Threat

Hmm...well-phrased question. I suppose the safeness or lack thereof isn't so much in any music anywhere as it is how you interpret it. Reader-response theory writ large!

Well this is kind of what I think too - the rebellious potential lies in the response to the music not the music being listened to. In which case Limp Bizkit is as potentially rebellious as anything else and there's no "pseudo" about it. But I'd like to hear what some other people think.

Difficult to get threatened by say Limp Bizkit as there rebellion is quite narrow. 'I wanna wear black, I wanna stay up late, I wanna play my music loud etc'. Concerns which the baby boomer generation i.e their parents dealt with 30+ years ago. The gap in attitude between 20 year olds and 50 year old is a great deal smaller than say 30 years ago.

I don't think music can be unsafe, but the political or moral strictures associated with a movement can be. E.g If punk had taken a right turn and become fully associated with the fascist movement then that may have had devastating consequences for the generation which followed on. Conservatives could argue that the baby boomer generation hastened the decline in respect for 'family values' i.e respect for the church, establishment, monarchy etc and that 60's rock was a prime influence in that.

Unsafe music is John Cale's. "Fear", "Helen of Troy", that is unsafe music. The rest is just shouting for thugs. (I admit my analysis here is quite simplistic.)

I think the thing that gets mocked isn't so much the packaging of the rebellion itself but the sense that the rebellion is an incoherent or facile one.

By which I mean something like this: if you're a middle-class suburban white kid in a middle-class suburban white neighborhood in the middle of Iowa or Tennessee -- the kind of neighborhood that city people cringe at, where people earnestly like "lite rock" or Christian country and have crew cuts and whatever other true-ish stereotypes you want to pin on them -- these bands really are going to seem rebellious. (Another huge part of this is that you're going to be 15 and live in a town without a non-corporate record store, and probably have little to no concept of the existence of actually threatening music in the past -- you're going to be viewing music largely as varying polarities between (a) music adults listen to, (b) pop and hip-hop, and (c) these bands we're talking about.) It's not too hard to understand how this sort of thing would appeal to small-town, sort of limited-scope kids of two sorts: those who are actually somewhat delinquent and "rebellious" (albeit in a smoking-in- the-boys-room kind of way), and, in maybe marginally less provincial towns, people like popular high school football players with expensive SUVs who listen to Slipknot while lifting weights together. (I don't know how this imagery will translate to the UK, but I guarantee you it's very spot-on.) I mean, this is what makes nu-metal such a brilliant genre, marketing-wise -- it combines the two main fronts of millenial teenage tough-guy rebellion, those being (a) hip-hop thuggery and (b) earnest metalhead misanthropy.

Anyway, my point, after all of this, is that this sort of initial rebellion is bound, at any point in time, to seem positively juvenile to any non-teenaged person in a decently-sized city who is concerned with real issues beyond the eternal strivings of teenagers to feel big and intense. [Corrollary to this, by the way: Sept. 11th will probably have a devastating effect on this genre. It could work to the genre's advantage, but I don't think many in the genre are smart enough to know how to use it that way -- we'll see.] But in any case -- to a more "worldly" (bad term, but let's go with it) person like I'm describing above, the fervent feelings of empowerment and independence a 14-year-old derives from this band is going to seem about like a 9-year-old getting all excited about being allowed to stay up till 10:30 and eat two bowls of ice cream.

What the above doesn't explain, though, and what I find interesting, is the fact that it seems like more and more kids are looking for music that makes them feel that way. The only explanation I can offer for this is the sort of obvious influential one -- just as these bands draw their cues from the hard end of hip- hop and the sludgy end of early-90s alt-rock, I think the sudden burst of visibility both of those styles had in the past 10 years sort of turned a lot of kids on to that feel, that sonic imagery. I think it's also important to note that in the U.S., at least, there is no kind of simple political radicalism available to kids, except for ultra-reactionary conservatism of the Klan / Neo-Nazi sort (this is one of few "political" positions comprehendable to a teenager that could manage to draw the disapproval of pretty much our entire society; while not a whole lot of kids go there, I think a lot of the bitching about "political correctness" we get is in fact part of the same tendency). So we're left with kids who can't package their normal teenage disaffection into anything, really -- not even irony, which was already absorbed by their elders -- apart from the simple desire to do and see crazy shit. (I think I've argued before that this same tendency -- the irony part in particular -- must have something to do with the success of Tom Green or Jackass or reality television in lots of senses).

