John Maus – Kapitalismens magt
Du har sikkert læst og hørt en del til John Maus, Ariel Pinks nærmeste levende sjælekammerat, som er aktuel med “We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves” på Upset The Rhytm. Maus og Pink startede begge i art- og eksperimental-miljøer, før de skiftede og begyndte at lave, hvad de kalder, popmusik. Synth pop auteur tunes in to the retrospective spirit of the age while resisting the temptation of easy-access nostalgia trips.
Maus er blevet disskeret 100-vis af gange før, så her er det skæve blik på hans person. Det er tilladt at danne sin egen mening og høre musikken (i bunden), mens man læser. Er det ikke okay?
x. The title is from Alain Badiou’s “Fifteen Theses On Contemporary Art”, which really cast a spell, when I was younger. I think the general idea is that in a situation where everything is encouraged and permitted, one of the possible ways of overcoming that is by struggling to do something else than it. Struggling to censor oneself, as opposed to joining in with the praise, going with the flow.
x. Every musical moment is almost entirely reducible to the discursive regime and the mechanisms of power. Pop music is how it is because our master today is commercial capitalism. Just as bourgeois aristocratic court music was what it was because it was part of pleasing the aristocracy.
x. The only workable name for the musical truth procedure that begins with Elvis Presley, and continues through the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, et al.1, is “punk rock.” (fra Theses on Punk Rock)
1 Subjects to this musical truth include: Madonna, Bob Dylan, Cabaret Voltaire, The Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Tangerine Dream, James Brown, The Pink Floyd, The Supremes, Amon Düül II, Bob Marley, Burzum, Mahmud Ahmed, The Bee Gees, Technotronic, Grateful Dead, Duran Duran, The Beach Boys, Hall and Oates, Bon Jovi, Panda Bear, Govinda, Harry Merry, The Human League, Black Flag, Merle Haggard, Ariel Pink, Metallica, R. Stevie Moore, etc. It includes moments, not only from record albums, but also from television programs and commercials, video games, unrecorded performances, jingles, “the head,” etc.
x. “If we want to enter a conversation with those pieces and those works, we have to do it with own objective historical moment, using the vernacular, which… as far as I can tell… is pop music.” (totalt sindssygt)
“Hey Moon” (2011)
“Do Your Best” (2007)
