How Did The Protest Song Get From Bob Dylan To Girls Aloud?
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Artist:
Is this the face of protest music?
People around me have been surprised to learn that I'm currently digging the new Girls Aloud album, not suspecting they would be within my horizon. But as you well know, man does not live by death metal alone. Sometimes he needs a beverage.
I've always been a sucker for good creative production and, more specifically, the thought that too much is never quite enough. Not necessarily the Phil Spector school of two bass players and walls of echo, though that is of course sublime; the demented dub of Joe Gibbs is equally successful at making the Jonh juices flow. It's a big part of what fuels my love for pop. Successful pop music always depends on superior knob twiddling, even when the instrumentation is quite sparse. Where would Roy Orbison be without the superb sheen infusing his aural Cinerama?
The best pop is a sonic collusion between performer and producer; one artist to conjure an impossible world of river deep drama and mountain high exhilaration, the other to make it sound like a real place. Or as Girls Aloud put it, swathed in a downy duvet of beat-pumped lushness:
And in my dreams it feels like we are 40 stories tall,
And when you're around, ooh, we're untouchable.
Do the songwriters put in the "ooh", or do pop queens instinctively know it's the most important word in the lyric?
One of the amusingly Cinderella aspects of pop music is that a few years of success can make any old slapper look like they've been polished by a Tiffany jeweller. One of the charms of Girls Aloud is that while they now have a famous footballer in bed, a seven digit income and a talent for caning that's crowned them goddess of the gossip sheets, they still look like they're perming pensioners at The Beauty Spot in Scunthorpe, dreaming of life after Simon Cowell. They're not the people you would look to for an updating of the protest song.
Actually, it's the protest song of betterment, the ones that chide you to stop being a dummy and get with the world spinning by. First Bob finger-wagged at us, "there's something happening but you don't know what it is". Then court jester George Clinton told us "free your mind and your ass will follow". Now the Girls are prodding us with the lyrical pointy stick, "Revolution in the head don't count for nothing, you got to move that ass". Clinton Lite I know, but still not what you expect to hear from a frothy pop group. Appropriate to our times, its message comes in the language of X-Men and dark knights:
You ain't no sidekick
Now get your bike and ride it
Helpfully adding, like some self-improvement course:
Ooh, keep on climbing
Reach the top and sign it
Life goes by quick
So don't you let that time tick
There's that "ooh" again.
How did we get here? The jazz singer George Melly wrote a perceptive book called Revolt Into Style, charting how revolutionary art movements end up as stylistic surfaces of their former selves. While Woody Guthrie once took passionate aim down the fretboard of his machine that killed fascists, I wonder whether producers Xenomania didn't write these lyrics mainly because they're fans of Parliament's dense production, since they drive their declarations with not just a cunningly strummed acoustic but lovingly concocted swooshes, whooshes, claps and beatlets in a dense sonic vision of IMAX-rich detail. No wonder I like it.
Neil Young recorded Living With War because he gave up waiting for the younger generations to write anti-war and -Bush songs. As the world continues to bring hardship and harshness to us, strikes, sit-ins and street demonstrations are returning. It will be interesting to see whether the voice of agitpop follows the protesters onto the streets.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (16)
Lets see.. remind me of a Singer version of Bond, The Bangles, and the Ting Tings... why I don't know, and a bit of Destiny's Child too. Thanks for sharing.
Hey, I LOVE PROTEST.......lol. Excellent analysis. Gil-Scot Heron where are you? You didn't mention the claps. Well when one has no character, then a style will suffice......Isn't that Baudelaire or Camus? Hey hey hey, oh oh oh, kinda catchy though for the hormonal crowd....you gotta, you gotta, you gotta.....move that ass......wow, already dancing 2........thanks, love the ominous Korg sampling also, with the nice Esteban classical bravado at the end
If any record could be described as a pastry, it's this. And not just any pastry, but one from Laduree in Paris. You have to stand in awe of the craftsmanship here and lament that music this unashamedly pop has fallen so far out of fashion (in the States, anyway). Once in a while you just find yourself ensnared by something you know you shouldn't enjoy nearly as much as you do....ABBA's "SOS," several of the early Britney collaborations with Max Martin. Even (oh, God, I'm about to say it and I will never live it down) Taylor Swift's "Love Story." In my defense, not even that daughter of death metal, Miss Ivylander, can resist "Love Story" 's siren call.
I am now a broken man....
Oh, and to answer your original question, via Dion....
I am not sure protesters will be the ones following these girls into the streets
Kori - A Singer version of Bond? You must be referring to the visual "appeal". It seems to be a British fetish to dress women in underwear and pretend it's art.
Diogenes - Oh these women have character, for usually the wrong reasons (an assault charge or two). It's just left outside the studio door.
Ivy - The crafsmanship is extraordinary - a mille feulle of sound. Abba gets me for the same reason. Dion you say? Once again you show your erudition.
"Abraham, Martin and John" is the bridge between "The Wanderer" and "Blowin' In The Wind."
Rawk, I would follow these girls anywhere, but preferably into the pub....
Yay, pop music. I just realized the reason I missed so many good rock bands in the 90s is because I was listening to Savage Garden :)
I'd like to know what is up with the Brits and Girls Aloud. It's baffling. Answer to me, Jonh! Look at the blinding light and give me an answer!
If Girls Aloud could do this, I would be impressed..(...give it a minute....)
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I'm sorry, Jonh. I read the last line of your post as "follows the protesters onto the sheets." I think the fluffly pix of the Girls colored my read.
I hear ya. We can get all high and mighty about who we think is appropriate to be the vehicle for protest songs, but Protest come in an endless variety of shapes, sizes and flavours. If the Girls want to get you to take action, good on them.
The Ross Sisters appear to be superb protesters. I wonder if there are any grand daughters?
In fact, Dabeef, I am carrying a massive banner for them right now!
Well, the track smokes. It sounds a bit like they're puttin' a ring on it, Beyonce-stylee, but that ain't bad. Cheers to the production team. I'd call it Pure Pop for Wow People, and yes, Jonh, consider me on board wit' da Girls. (I'm sure I saw the one on the left workin' a counter at Marks & Sparks...)
Welcome aboard, me hearty. Yes, they do look like they should have starring roles in "Don't You Want Me" (I was working as a waitress...) but that's part of the charm, nes't pas?
Absolument.