Food for thought, Cassy.
There are lots of protest and folksingers in the NW area, esp.
between Seattle and SF.
I think it's true that there has been a saturation of mindless pop
in the past few years, Britney, all the boy bands, etc. The last
time the record companies went overboard feeding us the pap
of all those dreadful hair bands of the '80's, the grunge movement
erupted. My prediction is that the combination of so much
meaningless music and the repressive policies that will be
instituted by George II will result in a similar backlash. The
little boppers that grew up on pap will want something a little
more real.
I've been reading an interesting book by Alex Constantine
called "The Covert War Against Rock", which tries, at times
successfully, to link the deaths of rock stars to government
conspiracies; cointelpro, etc. It's not that farfetched; they
killed MLK, and there have been millions of pages liberated by
the FOIA that prove that the FBI kept files on the spokespeople
of the '60's generation. Joan Baez was boycotted from radio
and TV. When she advocated resisting Vietnam on her
appearance on the Smothers Brothers Show it was edited
out before broadcast, and the Bros show was itself cancelled
soon after for being too edgy.
Trying to sell bubblegum to the masses is nothing new.
The Partridge Family, Monkees, etc were successful attempts
to gut rock of it's meaning and sell it to kids.
One hopeful sign is that easily accessable professional recording
tools, coupled with internet distribution will dilute the
monopoly that the majors have had on the music biz.
RR