This post is getting too long, so I'll cut the rest. But Tom -- very, very good questions lately.

Oh, I did mean to (a) apologize for the sweeping generalizations up there, (b) point out that the main previous type of "threatening" music I'm referring to is late-80s industrial, which is pretty sonically similar to nu-metal but you imagine nu-metal fans probably aren't very familiar with, (c) point out that when I talk about political radicalism not being easily packaged, I'm referring to the fact that far-left politics as of right now requires a lot of information and confidence in one's assessment of policy to really dig into, and (d) point out that I'm not sure how rebellious a good portion of nu-metal listeners really think they're being (a lot of them, I'd say, are listening to this in a manner not so different from a kid listening to Van Halen in 1983). And also apologize again for going on so long.

Why do "radical" college types always listen to indie rock or the Dead Kennedys or the Clash or ponytail "funk"? Talk about packaged rebellion! Slipknot wears masks and play loud and you can mosh (or lift weights) to them. Like you say, I doubt the Slipknot 2001 listening context is any different than Kiss 1977, Van Halen 1983, Nirvana 1991, or probably the most illustrative example, Rage Against the Machine 1997. I'm guessing most of the people who bought "Evil Empire" can't understand why we haven't nuked Afghanistan yet. If you want a political analogy, rock music is anti-cerebral, pitchfork populism. It rebels against guilt, if anything. What 15 year old wants to feel responsible for their actions?

The fact that nu-metal is so offensive to so many people, evidenced on this board, suggests that it probably is really rebelling against something.

Listening to Bon Jovi actually was a really rebellious act in my house in 1988. (I'm sure Van Halen would have been too.)

Sure, left-wing radicalism is easily packaged. Ever heard of Rage Against the Machine? Or a lot of punk/indie culture? If anything though, at least in Canada, packaged left-wing radicalism is much less offensive to many authority figures (not that it should be more offensive than packaged right-wing radicalism).

Kris --

As far as the U.S. goes, the college types you speak of really aren't aiming at rebellion -- except for rebellion against rebellion, as typified by, say, the sort of collegiate frat guys who'd be listening to nu-metal. Listening to the Dead Kennedys is, I think, trying to tap into a tradition -- a "rebellious" one, but a tradition nonetheless. Same goes for listening to indie, which is intended to feel intelligent or thoughtful more so than rebellious. And same goes triple for listening to 20th-century classical or abstract electronica or fringish post-rock: it's only rebellious insofar as wanting to feel like an intellectual is rebellious. (Which it sometimes is, sadly.)

Also of note is the fact that the most avant-garde you can get in a big-city American college these days is to play in a bluegrass band.

I think the reason most people find it pseudo is because they really aren't rebelling against much of anything. I think someone else said it first here, but it's rather ironic that it's a bunch of thugs jumping around playing this heavy rock while claiming that they are victims.

Absolutely no one is keeping them down, unlike, say, rap, punk, yada yada, where at least one could make the case that they are either minorities or marginalised people--in these cases, the kids are the EXACT status quo. So they feel totally uncool, because, well, as you all know, teenagedom is about rebellion! And what are you going to rebel against? Your Bronco not being a Range Rover? The fact that dad doesn't allow you to have keg parties? They're not in the city, they don't see poverty--it's not guilt, it's complete boredom.

So in that sense, the attitudes they are borrowing from other, more politically oriented traditions, to complain about their state of being is what is seen as suspicious and a bit insulting to those who actually had problems.

