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FASCIST MUSIC

YACHT Rock

9/11/2015

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You knew it was coming! With SiriusXM's limited-run YachtRock channel burning up the airwaves, Yacht Rock hasn't been this popular since 1983. We're talking, of course, about the smooth sounds of Michael McDonald, Captain & Tennille, Christopher Cross, and other late 70s/early 80s soft rock giants. Music to chain-smoke to. Music to "not get civil rights" to. Music to play in the background while you spend idle days on a yacht. It's not necessarily music for the wealthy, but it is music for people who don't try very hard.

Is Yacht Rock fascist? Of course! But don't make the mistake of conflating Yacht Rock and fascist music into one. Yacht Rock is a type of fascist music - and yes, all Yacht Rock is definitionally fascist - but doesn't represent the full breadth of fascist music. Fascist music includes post-prime rock by legacy artists, aggressively power-hungry music, selling out, corporate music, facelessness, suffocation, and more. Yacht Rock represents a great dimension of fascist music: the brown-stained, corporate, sinister, idle, daft music of the shittiest 10 years of the 20th century. But there's more.

Enjoy the waning days of the YachtRock channel on SiriusXM. Then check back in with us to see what fresh hell we can get into.

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Puff Daddy - FOREVER

7/21/2015

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Though hostile nations surrounded me, I destroyed them all in the name of the LORD.
-- Puff Daddy, "Forever (Intro)"
Rap is the least fascist contemporary music form. It began as the simple, portable music of an oppressed minority. Can't get less fascist than that! Even most "bling" rappers of the late 1990s, like Master P, were overcompensating for profoundly hardscrabble roots. Preposterous bragging via Pen-and-Pixel displays of cigars and rubies does not a fascist make.

So it takes a lot to come up with a fascist rap album. The deck is stacked against you. Puff Daddy nailed it.

Start with that cover. Classic white-on-white Diddy chic, but sunglasses and that expensive (and heretofore unseen) gray overlay? Ooh, a darker Did rests within. He was in prayerful sepia mourning with The Family on his previous album, No Way Out, but he had a reason: Big died. Why is he vaguely prayerful here? As for the no-text cover, you know who it is, and if you check into it (like at the top of the Billboard charts MOTHAFUCKAAAAA!), you'll see that Puffy has kicked The Family to the curb for this disc.
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The music itself is halfway awesome but allway fascist. The holy+confrontational pose Did assumes on the cover extends to every track. It's the 2-minute choral intro from "I'll Be Missing You" in extended play. But instead of mourning Big, he's extolling himself as some kind of bedeviled Messiah -- an "Angel with a Dirty Face," to quote one track's title. Granted, this was de rigeur in late-90s rap: 2Pac started it, Ja Rule did it (of course), DMX did it. But when you aren't actually a troubled soul -- Puff was a Howard business major and record exec straight enough to date Jennifer Lopez at the time -- then your self-immolation is mass manipulation.

The skits take some legitimately funny premises from No Way Out, like the Mad Rapper, and blatantly appropriate them. He even steals from every other rapper ever by doing a weird impression of Scarface. Classic fascism. While the skits weren't bad, highlighted by the hilarious "ad-lib Puff," retreading everyone's favorite tropes was cynical as hell.

And, of course, there's Diddy's favorite weapon, the sample. Whenever rap touches into fascist territory, it is inevitably coincident with excessive sampling, like Puff or Will Smith. "Best Friend" will knock your socks off, whether or not you know it's basically a note-for-note sample of "Sailing." He's appropriating the powerful creativity of others for his own gain; pure fascism.

Finally, there's the repetitiveness. While Forever is actually kind of a good album, its droning nature -- within certain tracks, not track-to-track -- is its worst quality. Would-be hits "Do You Like It... Do You Want It," "Fake Thugs Dedication," and "Angels with Dirty Faces" are undone by repetitiveness, but the nadir -- and one of the most droning songs of all time -- is the actual hit "P.E. 2000." The song was 99% terrific, including that weird lady hypeman, but the 1% killed it. GET OFF THAT NOTE!!!!!!!!!!
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Huey Lewis & The News - "Power of Love"

5/8/2015

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Thought experiment: It's 1985. Huey Lewis needs to tell you about this incredibly powerful thing. Stronger than diamonds, steel, money, fame, credit card, and a bad girl's dream. (Which, by the way, clever.) This force is sudden and cruel, and can make you sad and mad, but might just save your life. Oh, and he wants to discuss all this over horn-and-synth 80s serial-killer music. Would you say that this sounds remotely fascist to you?
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Train / Maroon 5

4/11/2015

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Remarkably similar paths to fascism here. Both hit it moderately big around the turn of the century with a traditional pop/rock sound (Train accented theirs with country, Maroon 5 with funk) that was on its way to being played out. They re-upped on the formula on well-crafted sophomore efforts (Train's "Drops of Jupiter" and Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder" era) and earned respectable, but weaker, returns. They were still within the pop firmament, but you knew where it was going: a few more albums loved only by die-hards, a rapid fade from the charts, break-up, and oblivion. Hello, Third Eye Blind.

