"New" Labour
retail therapy
the black economy
the black economy
posted by St. Anthony at Thursday, November 16, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins
- jazz from hell
- Let X = A :(the elements of) -
- Five things about me
- King For A Day
- The algebra of need
- Sunday morning
- Paging Dr Benway ...
- That obscure object of desire
- MR PUGH WANTS TO PLAY
- The Poet Milton
19 Comments:
Oh yes. Oh yes. Blair - that Stalinist.
Yes, Blair and his cronies ... the democratic process torn up, thrown down the toilet, shat on and flushed away.
...and all in secret; all with that Cheshire Cat grin. I voted Labour in 1997. I left school in 1980. So al I'd ever known as an adult was Torydom. The 1980s was the worse decade - if I can be anecdotal for a moment. The Falklands in 82. The character assassination of Foot in 1983. The miners strike 84-85; Westland; privatisation after privatisation.
God damn it, the awful music! Jackson, Level 42... my God! All that Stock Aitken and Waterman stuff. First thing I remember hearing popular music-wise, that took us out of that neon-lit mire was Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. I spent the time between that and The Smith's breaking up listening to ECM jazz and King Crimson only! Looking back at least there was some semblance of grass roots politics in my peers. These days, it's hard to think of 20 odd year olds talking about anything controversial, outrside the feudal box. 'I wish was apunk rocker with flowers in my hair...'. Quite.
Gosh - look at those typos!
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair - to give him his posh real name ... his man of the people act with the chummy sounding 'Tony' and the mug of tea ... so sickening.
I remember saying to Rose in the run-up to the election in 1997 that while things wouldn't get any better under Blair, they would get a hell of a lot worse under the Tories. How hollow that sounds now.
I left school in 1979, right in time for Thatcher ... the 80s, a decade of greed and excess. Junk bonds, junk politics, junk decade.
You were right, I think, re. your prediction things would have got worse if the Tories had got in again. Imagine another 4 or 5 years of Major! What was he doing there in the first place?! Being about the same age as me, you'll remember Spitting Image. I recall that great sketch: the notional voter, being beaten by Tories, captioned 'what will it take for people to stop voting Tory?'. The answer, of course, was a Tory at the top of a reinvented Labour Party. He even looks like Thatcher. Aesthetics is more important than the Electorate think, and these bozos know it. Look at the Tories now: tried all kinds, eventually got their Blair-look-alike. It really is as daft as that! Our only comfort is we still haven't elected the village idiot, like the Americans have.
sorry for butting into (again) what appears to be a private party BUT...you guys are so right. certainly about the 80's. by far the lesser of decades that i have had to live through. music was pretty crap wasn't it although we shouldn't forget acts like echo and the bunnymen, cocteau twins, the smiths, the fall, half man half biscuit etc but all 'underground stuff.
as for the politics...
sucked then sucking still
Oh no, you're not butting in ... come one, come all, I say. Yes, as we've been saying ... not a decade to remember with happiness.
Thatcher and Reagan bestrode the globe like ... well, like pygmies actually ... morally, intellectually, spiritually speaking. I reckon we're still suffering the fallout from those years ... Thatcher's children? What else is Blair but Thatcher's clone?
Yes, apart from a few bright sparks, not much to get excited about musically either.
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Nice one, CJ - of course join in please. You are right, the alt scene had its gems: those you cite for sure, Cope, Joy Division, New Order (till they went shite), Killing Joke, King Crimson, I'd add personally. There are lots of others. Gosh - Peter Hammill, ECM stuff in part, Steve Reich... etc. But the mainstream was corporate in a big and completely undisguised way, and for the first time, in my estimation. Michael Jackson was a company, not an artist. All that excess, no substance. Nice to see his ilk fall now; not far enough or quickly enough, of course.
Yes, moral, intellectual and spiritual pygmies, Thatcher and Reagan. David Harvey's 'The Condition of Postmodernity' (book) is brilliant on the latter. 1980s - all those Michael Douglas films: Wall Street, Fatal Attraction, Falling Down... All with a tired message dressed up as contention and content. They are not telling me he isn't a white boy right wing fascist! Best mainstream film of the awful mid-80s period for me was 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'.
funny to meet people who surely cannot like crimso?
i remember in '69 walking down rayleigh (a town in essex) high street with albums by touch, led zepplin (2) and in the court of the crimson king tucked beneath my arm. truly a ground breaking LP (yep, LP).
blair is, as are the 'new' labour party, nothing more than a pink variety of tory with margret thatchers souless politics.
Wonderful taste, CJ! Zepp II and In The Court of The Crimson King are both utterly magnificent. I have the latter on vinyl to this day. It's a good one to shut up all those moddish loons who criticise Prog. I always preferred III to II, if one has to choose. I have that on LP, too. Neither will fit in my cd player, though.
I must admit I came to Fripp through his Eno association and I got to know his solo work first ... being from a punk background I had to talk myself into King Crimson ... and it took some arguing before I took the plunge.
That second picture...where can I find one?
I left school in '87. The 80s were fuckin great - piss off you miserable bastards. I still spit on Smiths fans to this day. Why weren't you listening to New Order, electro and acid house you scum?
And the politics was fuckin great too - it was so easy to take sides- us against them and of course you joined the Union and agreed with Paul weller even though his group was a piece of shit.
But Blair is a cunt, I'll grant you
GTTRBRKZ>>>ahhhhhhhhh, an intellectual. so nice to meet you.
I was listening to New Order all the way through the 80s, as it happens ... and electronica of all stripes ... but c'mon, politically, the decade was a downer ... not that things have picked up since.
Paul Weller ? Wouldn't, couldn't agree with that fool about anything. Us? Them? Who are these people ...?
Weller was a Woking Tory boy when he was in The Jam, I seem to remember...didn't he once tell Jam fans to vote Conservative? Then he came over all Red Wedge in the 80s...nah, can't stand the git either. Julian Cope's guitarist pushed him off his bike once...I'd happily do the same.
Yes, Paul Weller ... Tory boy and trad rocker ... what's not to hate?
I tip my hat to Cope's guitarist.
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