So Crass is "realer" than Korn based on a "my problems are bigger than your problems" dick game? Come on. It's RIDICULOUS to think that rich kids driving Suburbans don't have anything real to complain about.

I seriously don't think it's the same sort of things to complain about. I dunno--maybe it's my non-relativist slant, but I think, if you are aware that there are greater tragedies around, and then you still take waaay too seriously your lesser tragedies (and I mean lesser by a wide degree)--then either you are a selfish little git or you're completely incapable of compassion. Actually, I guess that's about the same thing.

But more to the point, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being angry about nothing, I suppose all kinds of music do that, but there's never been a time when that kind of anger has been appropriated by a group of people who have so little to be angry about in the general scheme of things. I mean, they ARE the man-- it's kind of ironic and a little silly considering how much vitrolic they spew and how seriously they take themselves. And I still think it's the appropriation of other genres that historically have had a least a little more relevance. That's the main stickler.

What I don't get is how come Suicidal Tendencies never got the props they deserve for doing what these bands now are doing, but better-- and years ahead. And how come Korn and Limp Bizkit's lead singers yelp so much? It's so disconcerting when their voices are higher than helium.

I'm hardly a big fan of nu-metal, but I think when it comes down to the accusation of "packaged rebellion" it's nearly impossible to separate the attack on the music and the attack on the generation that is listening to it. The two main assumptions pertaining to the latter are:

1) the baby boomer generation was the real revolutionary generation, standing up for peace and love etc. Recent youth fights - identity politics, anti-globalisation - are overly theoretical and fractured or misguided and ill-informed, while at the same time being a step back from the pioneering achievements of the sixties. (for punks looking back replace peace and love with anti-establishment insurrection).

2) Kids today are not only apathetic and lazy, but they're also more thoroughly enthralled to the powers of the marketing machine (which we run). Our music was authentic and established a real link between artist and audience through live festivals or some equivalent display of freedom. But today's kids can't handle a concert that isn't mediated through corporate sponsorship (which we organise), so it doesn't occur to them to ask whether their music is "authentic" or "truthful", let alone whether its truths are the right ones.

These assumptions are the starting point and not the conclusion of any attack on nu-metal or an equivalent genre, propped up by the tendency for writers/opiners to compare the worst or most inconsequential of today with the best and most influential of yesterday. I actually think it's indisputable that nu-metal is a rebellion of some sort, if only because many would consider it "dangerous". The issue is whether it's the right rebellion - a question that I think is valid, although currently dominated by a kneejerk generationalism.

I'm not sure the assumptions are necessarily true. I'm not sure that just because we think that nu-metal is suspect, we think that the original rebellion wasn't. Young, uninformed people have always existed--some do good because of their naivete, some do damage. I don't think that has anything to do with the cynicism that pervades the nu-metal scene.

I'm pretty much smack in the generation of people who are either making this music or listening to it, and there is nothing rebellious about a band that appears on the same stage with Britney Spears and N*Sync. I mean, what's controversial about them? Slayer has had more "dangerous" anecdotes than the entire rapmetal contingent altogether. Bob Marley was controversial, Public Enemy, even Willie Nelson is more controversial than Fred Durst. They're prepackaged in a way designed to elicit the most superficial of responses.

I think it's a kneejerk, albeit egalitarian, reaction to assume that to denigrate nu-metal is some "we're too old to understand this" act perpetrated by the boomers. I mean, maybe it is for those of us who qualify for that status, but for the rest of us, me included, who are younger than Gen-X and still don't think this is rebellion, it's a bit presumptuous to suggest that it's always some sort of contrarian nostalgia.

It's a fact that my generation has a much shorter attention span, that we engage more in soundbites--it's the way we were brought up, the amount of information that we had available that no other generation had. As a result, we can assimilate a whole lotta information at once, we're more comfortable with shifting identities and multitasking, but it also means that we are suspectible to ideas that sound righteous but are in fact just easy to digest.

