Re: Australian rock

[sun!toto!duane@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (Duane Day [Do you guys know _Proud Mary_?])]

[From the Love-Hounds Lost and Found... -- |>oug]

In article <870906225326.527199@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> "James J. Lippard" 
 <Lippard@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA> quotes this article:

>  [...]
> By no means are domestic groups the idols of Australian young
> people.  The singer for the well-known Australian rock group INXS,
> Jenny Morris, admits that "Australia is much too Americanized, and
> too often Australians look to America for approval."

Jenny Morris?  What the hell happened to Michael Hutchence?

>  It's somehow awkward to talk about rock music in esthetic terms,
> even though the music obviously does sometimes attain the level of
> real art.

And how does it attain this level?  Maybe by BEING REAL ART IN THE
FIRST PLACE?

> But ever since the Beatles no one in the West bothers with such
> discussions.  Everywhere in the reviews of new "hits" we read "pop
> industry" and "show business."

>  The generally accepted opinion is that pop has fallen into a
> protracted crisis.  The businessmen of show business have managed to
> tame and commercialize the rebels of yesteryear, who once frightened
> the bourgeoisie with their threatening songs about striving for
> peace and disarmament and universal brotherhood and who protested
> against social ills.

Yup, sounds like America alright.


>  Genuine Australian music is the music of the Aborigines.  They have
> been unable, however, to exploit their native culture to tap the
> heartstrings of the newcomers.  Aborigine young people have been
> forced to speak the language of music.  The first Aborigine rock
> groups appeared in the early '80s.  The group No Fixed Address
> became the most well known of its type, its music is based on the
> rhythms of Aborigine folklore.

>  Since these young men are not following the lead of American
> trends, show business is not giving them any financial support.
> Often they simply perform in bars on an agreement with the owners.
> But in many Australian cities large and small this group's
> performances invariably enjoy success and they've even been able to
> put out a modest album called With My Own Eyes.  Their lot is
> difficult, but they have no intention of bowing their heads.


More power to 'em.

>   -- A. Ivkin, staff correspondent, Sydney
>      Pravda, July 17, 1987
       ^^^^^^

Uh-oh, what have we here?  I hope this doesn't put me in the position
of having to choose between supporting the current power structure of
the American Music Industry or being branded as a Communist
Sympathizer.  I can see it now - "Lock him up; he's a card-carrying
member of a non-commercial band!!"

Is the point of this posting, or of Ivkin's article, that
non-mainstream music has less chance of succeeding in Australia than
it does elsewhere (i.e. in America?)  I think that the record company
executive mentality and its effect on musical radicals is pretty
pervasive throughout the world, although I don't know about Russia.
Are there a lot of really musically revolutionary rock groups getting
big support from the Russian music establishment these days?

And who IS Jenny Morris, anyway?
-- 
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