I took notice of a new release that was a collaboration with Carsie Blanton released earlier this year and being sold for one dollar. I am not familiar with her but a quick look and you can guess her style with album titles like “After the Revolution” and song titles like “Ugly Nasty Commie B*tch” and “Hello Comrade”, you’re probably going to get some leftie protest folk music.
As a child of the 80s, angry punk music was the definitive sound of resistance to Reagan and Thatcher. At least, it would seem so. But the most subversive music I have heard in the last 30 or so years is not loud.
Chumbawamba’s last recording was a late 19th century style musical called “Big Society!” Danbert Nobacon - a Chumbawamba alumni - regularly hops across all kind of genres to keep the anarchic spirt alive. Jello Biafra came from the fast loud 1980s but will alternately serve up industrial or country or folk or any of a number of random genres.
“Everything is Great” might be the most subversive album I have heard in years.
At first glance, I thought I knew what to expect- from the opening title track to song titles like “Live Laugh Loot” and “Fascists are Good”- clearly this is an album that is playing with humor.
What I didn’t expect (although given the artists involved maybe I should have) was that the wit would be so biting and unexpected. “The Price of Eggs” starts as a mild mannered ditty but escalates quickly.
“The War to End All Wars” sounds like a military ballad, but takes place in a future where anarchism has won. American progressives complain that Chuck Schumer capitulates to the Republicans and sure enough, Chuck shows up in “Peace and Freedom”
Any way, I can’t endorse anything here. Though the sounds are pleasing throughout, this is just too subversive to sign my name to.
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