The biggest assumption here is that nu-metal in some way = rebellion. Having spent the past 5 or so years hanging around with metallers of the nu persuasion (I are anthropologist) the idea of rebellion really doesn't come into it. It's simply a loud and (musically) agressive soundtrack to headbanging and getting pissed. The metallers I know have no coherent political stance, they don't have any real problems (bar one), they're at college/university or have decent jobs, most have girlfriends etc etc. For them it appears to be rather warped party music for them to bop around to and vent any remaining teenage angst they may have. They have no intentions of kicking against 'the man', they don't even know who he is. The only people they hate are the 'trendies', or whatever the local slang for them is where you are. That's it, sorry. But! That doesn't mean that you can't get some idea of the type or person who like metal. Chadwell Heath, where this bunch in question live, is a rather lower-middle-class suburb in east London, populated mostly by people whose parents earned enough to move out of the inner city a generation or two ago. There's not much crime and no (visible) poverty, and many a nice park to go and wander through. The LMCness of the area is important, I feel, when it comes to art - it seems to have the conservative trappings of the stereotypes, and this affects the metallers especially. Oh yes. Many a metaller will heap praise upon a band simply because of the perceived technical quality (always a bad word) of the musicians, or if they know nothing of musical technique then the lyrics are simple and obvious enough to have their meaning quickly deduced, and could certainly never be considered 'arty-farty'. It is this insistence on quality that I am particularly scornful of - there's no room for ambiguity, ambition beyond making money, any appreciation of the simple magic of music. Believe me, I have on many an occasion tried to convince someone that Joy Division cannot be dismissed simply because of their amateur musicianship. Grr.
The real dealers in 'packaged rebellion' as far as I can see are/were the Manic Street Preachers, right down to their convenient right-on quotes. But it's 3am and I can't argue that right now, and I apologise if any reasoning in that above post is a bit foggy. *YAWN*

I just think that the music sucks. I really couldn't care less whether or not it's generally rebellious (though I tend to think it isn't, unless being an obnoxious and ignorant asshole is equal to being rebellious these days).

For the record, Kris's post had not appeared on the page when I typed mine.

Nitsuh, I think you're playing games. A band with explicitly anti- Establishment lyrics and slogans is appealing to a concept of political rebellion, whether or not they're part of any rebellious tradition (metal's a tradition too). If you asked the kids who wore DK or Crass patches at my school whether they thought DK or Crass was rebellious and unsafe, I'm sure they would have said yes. Hell, I would have probably told you that Crass or Fugazi were rebellious, much more genuinely so than Marilyn Manson or something.

DG - In some ways I reckon a music's rebellious quality is dependent as much on the ideas of people who don't like the music as those who do. We all probably know lots of rebellious music and hence can find the entire concept of rebellion passe unless the artist really is suffering for their art (which is a dodgy position IMHO), but the fact remains that LB piss a lot of people off - both music snobs and, well, the fan's neighbours. And I know of a lot of people my age who listen to LB just to piss of other people, which is a rebellion of sorts.

Mickey - you're right, and the opening of my last para. was too vehement. But I still think my point stands because the music media have been instrumental in shaping this issue, and have frequently used it to justify a pessimism regarding today's youth. Your own comments on our generation's susceptibility might indicate how difficult it is to resist making some sort of generalised assessment of younger people when discussing the issue.

I dunno, Sundar. I guess I didn't really have an argument there apart from my personal impression. It may have something to do with the idea of listening to DK today as opposed to listening to, say, Anti-Flag today, the latter of which would strike me more as a inclination toward rebellion than the former. Maybe my underlying assumption here is that if you're listening to something 20 years old, it's probably not the rebellious aspect that's interesting you, since rebellion tends to have a short shelf life? But you're right -- that's possibly just me and the people around me, and not applicable at large. (Most DK listeners I've known have been listening in a historical / musicological sense, is what I suppose I'm saying -- not taking the rebellion seriously except in a laughing, "I can't believe they put a penis poster in it!" kind of way.)