Except that these guys were wise to what was happening and made the same fateful decision: better fascism than irrelevance. They completely retooled to mimic the early-2010s fad sound of tinny electronic dance-pop, and they ended up with hits: Train had "Drive By" and "50 Ways to Say Goodbye," and Maroon 5 scored with "Payphone," "Daylight," and "Maps." Good for them. They got what they wanted: millions of downloads. They also got what they deserved: cultural irrelevance as canned McPop Stars, and endless resentment from fans of real music for releasing such shit into the world. I enjoy a good dance song as much as anyone, but these jabronis don't come from that world. They're rockers who sold out, and I guarantee they hate their music as much as everyone else. The denial of self in favor of exploitation of others for money and power is craven, effective, and classically fascist.
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The Firm - The Firm

4/7/2015

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This album design is pure evil. It's terrifying in every aspect. The factory-metallic color scheme. The bulk and girth of the letters with epic shadowing. (Why does the band name need to feel so gargantuan?) The uniquely hideous parallelogram shape that puts the words on their side. The triangles that point infinitely in all directions. The lowercase "i," just to remind you that they aren't subject to any rules and have cornered the market on subversion, too. And all this in service of a band and album name that screams corporate omnipotence. You're expected to know what "The Firm" is; further details are unnecessary. Some version of The Firm, in any good dystopian vision, is the system that keeps the individual tightly yoked in service to order.

And just in case you thought this was a twee side project from Belle & Sebastian featuring Zooey Deschanel, nope, it's a mid-80s supergroup starring Paul Rodgers and Jimmy Page. Chilling.
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Toto - Toto, IV, Africa (single), Mindfields

1/28/2015

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Ah, the ludicrous stylings of Toto. As a preliminary matter, it's worth noting that the band itself is supremely fascist in concept and execution. With Toto (Latin for "total"), we have a collection of faceless Los Angeles-based "ace session musicians" who decided, amid the most fascist era in rock history (the late 1970s, which was so overwhelmingly oppressive that it gave rise to punk) to max out the corporate card. Toto's music is so self-evidently fascist that there's not much novel insight to share.
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The album art merits comment, however. First thing you notice: They like swords. On their eponymous 1977 album, the sword is exalted in space, framed by some kind of medieval family crest, and shrouded in purple steam. This album cover so completely hews to fascist principles that it seems to anticipate the existence of FASCISTMUSIC.com. (Side note: What was the space fascination in so many late-70s albums? No wonder two generations thought corporate rock was for losers. Millennials, of course, don't collect albums, so they can enjoy Journey's and Boston's tasty jams without the disqualifying images.)

The sword theme continues on their most popular album (the one with "Africa"), IV, and so does the enwreathment theme, with golden rings surrounding the sword against a blood-red background. If there's one thing a fascist likes as much as violence and oppression, it's golden rings. We feel the impulse to genuflect before this album cover.

Don't you worry: There are swords on most of Toto's remaining albums, including its greatest hits packages. But I wanted to show some other sides to Toto. The "Africa" single initially seems like a refreshing blast of liberty, and in some ways it is. Look, it's the guys! Yes, it's nice to see some faces. But there are six of them, not a great sign (in toto, 45 souls have cycled through this "band"), and who knows who any of them are, and they look like Scarface extras. Still, that's the look of the era, so let's be generous. And look, Africa! They care, right? Well, let me stop you there. They blessed the rains down in Africa. Gods of a primitive continent, right? Is there another interpretation? And look at that "Africa" font, stamped like a C.A.R.E. package. We need to move on.

Finally, we have Toto's sad 1999 effort -- aren't they all? -- Mindfields. This Matrix agent is peering into your mind, of course, and the world is warped, and all he sees in your mind are fields. There's some Asian writing for some reason. All this is disturbing, albeit in a stupid way. Toto is again trying to intimidate us with their fascism, and the fact that they fail does not detract from the darkness of their attempt.
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Ryan adams - Rock N Roll / Dave Matthews Band - Everyday

12/27/2014

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It's a story as old as artistic integrity: Indie rocker hits it big doing it his way and thinks he has the right to jag into something darker, label demands a more radio-friendly sound, artist balks but ultimately caves.

