When did our culture become apathetic to the wider world? RWACC's Zachariah Jones rips into Tumblr Cats, Crystal Castles and Iphone games to try and find an answer
The first single I bought was Rage Against The Machines ‘Killing in the Name’. I say it was the first single I owned, when really my dad handed me a stack of CD’s. So I got to work.
There were entire discography’s of bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Soundgarden and even …Trail of Dead and Green Day. But what stood out was Rage Against The Machine.
But take a selection of 90’s bands, Sleater Kinney, Jawbreaker, even into Nirvana. These bands were angry and emotive. It was an important part of their music, that they actively showed feeling. Be it frustration, anger, upset or depression. If you want more proof just look at Slipknot, who stormed out of the 90’s angrier than a banker with no bonus.
But with hiatus’ from Faith No More, System of a Down, Rage Against The Machine, Rancid and a bunch of others. Not to mention Slipknot fucking off for three years at a time. The emotional 90’s slipped in the emotional 00’s and it all got a bit fucking weird.
We had Jimmy Eat World, Brand New and My Chemical Romance, turning kids with baggy pants and eye brow piercings, into miniature Eurthymics look-alikes.
Don’t take this as anti-emo, I was in there myself, I had the Brand New t-shirt and I still like Touche Amore. But what emo really was, was angst.
Which is punk as fuck, whichever way you cut it. For a bunch of guys to come out and say I’m sick of this angry matcho bullshit get me some eyeliner. Is fucking brilliant.
My issue doesn’t lie here, but somewhere in the world of emo, apathy became a ‘thing’. By 2010 every band (Crystal Castles I’m looking at you here) had an aloof coolness as if they weren’t playing a pub in stoke-on-trent, but were Jim Morrison playing to 8000 minor drug addicts.
People claim it was artistic expression, but was it? Or was it pretentious. Editors, The Horrors, White Lies, Crystal Castles and Health all did spur a new goth-esque revival, which set a standard for how modern artists should feel. Which has ended in the bizarre creation of Witch-House and bands like Salem and Picture Plane, which appear to be gabba-esque club sounds for those of us who would never actually want to go to a club.
What happened?
When did anger get replaced by apathy?
40 years on from the birth of hardcore punk, and the result is fucking tumblr.
I’m not anti-social media, I’m actually massively pro. But look at its use:
Social media is a way to connect not just towns, cities or even nations. But to create international unity and do so, really fucking easily.
Ever tried starting a revolution in 1800? It was no small task. These days, you can start a hash tag.
And what is the internet actually used for? Photos of cats, tits and more cats.
I love cats, but you guys are stemming the revolution (maybe russel brand left this out of his book). My point is maybe if we had a few more Rage Against The Machine’s around, Dead Kenndey’s hadn’t dissolved, and it was hip and trendy to actually care about something, not to be aloof and untouchable. We would get somewhere.
But then again, maybe living in a near coma of an existence filled with cats and tits isn’t so bad. Maybe we should all look away from the millions of West Africans who died viciously bleeding from every orifice, separated from their families with no funeral, simply being burnt in the backyard by two astronaut looking guys in hazmat suits to prevent to epidemic ever reaching the west and continue to distract ourselves with games on our iPhones.
It would take an idiot to not release the smoke screen that is up in front of you.