much more sensitive to those winds of change.  Now I love that quote and it has stuck with me from the moment I read it.  This is how I have defined true artists, by their creativity as well as their sense of the movement around themselves.  Now, talking about the ineptitude of music recently brings me to the next event from this past week which was the release of the single "Friday" by tweeny-bopper Rebecca Black.

If you have not heard of her, that is because this is her first single.  If you have heard it, then you should not be able to forget the song that is being hailed as the Worst Pop Song Ever.  It is worse than that new Kim Kardashian single, which is a really hard line to cross.  I do not blame the Ms. Black as she did not write the song, did not produce the song, and had nothing to do with it other than sing it at her mom's request.  She is the victim here.  If you heard anything about this, the company that made it released the song/video on youtube.  They released this young girl to the wolves holding a stick of dry salami as a weapon!  We all know that the internet is a harsh harsh mistress and dealing with her is hard water to tread, but this is what they did.  She has been called awful, a terrible singer, and told to cut herself and die. 

The issue here is not Ms. Black.  The issue is that this is the pinnacle in a long-line of garbage that the music industry tries to force feed us.  The lyrics are about on the level with Raffi while being passed off for teens.  This is worse than anything that Disney has forced down the throat of America's youth.  I have heard kid's songs with more depth and better structure than this atrocity of the ears.  Not to mention that when you pair it up with the awful overproduction and auto-tune features as well as the weird and puerile rap part about catching a bus, it is the perfect recipe for disaster.  In this case, the internet is not really lashing out at her as much as lashing out at the industry as well as the "artists" for the apathy that Bob Geldof spoke of.  Ms. Black seems to be taking it all with as much of a grain of salt as a teen girl in today's world can, but I hope she will someday understand where this anger and frustration over her release is really being aimed toward.

We are right now still a world of change, sometimes for the worse, but overall I believe we are still moving in the right direction.  As a people, we are evolving and changing, growing with every step.  We are now capable of so much that our grandfather's would have never foreseen.  We have the knowledge of the world at our beck and call while finding more ways to utilize our abilities to new heights.  The artists and musicians though are not following.  They are lagging behind when they should be the motivating force. 

I once read an essay by the great David Hume asking the question why we study philosophy.  I took a lot out of it, but mainly I found that the study of philosophy is the precursor to the study of science and knowledge.  The idea is that the questions of philosophy are the motivating force behind the questions and answers of science and evolution.  Without us asking "Why?" we would not have everything we have today.  I see art/music the same way.  Music and art should be the driving force behind social change.  The artist should be the ones that feel the need for change, write and rally, which will evolve ideas and politics.  Lately, they have failed in this mission and we are all paying the price.  We lost our ability to organize in a real and meaningful way behind an idea.  This is why the politicians no longer fear the constituency.  Once the politicians no longer fear the society, they are truly the most free people in the world to do and say whatever ideas come through their crazy heads. 

I must digress now before I break my own rule and start talking politics again.  But I shall leave you with the video that has caused all of this commotion. 

WARNING: I do not recommend this to anyone.  This is not safe for human consumption and we will all pay a higher psychic price in the end for this monstrosity of music.

Interpretations Unstuck in Time

For those that have known me or have read my writings you know that I am a fan of the great Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  That being said, his wonderful opus magnum "Slaughterhouse-Five" is one of the most influential and meaningful writings to me.  I have read the book many times a long with many writings about the book and Mr. Vonnegut in general.  None of these writings have ever answered one question within the book that has always bothered me and I hope that some of my readers might have an opinion on this.

In the book, our hero Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time" and slips between various times in his life.  His life leads him down a path where he becomes abducted by aliens and taught to see life like a mountain range, each peak being another point in time.  This leads Billy to hit any moment in his life and know exactly how it is going to happen, even up to the exact moment of his murder as well as how and who cause it.  This being said, Mr. Vonnegut weaves a brilliant story with simple and understated references to colors and actions that help flip Billy between memories.  These things help us to believe that Billy's "unstuck-ness" is really just his mind slipping around between memories and times due to either some mental issues or PTSD from World War II.  He is really crazy and battling to keep his wits in a world full of hate and death that he cannot handle.  He invents the aliens and their world as an escape route, finding that the only reason no one stops the violence is because they can't, it has already been written into 4-dimensional time, and therefore, it is, no matter what anyone does.

As brilliant and wonderful as this interpretation of the book is, as well as being the prevailing viewpoint, there is at least one huge question that bothers me about this.  We take the narrator's description of what is going on to either be literal or metaphorical.  Either the events are true and Billy was taught by aliens, or Billy is suffering from trauma.  I do not believe there is much room for a grey area here.

If that is so, if Billy is crazy as the books aims towards, then how is it that Billy knows, 100%, the moment and style of his death?

Billy tells everyone how he is going to die, and when.  It happens exactly as he knew, as if he knew the exact future.  The only way that I can reconcile this is that Billy was not actually murdered as he said, but even his own death is a created memory from his trauma.  This does not sit well with me though as that implies he fantasizes about his own murder.  He then must want to die to prove to himself that his memories were real.  This just does not make sense to me because the book, at least in my reading, makes not reference to this as a created memory as it does with everything else.  The book appears to treat it as reality.  Also, if Billy wanted to fantasize about his death to prove his life, then there were other points where this can be made reality.

Please, if any of you have an opinion on this interpretation, let us discuss.  Comment or email me directly and we will go into discourse.  I even asked this question on some KV forums and no one seems to have a direct answer to this either.  Any ideas will be discussed.  Thanks!