I always felt that something wasn't quite right about the US, and that she was a bit too conservative of a nation in terms of politics , but I don't think I quite understood just how much America's political conservatism carried over to her actual "ground level culture", until I learned italian and started studying and listening to italian music.
I have tried to write about this before, but I'm going to write about it again, in an effort to prove to my best friend Rebecca, just why America does not have a "liberal bias" in its media-- but actually the exact opposite. Indeed..if this country is biased and in favor of anything, it's definitry not liberalism. It's conservatism. And as I say, this bias does not just sit and dwell in the political realm. It travels to literally all the spheres of our culture. The US government is regularly listed as the most conservative government currently going in the developed world. If my reader thinks that this extremist conservatism does not carry over to the culture on the ground, however, I don't blame them. Why? Because, like I said, until I learned italian and became engulfed in Italian culture and then also a bit of French and even modern German culture, I really just couldn't see it either. I only saw it afterwards ...after intensely and passionately listening to pretty much nothing about Italian singers and musicians...for years. Not old ones from the 30s . Not opera singers. New singers. Italian pop artists from the 60s and today, Italian female stars, and rappers etc.
Every time I tell my Italian story, or try to write it, I of course always have to return to one name and one artist repeatedly: His name was Fabrizio DeAndre. In Italy, he is basically seen in the same light that we see Bob Dylan: he came to prominence in the 60s, he had ties to the Italian counter culture movements of the time, he sang songs of peace and love, and he also was a strident advocate of Italy's left wing. This is really all the same stuff you'll hear many people say about Bob Dylan too, when you're in the US...and in fact, my love for Dylsn was what made the Sicilian girl who introduced me to DeAndre, tell me about him in the first place. "He's basically our version." the Sicilian said, "you'll love him! Plus he writes in a rather complex Italian, so you'll enjoy trying to figure out ...it'll be good for learning..."
Here, alas, was the big shocker that I quickly came to discover about Fabrizio, that I was never expecting: Not only was Fabrizio Deandre just as wildly entertaining as Dylan had always been for me, and just as fascinating to study, just as Dylan had been, but there was something else even stranger about him, which I noticed immediately: Fabrizio DeAndres music , his lyrics, and the philosophy he presented through them -- from the 1960s to his premature death in the late 1990s-- was actually considerably more liberal, than literally anything Bob Dylan had ever, in his life, released.
At first, this might not sound like much of a big deal to a reader, but the reason it is a big deal -- especially when it comes to discussing American pop culture -- is because Bob Dylan is really one of the biggest liberal "explosions" America has ever supposedly had...and yet, the truth of it is, is that Bob Dylan wasn't really even that liberal, in the end, once you start to put him up against these European artists-- especially the ones from North Italy and France . Many modern readers, for example, might think that an artist as old as Dylan is completely irrelevant to everything that is going on now- but this presumed irrelevancy is actually all apart of the problem American culture has with liberals: there is no liberal history, it is forever being erased by conniving conservatives . ....
What my reader must understand about Dylan's significance is that he was essentially America's biggest 1960s response to the very liberal music acts that the British Invasion brought us. When the English gave us the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd, the Kinks and so on, the Americans responded - a bit later on- with Dylan, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and then too bands like Buffalo Springfied and the Gratful Dead, etc. For the most part, none of the American artists had nearly so much staying power as Dylan wound up having, however. There was also another difference about Bob Dylan in regards to those other US bands: He was taken extremely seriously. Just like Fabrizio DeAndre was, in Italy, and the Beatles were, after a time, in England....
People listened to Bob Dylan to get an idea of where to fall politically. He was not a "cartoon artist" .....
The problem, of course, is that Dylan's political interest didn't wind up acrually lasting for all that long of a time. In fact, even before the 1960s were over, Dylan did something that many American men often love to do: He decided that he suddenly had no real interest in politics and that he did not want to write of them in his songs anymore. He said he was done "with finger pointing songs". He disconnected himself more than a bit from his old love bird Joan Baez (a die hard liberal feminist who once actually performed a Deandre song in Italian) and he ran off to start putting on what actually now seems to be a rather conservative leaning act. He began mimicking Cowboys, writing songs of the Old West, and eventually in the 80z even popped up as a radical Christian who nearly abandoned even his own song catalogue. As he was doing this act, John Lennon - an Englishman- was fighting Nixon and Republicans tooth and nail, Just to put it into perspective. You see...From today's vantage point, Dylan is a pretty hard sell as a liberal. Yet still we are told that he was one of the biggest the American pop culture ever had. Which, again, as I say, should really tell you something...
