music
Music of 2009
For those of you with Spotify installed on your computers (pretty nifty if you can cope with the targetted ads), here's a playlist of some of the best music of 2009:
http://open.spotify.com/user/skumbot/playlist/6AiYIt4Kw7T4MAfl4e8aOU
Alternatively, if you'd rather look for the albums online, here's my picks of the year:
Subway - Subway
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Top ten tracks of 2009
libcom.org picks out our best music of 2009.
10. The XX - Crystalised
Top ten music videos of 2009
libcom.org pick out their best music videos of 2009.
In no particular order:
Depeche Mode - Wrong
The Basic Alternative Education of a Chinese Punk
Translation of an autobiographical essay by Tang Shui'en, mainland Chinese anarchist musician and activist, recounting his path from childhood in 1980s rural China to participation in Wuhan's pioneering punk scene since the late 1990s, interaction with overseas anarchists and other radicals, and experimentation with independent media and an autonomous youth center. Written in early 2009 for a forum on social space among the generation of Chinese mainlanders born in the 1980s, organized by the Shao Foundation. Original Chinese text here.
For those who are of the common masses, how many of us can say we are conscious of the forces of domination that push us to society’s margins? Apart from a small minority, most people—even if at every moment they feel discomfort—are unable to determine the roots of this pain. The word “marginal” itself is so abstract that it can only serve as a code of recondite academia and mass media.
Hong Kong: Where anarchists and blackbirds sing about freedom
Brief report on anarchist elements in the Hong Kong activist scene ca. 2009, focusing on Lenny Guo of the band Blackbird, veteran of the 70s Collective.
Also deals with HK independent media, the Social Movement Resource Centre, and the 2005 WTO protests. By Norman Nawrocki of Rhythm Activism. Published in Fifth Estate #381 (2009). Posted here with permission. Photos in [url=http://libcom.org/files/Nawrocki:%20HK%20anarchist%20scene%20(2009).pdf]PDF[/url].
Acid comment: the moral panic about acid house parties - The Red Menace
Article looking at the media hysteria surrounding the Acid House music subculture of the late 1980s.
In the last couple of months the ‘acid house’ scene has eclipsed even "lager louts" and football hooligans as the media’s favourite Threat to Civilisation As We Know It. From all the talk about "Crazed Acid House Mobs" and "Drugged Disco Parties", it would seem that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are about to descend on humanity dressed in bandanas and Smiley tee-shirts.
Muzak to my ears - canned music and class struggle
Public space and muzak as policing.
Muzak to my ears
"If you want more Mozart in your life, start loitering."
The End Of Music As We Know It
Brief leaflet from the 1980s.
"There isn't much difference between rock 'n' roll and teaching, mind you. It's the same job. You're entertaining delinquents for an hour."
- Sting, ex-teacher.
When The Police disguise themselves as pleasurable, and are accepted as such, then the State's overt cops in blue or in the classroom can retreat into the background.
Class struggle and hip-hop: interview with Comrade Malone, 2009
Hip-hop has seen artists with social and political awareness. Rarely, however, has there been hip-hop fused with unashamedly class struggle, libertarian politics. 22-year-old Comrade Malone attempts to buck that trend with his album The Spontaneous Revolt LP.
Ed Goddard from libcom.org caught up with him to talk about life and politics in music.
Tell us a bit about your life growing up and how you got into politics.
Reservoir of poses - Gregor Jamroski
This article first appeared in the late 1980’s in an obscure, apparently one-off, magazine called Hopeless Tasks which emerged from Seattle, USA. It’s a neatly stated situationist-influenced critique of pop culture recuperation, bands as entertainment commodities and the weaknesses of punk ‘radicality’.
Source; endangeredphoenix.com
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