Reply #19: Pete's one of my heroes. What happened to the battle songs? [View All]

[JanMichael]

Well for one they're still some dedicated folk, or folk like, artists out there. Like Franti, DiFranco, Bragg, Earle, etecetera.

However something happened to our culture called "Marketing" or in other words "Lowest Common Denominator So The Most People Will Buy It Music".

I'll let Bill Hicks take a whack at that...

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage...I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!

Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?"


That's what happened to much of the meaningful songs, they didn't meet the Low expectations of Low Minded Music Marketers.

There are a few exceptions like "Rage Against the Machine", they got huge airplay and still do, but the Brittanies drown most others out.