Meanwhile, back to Fabrizio Deandre. What was he doing in the 70s-90s, whilst his American "mirror image" Dylan, was descending into a conservative mania of Old west reminiscences, fire and brimstone Christianity and so on? Well, believe it or not, but FabriZio Deandre only ever seems to have become decidedly more liberal and progressive as an artist, rather than conservative, as he aged. In the 1990s Fabrizio spoke out - at the height of his popularity with the Italian public- in favor of marginalized people's, he even at one point wrote a song called "Princesa" about a transgender male to female! He was studying studious French artists - prominent leftists and even anarchists - like Georges Brassens, a far left liberal america cannot even imagine still, which France had all the way back in the 50s! And not only that, but he also simultaneously got himself taken more seriously by the Italian people - from both the low class and the high class--- as well. This is the most important part of course , and it's what Dylan , I believe, deep down, knew he could never do.
For the truth of it is that Dylan, with his American English speaking audience, would have probably fallen into complete disregard, had he gone too far left. Just imagine an artist like Dylan trying to speak out in favor of a transgendered individual, as Fabrizio did in "Princesa". It's literally unthinkable that someone like him could have presented himself-- in the 1990s-- as siding with this type of issue. He most likely would have ceased to be taken too seriously by American critics (who as a matter of fact always Lean conservative) and he also would have ceased to have the ear of the people themselves-- who always lean conservative, even without fully realizing it. Dylan, you see, unlike the English rock and rollers, had no hope of maintaining the native liberal audience that has actually long sustained the real foundational legacy that unapologetically liberal bands like the Beatles , the Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and others enjoy to this day. Dylan wasn't English. He had to rely on an American foundation. Look what it almost did to him: He literally almost went so far right wing with the radical Christian mania that he almost lost it all! Andn now of course, in the modern age, he trucks on with where he went when the 60s ended: He presents himself as wholly "apolitical".
Again of course, some readers might not quite see what the link between an old artist like Dylan is, with our new ones. They might agree with me when I write that I believe Dylan "ultimately failed" as a liberal, but that new artists and new genres succeed. They might say that modern American artists like Lady Gaga, Madonna, and also the new rappers like Nicki Minaj and Kendrick Lamar and so on, are all undoubtedly liberals. Therefore; the American pop culture is liberal, they'll say Certainly....ya....
What's fascinating however with all of America's new artists - especially once compared up against Dylan -- are two main details: First, the vast majority of American artists who could be arguably identified as definite liberals (like Lady Gaga or Madonna) are not taken seriously like Dylan once was or like Fabrizio was in Italy (they're actually rather marginalized for all of their popularity) and secondly, they too also- once you look close enough- are not really anywhere near as liberal as my old Italian friend, born in north Italy in the 1940s, was anyways! In fact, many of the modern American artists-- yes, even Lady Gaga-- arguably appear to have their legs broken falling into the same trap Dylan fell into all those years ago.
Here's how it works: In the first place, the entire black rapper scene - male or female- is coming from such a destroyed and backwards area of the States that it has no chance of displaying a liberalism or being taken seriously ....and secondly, when it comes to white acts like Lady Gaga and Madonna, we tend to see that even they shockingly fall , as I said, into the trap of "old Wild West" reminiscences in just the same way Dylan did. For example, just last year in 2016, Lady Gaga released a song called "John Wayne", where she sang that "..every John is just the same, I'm sick of their city games, I crave a real wild man, I'm strung out on John Wayne". Madonna herself fell into a similar hole back in the 00s under the Bush administration: She , our supposedly ultra liberal goddess, started releasing songs about Cowboys and rodeos , etcetc. She even appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in a cowboy hat. Bob Dylan has done the same. As any reader should know, the cowboy hat now no longer means cowboy so much as it means conservative Republican.