Ryan Adams's third and Dave Matthews Band's fourth records fit the bill exactly. Adams crooned rainy-day intimacy on Heartbreaker and made a game but slightly lackluster swipe at superstardom with Gold. With Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash, and Before These Crowded Streets, DMB proved that a fervent fanbase, grassroots marketing, and great songs could overcome a lack of a genre or homerun singles. Both hit the studio in the early 2000s ready for a deep dive inward. In fact, both recorded an album's worth of despondent, spare, and uneven songs. Their respective labels were unimpressed and gently demanded that they start over: more guitars, more hooks, better work. Adams and DMB both complied.

A few key differences emerge at this point, however. Adams was petulant and enraged. He thought his initial set of mopey songs, which would later be released as Love as Hell, was genius, and scoffed at his label's demand for a more rock sound. As a middle finger to his label (which, ironically, was the artist-friendly Lost Highway), he wrote and recorded a deliberately souped-up, meaningless album. Highlights (or lowlights) included a U2 parody, replete with glistening Edge-like guitar arpeggios and mock-profound lyrics ("So Alive," released as the first single); a song that sounds like an outtake from 1974 ("1974"), half an album's worth of post-grunge filler ("Burning Photographs" and "Luminol," to name two), and a song with the following lyrics: "I'm as lonely as boys / I'm as lonely as boys / I'm as lonely as monkeys taught to destroy / Anything they learn to enjoy" ("Boys"). The label released it, critics reacted with confusion or outright anger, and Adams disowned it.

Ryan Adams and Dave Matthews are completely different characters, of course, and Dave's reaction matches his more earnest personality. He was just as upset as his label was that the dark, sleepy set his band recorded with producer Steve Lillywhite didn't work. So he barreled through a marathon writing and recording session with the help of pop svengali Glen Ballard, coming up with heavy, hooky songs just like Adams did. Matthews, however, wasn't joking. His band's Everyday record was just as slick, greasy, and empty as Rock N Roll, but DMB proclaimed it their best work. They cheerfully slogged through embarrassing music videos and awkwardly tried to slip dumb, offensive trifles like "I Did It" into concerts alongside their challenging and emotional repertoire. Only after fans had discarded Everyday in favor of the Lillywhite sessions did the band sheepishly and belatedly semi-disown the record.
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Which is the more fascist effort? Adams consciously endeavored to create a fascist artifact of "label rock," and he certainly succeeded. But you could certainly make the argument that his record, while fascist on his face, was an arch anti-fascist commentary. Everyday doesn't get to hide within the safe cocoon of snideness; the label said jump, and Dave said how high. When you think of the way DMB repurposed the tropes of their old, organic work -- the crunchy Rolling Stone cover, the crowd-chant of "Everyday" -- you're left with the inescapable sense of dread that characterizes all the best fascist music. So while Rock N Roll hits more fascist notes in the absence of context, when you do consider context, as you must, Everyday is the more fascist record.

Full disclosure: Rock N Roll is one of my favorite records by any artist ever. I like Everyday a lot, too.

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ZZ Top - Eliminator, Afterburner, REcycler

