The day the music died?

[Yank]

Do these people who say music died go out and experience what's happening in the live scene, or do they just turn on the radio once a year, turn it off in disgust and go back to playing their LPs from the 60s?

Well, he is a gigging musician...

 

[Mike Hughes]

Wow, just wow.

And your problem is…

 

[chartz]

Saying anything about music, how it goes, blah-blah, has always been talked about. When rockabilly was born, it was the end of the world. Then we had disco. All bad? Of course not, some wonderful music there.
No. Music as we know it really died the day gangsta rap (music?) was born.
But seriously, music us just an enjoyable experience to anybody and it could be anything.
I enjoyed Live Aid and Band Aid back then, by the way.

 

[Tony L]

Found the event itself grossly offensive. Went out for the day and didn't watch a minute. White people playing white music and acting as white saviours.

The final figure was estimated to be £150m. Whilst apologies etc. have been issued for suggestions money was diverted it is hard to point to a single concrete thing that money did. Over the years governments have certainly diverted resources with a tad more accuracy and relevance but the original monies? Hmm.

I didn’t see that at all. My impression is Geldof and Ure saw something that the political establishment was doing nothing whatsoever about and acted with the tools they had available. To my eyes the cynical aspect was far too many elderly pop/rock stars trying to use it to reanimate failing careers, and especially afterwards with what looked like endless vanity trips to Africa etc. That aspect was certainly pretty cringeworthy.

I do think the ideas for both the single and Live Aid were born of genuine principle. Musically it was all pretty insignificant; mostly just old pop stars playing their hits from many years ago. I dipped in and out of it on TV on the day.

 

[Mike Hughes]

I didn’t see that at all. My impression is Geldof and Ure saw something that the political establishment was doing nothing whatsoever about and acted with the tools they had available. To my eyes the cynical aspect was far too many elderly pop/rock stars trying to use it to reanimate failing careers, and especially afterwards with what looked like endless vanity trips to Africa etc. That aspect was certainly pretty cringeworthy.

I do think the ideas for both the single and Live Aid were born of genuine principle. Musically it was all pretty insignificant; mostly just old pop stars playing their hits from many years ago. I dipped in and out of it on TV on the day.

I’ve no doubt the intent was genuine. Musically it was always going to be insignificant and there was undoubtedly a cold logic and inevitability as to who played. Main thing for me was that you could see from day one that some people were really going to be stupid enough to claim that musically it was somehow significant just as it was entirely predictable that the money simply wouldn’t go where it was needed. If you’re going to be daft enough to claim that it was somehow musically significant then you probably do need the likes of me pointing out how male, white, old and exclusionary it was.

Had that line up been assembled with no charitable intent it would have still been a better use of the day for me to go out and enjoy the company of friends.

 

[the arc]

Hmm. History, recent or not, inevitably tends to be viewed through the lens of contemporary culture, which often wilfully chooses to ignore context. Give it a while and the focus will shift.

 

[Mike Hughes]

But the focus long since has shifted.

Most at the time saw the event as a good thing with problems which you either elected to engage with or not. You were largely for or against and that was okay. Since then a much more rounded perspective has emerged which places the event in its proper context. As such it doesn’t make for a particularly pleasant discussion. The event made some rich musicians a lot richer; didn’t get the money where it was supposed to go and left lots of unintentional but not necessarily positive legacies. It especially highlighted that actually it didn’t really make any difference because the issues are structural, political and repetitive. Even Bono realised that the mileage is in getting politicians to think differently rather than having a nicey nicey fundraiser.

I have not and never will give a minute of my time to a Children In Need Programme or a penny of my money. It’s like giving tins to food banks. You’ll feel much better but the issue remains that food banks are a specific outcome borne out of the political belief that the public really don’t care whether benefit recipients claims are based on a bare minimum amount of money you need to live on. Is my energy best put into donating tins or fighting for benefits based on the actual cost of essential items? You can of course do both but you‘ll be doing the former forever unless you also engage with the latter.