As for DK in their own time, I wouldn't argue that they didn't have plenty of pointless rebellion going on as well -- the digs at Jerry Brown in "California Uber Alles" always bugged the living crap out of me, considering Brown was about as close to Jello's politics as any electable politician was ever going to get. But then can you imagine a nu-metal band namechecking a governor in song? Degrees, I guess.

I want to stress that I'm not saying nu-metal isn't actually rebellious and genuinely so to many. I think I'm saying that rebellion as a concept is quite relative to your own placement in life, and the sort of rebellion nu-metal offers is, well, sort of juvenile -- and I don't mean that word in the derogatory sense, but just the sense that it's a kind of rebellion most people are pretty much done with by the time they turn 19 or 20. That doesn't make it any less important to its listeners, but it is a perfect set-up for a lot of condescending sneering.

Are we using "threatening" and "rebellious" as synonyms? Seems to me that they don't necessarily mean the same thing.

I'm perhaps going to betray my age, but I can't help but ask: Was music ever threatening, and if so, how? I know that everyone from Elvis to Johnny Rotten was at one point considered by someone to be threatening, but I don't really get how...

I can sort of answer my own question, but I'm not sure I'm fulling grasping the idea of music as threat, perhaps because I've never felt personally threatened by music. Here are the ways that some people might find a particular kind of music threatening.

1) Physical presence of performer. I'm thinking of the old broadcasts of Elvis Presley, cut off at the hips to censor the sexual/threatening manner of his dancing. Also, race probably comes into play here. The very fact that a performer is black, for example, can be considered by some people to be threatening. Also, the aforementioned fascist imagery used by early punks could be seen as sort of threatening (though it could also just be seen as stupid).

2) Lyrics. This is, I think, where the confusion of threatening = rebellious is coming from. Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, Eminem, NWA, DK, Skrewdriver, etc. etc. all have lyrics that are quite blatantly opposed to certain mainstream values, and can thus be seen as a threat to said values.

Neither of the above are actually about the music, though, but rather something (image, idea) that accompanies the music. With regards to the music itself...

1) Tone. I'm thinking of something in the music itself that has a direct reference to social reality. Music that can be creepy, angry, frightening. I'm thinking of Ice Cube's voice, which is capable of so many subtle shades of anger. Maybe Peter Murphy, whose howling sounds like something out of a b-grade horror flick. P-Orridge also sounds pretty damn scary if you take him seriously enough. Of course, with the right ammount of distancing, it all sounds about as threatening as "I Put a Spell on You" by Screamin Jay - ie, not at all.

2) Avant-gardism. If you expect music to sound a certain way, to follow a certain structure, a deviation from that pattern can be surprising. Maybe threatening.

I guess my problem here is that I don't find any of this personally threatening, and somehow doubt that any of you do. Maybe a better question would be - what have you personally found to be threatening about music, and can any current form of music ever hold that same threatening quality for you again?

Art isn't dangerous unless it questions the entire concept of 'values' itself. Some start off doing this, but too often people succumb to having to piss in the gene pool, and justify their new toothless, accomodating stance to the compassionate insights stemming from having a mosquito-like brood to take care of. Even queers want mainstream families nowadays! Art and humanity must be irreconciliable opposites.

I think why nu-metal is threatening to a certain type of listener is related to context of situation: the fact that nu-metal's popularity can be seen as culturally/ musically analogous to the rise of reactionary right, and a racialising and sexualising of the political discourse. Although perhaps my coupling of the two is far more pronounced from an Australian perspective, given that the first conservative victory after 13 years of Labor rule (in 1996) equated to the end of 'political correctness' (according to the PM at the time), and was accompanied soon after by the appearence of nu-metal on radio.

I think that the subtextual assumptive is that music should be at least tacitly 'of the cultural left', and nu-metal, if not actively scornful of the left's orthodoxies, is at least ambivalent (cf the Woodstock '99 controversy, which was, imho, about more than generationalism). Whether all this is effects theory blah, I don't know...