u2popmofo said:
I think TOO MANY artists think they have to try to write songs of this nature, and it just becomes cliche and makes the songs sound extremely dated/idiotic a few years down the road.
I agree with you, u2popmofo. I tend not to listen to much music that is overtly sociopolitical in content, as I simply find much of it cumbersome and, well, just plain bad. Certainly there have been and still are songs that are extremely good and extremely overtly political, but I don't listen to music to get my fill of political or social awareness.
And I think that if there is a single brain cell amongst all the pretty pop princes and princesses, they are doing good. That goes for most of the top of the chart acts right now. That's not really condusive for serious issues.
I was just reading an interview with Steve Kilbey today and the very subject came up. Here's a clip from the interview (HS is the inteviewer; SK is, well...kinda obvious, isn't it?):
<< HS: That makes sense, because of the timeliness of some of the lyrics. Sometimes you do make very specific cultural or political references that are definitely current in your songs --
SK: "Shock and awe", you mean.
HS: Exactly. That line in particular I thought was --
SK: I was tricked into that! I don't read the paper, I don't listen to the news, and when I was doing this preacher thing, John said to me "Why don't you throw in 'shock and awe'?" and I naively hadn't heard that phrase before. I thought "Oh, that's a good kind of Biblical thing", and I was surprised a little later on when the phrase was so in-vogue, and everyone was running around saying it.
HS: If you had known before, would you have still used it?
SK: Nah, I probably wouldn't have used it if I'd known.
HS: Why?
SK: Because it is current. Current is good when it's current, but the moment it isn't current, it's unnecessarily pinned down; you've pinned an aspect of it down, when you could have had the whole thing up there and floating forever. >>>
(if you want to read the whole thing it is from
Hybrid Magazine. Beware, it's a huge interview, they talked for two hours! Plus it has my current favourite photo of SK, and there should soon be some examples of his artwork up too. In addition to being a huge fan of his music, I'm an avid fan of SK's paintings.)
Another comment from SK I remember reading or hearing was that he didn't like to be told what to think about issues, and he didn't think the people who liked his music did either. You know, I really appreciate that. Now, I know some of his social/political views from interviews etc. (and I am interested to know them, and generally agree with them), but I am so glad he doesn't beat me over the head with those views in his songs.