Therein lay the Live Aid paradox. People genuinely wanting to help stop people dying “now” who nevertheless couldn’t get any meaningful help to them as it turned it for at least five years. Still not occurred to them that those five years could have saved more lives if otherwise spent.

In the meantime, people genuinely messing about making videos about “musical significance”.

 

[the arc]

Perspective is all too often shaped by focus and by distance. Peering through the lens of hindsight and judging a response to an immediate problem as 'male, pale and stale' and classing it as a career move is lazy, reductive, and wilfully ignores context in service of a revisionist view of a response/event as an example of 'white saviour complex'. The lessons of history, whatever they may be – and whether you subscribe to that view of the lessons – don't alter the motivations for anything, be they noble or not. Context is everything.

 

[the arc]

Also, with regard to this

It’s like giving tins to food banks. You’ll feel much better but the issue remains that food banks are a specific outcome borne out of the political belief that the public really don’t care whether benefit recipients claims are based on a bare minimum amount of money you need to live on.

Why not do both? The person who needs the food now will not thank you for the righteous force of your political ideals as they sit there wondering how they're going to feed their kids.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Perspective is all too often shaped by focus and by distance. Peering through the lens of hindsight and judging a response to an immediate problem as 'male, pale and stale' and classing it as a career move is lazy, reductive, and wilfully ignores context in service of a revisionist view of a response/event as an example of 'white saviour complex'. The lessons of history, whatever they may be – and whether you subscribe to that view of the lessons – don't alter the motivations for anything, be they noble or not. Context is everything.

Still n-t sure what your point is. All the argument you cite were made at the time. All that’s happened over time is that they’ve been shown to be 100% correct.

Also, with regard to this


Why not do both? The person who needs the food now will not thank you for the righteous force of your political ideals as they sit there wondering how they're going to feed their kids.

I think my post remains explicit in saying you could do both but if you don‘t do the latter you’ll be doing the former forever. Not everyone can afford either the time or the money to do the former.

Having dealt with lots of clients we’ve needed to refer to food banks in the past decade I can assure you that the person who needs the food right now is very clear food bank shortages have little to do with individual stances and everything to do with government policy. No-one will be looking at you going “can you not just give a tin” rather than fighting for basic rights.

 

[Steadman]

MTV killed music because it became about what you look like, not how you sound.

 

[Tony L]

MTV killed music because it became about what you look like, not how you sound.

No different to the rock ‘n’ roll, 60s beat, psychedelia, flower-power, hard-rock, glam, funk, heavy metal, soul, disco, punk, new-wave, new-romantic, goth etc. Youth culture has always been driven by fashion and trends that can be monetised. Arguably far less so now since the democratisation and removal of power from major labels, DJs and mainstream media that the internet has brought as we no longer go through music ‘revolutions’ to the same extent, but MTV was just another step on the path.

 

[the arc]

Still n-t sure what your point is. All the argument you cite were made at the time. All that’s happened over time is that they’ve been shown to be 100% correct.



I think my post remains explicit in saying you could do both but if you don‘t do the latter you’ll be doing the former forever. Not everyone can afford either the time or the money to do the former.

Having dealt with lots of clients we’ve needed to refer to food banks in the past decade I can assure you that the person who needs the food right now is very clear food bank shortages have little to do with individual stances and everything to do with government policy. No-one will be looking at you going “can you not just give a tin” rather than fighting for basic rights.

My point is as made: You're writing a revisionist history of the motivations behind an event, and the politico-cultural significance of that event, based on contemporary viewpoints (which shift and change over the course of time), outcomes (real or posited) and you're doing it in a lazy and reductive way.

On the other score, apologies, I didn't read your qualification about doing both. However, you still seem to be saying that hungry people prize political activism over assistance (I won't use the word aid as that seems to have become a dirty word). In the medium term, I don't doubt it, and government policies (governments in general) are 100% responsible for the erosion of basic rights and the dignity of people whose only recourse is to food banks.

However, in the short term, and in the face of suffering, they just need help and if that happens to come from someone who can afford to donate a tin, or organise a 'global jukebox', that's probably OK and not something to derided as an example of 'saviour complex'.

