Do periods of conservatism produce excellent independent music?

Underground - Fishbone, X, REM, Pixies, Replacements, Husker Du, etc.

Yeah I totally 100% agree. :D

Dubya Years - P. Diddy, Nelly, Creed, Titney Spears, Disturbed, etc.

Underground - too soon to say who will have had the most impact

Another problem is that people who like 'underground' music tend to like it all the time anyway.

The reasons why this 'theory' might be true tend not to amount to anything more than 'when times are bad the kids take out their frustrations through music', which is very vague really (especially as the kids aren't notably happier in non-conservative times). If you do think it's true, why do you think it might be?

Does it?? How? Why?

As a huge Minutemen fan, and a lesser Dead Kennedys fan, I'm trying to think of how they would've turned out, lyrically, without Reagan...(though they had plenty of others things to vent about)

non sequiter: this is exactly what my Dad used to say about Playboy ;)

Case study #2043-B: Plastic People of the Universe

i'm not sure i can relate this to reaganomics or thatcherism and the rise of the smiths, though...

The Clinton era was maybe a bit more forgettable (in terms of indie/punk) because the economy was stable and Clinton was pretty moderate.

The Shrub years may yeild some important art because the economy totally sucks, corporate corruption is getting a lot of attention, the whole terrorism -vs- alQaeda / Iraq thing, not to mention the current state of radio & the music industry.

so.. I think the prolific art years come out of society having a lot to bitch about ... whatever it may be.

.. Not if they're used to it.

er...you are not serious are you?

I'll let someone else argue over the semantics of "independant".

Could Ashcroft be the new Joe McCarthy? Who knows...the guy appearantly has problems with metal breasts on a statue, which says quite a bit to me.

hey, don't go insulting sloan there, buddy!

(says the girl whose record release party and upcoming tour are both being funded by canadian social democratic culture for the people)

Quebec has a real culture.

(also the ways this culture is encouraged on a local level are mostly NOT via funding but through enforcement - viz.strict by-laws regarding the size ratio of french-to-english lettering on shop signs regardless of who owns/patronizes them; immigrant corner-store owners being subject to large fines if a customer complains to the gvt that their french isn't good enough)

(haha parizeau blamed the last referendum defeat on "the ethnic vote" - bloody americans)

I'm tempted to suggest the opposite--they should stop holding the rest of the country hostage and set us free--but I'm Canadian after all so I'll keep it polite.

but the anglophones in montreal having been a majority and a minority, what should they say in the face of its opposition.
constellation records?

'constellation speed you black emperor!'
thats what they should say. and then we'd know they had associated with the dirty anglos to the south. particularly guelph, hamilton and toronto. anglos, mind you, emerging from the pools of blood at the heels of mike harris and his insufferable tory agenda.
maybe these boys of ontario will create some funny art, some indie art.

but what about the calgarians who embrace the death clutches of anti-kyoto ralph klein and his dinosaur-blood-loving cabinet?
what is with the calgary scene? uhhhhh..... anybody? help, i honestly don't know. where is the massive expressivist indie scene under the conservatist (ha!) regime?

canada.

summation:

-conservative political years lead to impassioned political indie music.

-lean years lead to peoples pooling their resources to deliver a common desperate message.

politics = politics

(isn't the fucking question loaded or what?)

vive le indifference!

well montreal is cheaper to live than toronto say. apaprently, there used to be some sort of improv scene but because rent is so high that ppl had to move. so they get some funding but prob not enough to accomodate for these things.

(i got this from reading one of the mags there but there was a letter published where the guy said that there is a scene but i didn't see much).

I'm confused, wasn't your position that Canada has no culture of it's own? To say that Canada fails to recognize that it isn't just America implies that it is distinct from America but doesn't realize it. Are you saying there is Canadian culture and that Canadians just don't realize that it exists?

And I don't know where you're getting this "Canada has no culture" thing from anyways. What about Newfoundland folk music like Figgy Duff, or underground Toronto rap like Kardinal Offishal? I don't want to come off like some Canada Council intern posting in his off-hours, but I still think it sucks to just point at a country and say 'they have no culture' and expect everyone to agree with you. I usually like your writing a lot, which is why I was kind of shocked by those posts.

My point is that canadian culture and u.s. culture are pretty much the same and i think that duff music gets funded by the canadian government because they want to pretend there's a seperate culture from the general north american one -- the place where there IS such a seperate culture is Quebec and this isn't to say that this isn't partly "artificial" -- hell all cultures are artificial in some ways -- but that a distinct francophone culture has emerged.

Which isn't to say good "culture" doesn't come from canada -- just that it's not distinctly "canadian".

Dave Q probably can explain this better than I can: Boo Canada

is pretty close to what I think scott, I just was putting it in particularly sharp terms.

I do disagree about the kardinal -> west indian :: jay-z -> african thing because there's a LIVING LINK between the west-african derived population of canada and the black population of the u.s. which for the most part was completely severed from connections to its heritage via middle passage etc.

I mean if someone asked me to name DISTINCT things about U.S. or Francophone or U.K. or French or Mexican or etc. culture I could probably do so -- but I can't name a darn distinct thing about canadian culture.

The fact that Canada defined itself, as Dave Q says, in EXPLICIT opposition to the American revolution makes us distinct, because it means that our country was not shaped by the same forces, at least internally. But here we find ourselves in the 21st century living right next to America, and subject to the same cultural and political forces that a lot of other countries that aren't America are grappling with (ie the fact that we have become dependent on them both economically and, in some ways, culturally). Is it any wonder that people still find it appropriate to think of ourselves in opposition to the U.S.? I'm not saying we are defined by the fact that we aren't Americans - Canadians are distinct because we have been shaped by our former ties to Britain (which explains the free health care, among other things), and our *opposition* to America, which is entirely different.

And frankly, I think the only connection between Canada and Belgium is that both countries have figured out how to make french fries even greasier and bad for your health.

-Denis Seguin, Shift Magazine