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Julian cancels Belfast show - extremely disappointing reason given
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Dec 27, 2013, 10:55
Re: Julian cancels Belfast show - extremely disappointing reason given
Dec 27, 2013, 09:47
Astralcat wrote:
He's still capable of great music, but as for real action and sticking it to the man, I raise my hat to Pussy Riot.


In terms of rallying an audience Cope was on a loser as soon as he dropped the Keats in Leather Trouser thing. There is no audience for this music except among those of us fascinated by Cope's biography and his personal project. To anyone with 20 Cope records it might be an interesting detour on his way to something else. As a rallying point it fails spectacularly.

There was a reason that Lenin both loved and hated music. Music as most of us know and love it most often speaks to the inexpressible not the literal. It's not about the group it's about where you stand in relation to everyone and everything else. Especially as teenagers when we fall in love with it for the first time. It's a balm. It's consolation. It's also a consumer product and it's cultural capital.

Strikes me that this why the music you hear played around protests these days is largely instrumental, unmediated, impersonal, interchangeable and, on the face of it, authorless. Anything else would be besides the point these days so Cope was going to fail to connect regardless of how good the records might have been. We've come a long way from early Dylan, from Altamont and from John & Yoko starting a revolution from their hotel bed. We all know now that songwriters are solipsists and narcissists. They can't lead a revolt they can only stand on the sidelines and be very very subjective about it.
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