Does it mean Gaga and Madonna are conservatives? No, absolutrly not. But does it mean that perhaps they're not actually perfect liberals , totally on the far left, unapologetically, as Fabrizio DeAndre was? Yea it does. In my opinion it does. And here's the big thing: if white female artists that identify as feminist are even sort of struggling to hit far left liberal peaks in America, what in the hell do you think that means , for example, for black female artists, black Male artists-- and especially white male artists? I will tell you: it does not bode very well. In fact, Nicki Minaj, a black female rapper (whom we would be told is the epitome of liberalism) has accidentally offended legions of her LGBT far left fans, numerous times, because she has refused, it seems, to put out supportive statements for the LGBT community, in either her songs or her Twitter. It's the same for Beyonce, certainly the same for any male rapper - white or black- and for the most part, also the same for the entire modern American rock community, most of which has descended into a heavy metal mayhem now gettin dangerously obsessed with Viking myths and a white power mix . None of these communities really and truly shoot unapologetically liberal, believe it or not. Most artists within their ranks are "apolitical", on the surface. Beyonce sings at the Democratic national conventions; but she then sings songs about how the only man she wants is a "soldier". This is not liberal.
You know where it is not really the same as all this , however? You know where the music does seem pretty liberal ?? In North Italy, that's where. Where Fabrizio Deandre lived and died. In fact, just last year I was listening to a freshly released Italian rap hit, by one of the biggest male Italian rappers in the country, Fabri Fibra, where he spit a verse in defense of the LGBT community, and not against it. I couldn't fathom it when I heard it pass my ears by. It was confusing a shell to me ...because why? Because This is still literally unthinkable in much of modern American rap-- even with the youngest up and coming stars. It doesn't stop there of course, this strangeness: Another Italian rapper , "Marracash", did a featuring in a entire music video with Tiziano Ferro, a gay Italian singer . This is another thing that has never happened often stateside, where we are told most rappers "won't touch a queer with a 10 foot pole for fear of catching AIDS" (and losing their entire American misogynistic fanbase). For example, yes...Eminem did come together for a live performance with Elton John years ago, it's true, but Elton John is not American, he's decidedly English, and also, he never actually did a proper professional collaboration- and certainly not a video- with the man. Eminems fans are not what I would call proper liberals by a long shot. Just like most of Dylan's really aren't either. Just like Beyonces. And even just like many of Lady Gagas....
Now in conclusion there is one last final thing I would like to go over in regards to all of this, and it's about the original thing that gave rise to Bob Dylan's brief flashing light of real liberalism appearing in American music . What was it? Well, unfortunately, the only deep reason that Dylan and that entire generation ever seems to have been sympathetic to liberalism at all ....is because they were practicing a form of reactionary politics. What were they reacting against? The Vietnam war, of course. Some readers might wonder why this is a problem. I believe it was one for two reasons: First, the English and the Italian artists boiled up liberal artists *without* the help of a war draft to react to...and secondly, once the Vietnam war was over, look what happened: The Amrrican culture went shot right back, like an elastic band, to being pretty conservative minded, all over again. It actually, in my view, abandoned liberalism on a wide scale just like Dylan abandoned it on a personal scale in his music, come the early 1970s. Conservatives reading this would find it preposterous of course: How could I think that Americans have abandoned liberalism!? Certainly they've only been becoming more and more liberal, no?
Well, like I keep stressing, it depends where you look. The rich and college educated Americans certainly have been becoming more and more steadily liberal- but what about the working class? In specific, the white working class-- the ones who listen to all this music in the first place? What about them? They seem to be fluctuating really, and many seem to actually be getting more conservative as the years roll on, not less. The reason why this is happening is very simple in my opinion and leads me to again repeat what I keep stressing : They have no liberal heroes in the pop culture to look to for inspiration. Oddly enough, one reason they have so few qualified liberal artists to admire is due entirely to the fact that the English have largely lost grip on American pop culture in recent decades. This is a big problem too...becaus, as I said, the English were basically our only liberal link in the first place, all those years ago. It's ironically the case that, without a single English rebel band in our midst (like the Stones or the Beatles) we Americans tend to perhaps forget the value of liberalism. So it seems to me anyways. The fact that we need to rely on someone like the English of course, for our shot of liberalism, is pretty sad too, once you realize what piss poor liberals the British them are, in comparison to France and North Italy and the Scandinavian countries etcetc..
End notes
No comments:
Post a Comment