And this is the value of context. In the moment, prior to modern critical evaluations of outcomes and prior to hazy rearview judgements, that impulse to bypass "structural, political and repetitive" bulwarks that take decades to deconstruct, and get help to people who were hungry and dying was all that mattered, and that was a good thing. It certainly inspired me and it partially inspired at least one of my circle of friends to pursue a life in humanitarian aid work as one of those awful saviours working in Somalia, Liberia, Russia, Georgia, South East Asia, the post-tsunami Indian Ocean region and elsewhere.

 

[Mike Hughes]

Good to know that my viewpoint, formed in 1985, and unchanged since then, is revisionist, lazy and reductive. You clearly won’t contemplate rethinking that from the perspective that your viewpoint starts from how you saw things in 1985 but actually not everyone saw it your way back then but whatever. Revisionism is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Like your friend I chose a life on the frontline of poverty albeit in the UK.

 

[the arc]

I certainly don't believe my viewpoint is all-encompassing and hold very few views that have remained rigid over 40 years and that encourages me to avoid applying facile labels to events or passages of time.

I'm not having a dig at your motivations for disparaging the methodology of Live Aid, that's entirely your view and you're more than entitled to it. I'm more having a go at the sort of easy revisionism that results in catch-alls like 'white saviour complex' or 'male, stale and pale'. They are most definitely revisionist, lazy and reductive.

Having said that, I've just had a look at the line-up for Live Aid. It's really white and male and had Status Quo... I surrender.

 

[Engels]

Queen in particular can be argued to have (ab)used it to airbrush their reputation for playing Sun City in defiance of the anti-apartheid boycott.

 

[gavreid]

There's no doubt that the old hippies and 70s acts held the show together. Not many of the then current chart bands could have pulled off opening the show like The Quo, even if they were so far from cool to be funny, then Paul Weller (a closet Quo fan) or Elvis Costello singing solo All You Need Is Love - definitely the highlight of the London show for me.

or Chrissie Hynde in Philly

 

[wulbert]

Found the event itself grossly offensive. Went out for the day and didn't watch a minute. White people playing white music and acting as white saviours.

The final figure was estimated to be £150m. Whilst apologies etc. have been issued for suggestions money was diverted it is hard to point to a single concrete thing that money did. Over the years governments have certainly diverted resources with a tad more accuracy and relevance but the original monies? Hmm.

The video at the top of the thread is awful. Another white boy with a “theory” which takes 40 minutes to say what could really have been said in 5. Does he really like music which goes on a bit? Fancy. I could have never guessed.

That was pretty much my view on the day in 1985. I didn't put any money in the collection tin on the bar of our local pub where it was playing on TV all day. I just felt it was a massive "self-hug" for all the drunken arseholes in my local to feel good about themselves for a few minutes. Kind of the way I still feel about Red Nose Day and Comic Relief nowadays. Makes me puke, a bit.

I think I was very misanthropic then, and I still am now, which coloured my view. I do believe that Geldof & Ure were genuine in their concern for the tragedy of the famine that was happening. More power to them for giving a shit and doing something about it. It was just the drunken arsehole posers in my local ruined it for me.
I think that because I have always worked on the front-line of poverty and deprivation, I have been a bit snobbish about other-people's fleeting awareness of real, desperate need. But this is a judgemental view that I am not proud of. People were dying and I didn't put any money in the tin. I still feel bad about that.

 

[paulfromcamden]

There's no doubt that the old hippies and 70s acts held the show together. Not many of the then current chart bands could have pulled off opening the show like The Quo, even if they were so far from cool to be funny, then Paul Weller (a closet Quo fan) or Elvis Costello singing solo All You Need Is Love - definitely the highlight of the London show for me.

or Chrissie Hynde in Philly

I mostly remember my Mum and Dad tutting at Run DMC. Call that music....

 

[gavreid]

I mostly remember my Mum and Dad tutting at Run DMC. Call that music....

Run DMC played Philly though, not London!