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From
politics to rock bands, reality often hidden President Bush’s “war-shtick” got old months ago. It’s hard for me to take all this fear-preaching, demagoguery and belt-tightening seriously when we’re also discussing tax cuts while refusing to up the CAFE (corporate average fuel emissions) standards and pursue energy routes that will leave us less dependent on irreplaceable fossil fuels (and thus the Middle East). The real truth is that most of the fogies in White House cabinet positions now are holdovers from the Reagan administration. So, along with the status quo, the dialogue of war is something comfortable for them. In manufacturing their own version of the cold war they’ve managed to create a vague and faceless enemy that can be used as a point of demagoguery to pull the populace together and rally support for domestic issues. It’s genius for sure, but it’s impossible to forget that it’s little more than a political move. And as far as Bush’s comments about the recent Zimbabwean election: “We do not recognize the outcome of the election because we think it’s flawed.” All I can do is laugh at the hysterical irony, especially since the kind of election irregularities of which Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is being accused are exactly what got Bush into office in the first place. And speaking of something else that purports to be one thing on its face when it’s really another, these days you can’t be sure which is worse: The pre-packaged, wholly commercialized, lowest common denominator teeny-bopper pop groups or the pre-packaged, wholly commercialized, lowest common denominator pseudo-rebellious but carefully unthreatening rock groups. There’s something about the commercialization of rock ‘n’ roll that’s so much more offensive than that of pop. The likes of Britney Spears and Mandy Moore, at least know who and what they are. So when you welcome them into your house and consciousness you know exactly what it is you’re getting. Good pop music is much like caffeine-free cola. It’s not about anything, just empty calories that perform well in the market place. But when rock bands like The Calling, Sum 41 and Lifehouse (although that second single is a gem) come bearing the dead-eyed gaze of young record executives it seems directly in contrast to the ideas of rock ‘n’ roll. They attempt to get across your threshold under the pretense that they’re not the manufactured product of focus groups contains something far more insidious than their pop contemporaries. These aren’t rock musicians so much as the latest format of the corporate pitch. They’re selling themselves as if they’re something more than the latest way to put coins into the commercial machine and that’s quite frankly a direct betrayal of the “alternative” idea. The Calling is just as corporate as Abercrombie & Fitch clothing and WWJD bracelets. And Sum 41 is to punk rock what “A Beautiful Mind” is to artistically creative films. Just like the flood of second-tier boy bands that followed the success of the Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync (ahem! 98 Degrees, O-Town, B2K, Eden’s Crush, etc.), the entertainment industry saw the profit garnered by Creed’s mainstream, uninspired pandering and moved double time to turn out more of those deep-throated, stadium-thrust anthems just vaguely sentimental enough to appeal to the female and male crowd alike. This new breed of bands is nothing more than smart marketing masquerading as dumb rock ‘n’ roll, much like this new breed of Capitol Hill chest-thumping patriotism is little more than a comfortable format to play the political game and distract from the domestic issues they don’t want you to see. One of the lessons all those old Reaganites should have learned from South American demagogues during their various attempts to overthrow them is that nationalism is the last refuge of the unscrupulous. Tim
Dragga is a junior political science major from Lubbock. |
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