11/24/2014

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Let's start with a little background on what ZZ Top was. If you're like I was as a kid, you probably only know ZZ Top as the guys with the beards who are listed last on jukeboxes. Their legacy is oddly null, which is surprising because their history is rich and, for one world-beating period in the mid-1980s, undeniably fascist.
To understand what makes mid-1980s ZZ Top fascist, you have to understand that they existed as an earthy, somewhat heavy, workmanlike blues-rock three-piece in the 1970s. This was the Top incarnation that produced "La Grange," which boasts what has become the ultimate cliched guitar riff. Anyway, 1970s Top was solid but destined for a parenthetical legacy, like Mountain or Foghat. After all, "La Grange," their biggest hit in this era, only peaked at #41 on the charts.
Against this background, 1983's Eliminator was a revelation. They kept their heavy guitars, but organic drums were replaced by clinical synthesized blips, the songs got a glittery production sheen, and these middle-aged bearded guys started showing up on a nascent MTV as mysterious kingpins, singing about cocaine and Great Danes and often bestowing magic on young people with the help of a 1930s Ford (the "Eliminator" shown on the album cover).
That the Top so effortlessly transformed from roots bluesmen to crypto-pop stars, seizing establishment dominance in the process, was first-order fascist stuff. Why did they do that? How? Those questions would never be answered, nor asked. Rather, ZZ Top was unblinkingly welcomed into the pop firmament on the strength of a hugely successful string of singles (including the admirably literal and odd "Got Me Under Pressure" and "TV Dinners") and would release two more albums to more (though diminishing) commercial success before settling back into obscurity.
In addition to the musical coup d'etat, some fascist commendation is in order for the album titles: Eliminator, Afterburner, and Recycler. Generations have been satisfied with the explanation for the Eliminator album title being, "It's the name of the car." As explanations go, that's insane. The car didn't have to be on the cover. Even granting the cover to the car, it doesn't necessarily follow that they'd name the album after the car. Cars have names? Why were they messing with a 1930s Ford at all? Did it have significance other than being the magic car from the videos? Did they conceive of the videos before coming out with the album? Was the car, in fact, magic? So many questions, with the only clear fact being that the conventional explanation is no explanation at all. "Eliminator" was a consciously chosen word, and it's about the most fascist one they could have chosen. "Afterburner," I guess, is how the machine continues to operate even though freedom fighters have unplugged it. And "Recycler" is a similarly inscrutable title, eliciting a forboding, metallic sense of unstoppable automation and repetition. (It helps that the members of ZZ Top are presented on the album cover as shadowy thugs.)  Again, ZZ Top consciously selected each of these titles. No explanation seems to make sense except their desire to further their own fascist narrative. Which they did, to their lasting credit.
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ice cube - War & Peace Vol. 1 (Tha War Disc)

5/23/2014

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In this grim and bizarre image, Cube is styled as a top-hatted (!), cassocked ruler of a dystopian hellscape. A tank rumbles through the smoky ruins of a city, presumably commissioned by Cube to polish off the survivors. Cube, meanwhile, is insulated from the madness in some kind of iron structure that nonetheless boasts the ornate trim befitting a ruler of some kind. Cube holds a staff, crucial for the works he'll conduct as leader of this post-apocalyptic world, and with his right hand offers some sort of Illuminati salute. To top everything off, this CD cover is "3D," in the late-1990s sense of "tilt this CD back and forth, and you will perceive motion." In 1998, this packaging was neither modern nor particularly impressive, but it was expensive and maximalist. You wouldn't be crazy to consider this to be "peak CD cover."

Ironically, Cube's persona on the album is the opposite of this totalitarian figure. The same bleak, fascistic atmosphere prevails, but Cube's role is that of a quasi-revolutionary on the run, working shadowy angles to defeat his enemies. With the dubiously valuable assistance of his sidekick Mr. Short Khop, Cube talks surreptitiously on cell phones, gets crippled by an assassin's bullet, and eventually slinks around the United States attempting to avoid extradition. Sure, he enjoys good moments smoking marijuana in the Hotel Niko sauna and owning "a mansion and a yacht," but he is not the solemn power figure of the cover. Maybe the cover is meant to represent Cube's successful fate following the events of the album. If so, it's a poignant reminder that deposing fascism often leads to nothing but more of it.

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OneRepublic

5/1/2014

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For OneRepublic, start with the name. "One Republic" is the antithesis of a libertarian, devolved democracy, a.k.a., fascism by definition. Fear of a single world government has mostly been the provenance of raving Tea Party truthers, but it's hard to deny the logic: If fascism is an inevitable product of concentration of power, then concentration of all power can (and eventually will) spawn the most forboding fascism of all. Plus, these assholes omit the space between their words, making their band name look like a 31st-century dystopian brand name.

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OneRepublic furthers their fascistic case with music that can be best described as "aggressively mainstream." It's 90s alternative rock songs with an EDM-lite beat akin to jackbooted thugs kicking at your eardrums.  This kind of music is so mainstream that it's barely even made anymore, as most other artists tend to make token acknowledgments of the concept of originality. Not OneRepublic. They're the robot clones of contemporary pop/rock.
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    What is fascist music?

    In Dave Marsh's 1979 review of Queen's Jazz, he wrote, "Indeed, Queen may be the first truly fascist rock band." No other word so neatly expresses supremacy of the powerful and devaluation of the individual.

    Music expresses desires. When artists are young and poor, it is credible that they could have yawning chasms of desires that are not being fulfilled. As they age, particularly if they are successful, they are increasingly performing from a position of wealth and power. So to hear them demand love, money, respect, or fame is dissonant. These guys won. At the pinnacle of their power, they are still greedy for more, boxing out desperate young strivers in the process. That's fascism.

    I rather enjoy fascist music. It'll be the soundtrack to our lives when the machines take over, so we might as well develop an appreciation now.

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