peace is good and war is BAD! / I got a trust fund from my DAD!
Everybody's favourite wealthy white Manhattanite rappers, the Beastie Boys, have written an anti-war anthem.
"Now don’t get us wrong ‘cause we love America
But that’s no reason to get hysterica"
Now, granted, I haven't had the chance to actually hear the song 'In A World Gone Mad' yet, but the lyrics are bad. Very bad. If I'm 100% honest, there is no difference in *quality* between this swill and Poets For The War - obviously, I agree with the sentiment of the Beasties' effort and not the latter, but they are essentially two sides of the same deeply embarrassing coin.
The question is, what else did anyone expect? Writing songs with an overt political message is always a tricky business. Those who can pull it off tend to be people who give the sense of being deeply politically involved and aware on a day-to-day basis - whenever otherwise relatively apolitical artists decide to make a song about a Big Issue, the result is bound to be embarrassing. And the Beastie Boys are essentially an apolitical band - every now and again they make tiny little gestures, and there's the whole Tibet thing, sure (though oddly, they've never mentioned Palestine), but they're very much grounded in a safe, middle-class, hippy-ish form of liberal/left-wing politics - nothing too radical, nothing too confrontational.
I think the Beastie Boys have made some fantastic music when they've stuck to doing what they do best - dumb fun, whether of the variety of 'Fight For Your Right...', 'Hey Ladies', or the better parts of the last two albums. They're like a living argument against letting your politics define your taste in music (although there are ways in which even Mark 2 of the Boys, the supposedly right-on version, can be objected to on political grounds).
I find it hard to believe anything in this song is news to the majority of their listeners... but maybe I'm wrong. I'm sure there *is* a case to be made that this song has political value regardless of the success of its execution - I'd like to hear it.
Oh - and if you want to hear some good political rap, you should be checking The Coup.
Everybody's favourite wealthy white Manhattanite rappers, the Beastie Boys, have written an anti-war anthem.
"Now don’t get us wrong ‘cause we love America
But that’s no reason to get hysterica"
Now, granted, I haven't had the chance to actually hear the song 'In A World Gone Mad' yet, but the lyrics are bad. Very bad. If I'm 100% honest, there is no difference in *quality* between this swill and Poets For The War - obviously, I agree with the sentiment of the Beasties' effort and not the latter, but they are essentially two sides of the same deeply embarrassing coin.
The question is, what else did anyone expect? Writing songs with an overt political message is always a tricky business. Those who can pull it off tend to be people who give the sense of being deeply politically involved and aware on a day-to-day basis - whenever otherwise relatively apolitical artists decide to make a song about a Big Issue, the result is bound to be embarrassing. And the Beastie Boys are essentially an apolitical band - every now and again they make tiny little gestures, and there's the whole Tibet thing, sure (though oddly, they've never mentioned Palestine), but they're very much grounded in a safe, middle-class, hippy-ish form of liberal/left-wing politics - nothing too radical, nothing too confrontational.
I think the Beastie Boys have made some fantastic music when they've stuck to doing what they do best - dumb fun, whether of the variety of 'Fight For Your Right...', 'Hey Ladies', or the better parts of the last two albums. They're like a living argument against letting your politics define your taste in music (although there are ways in which even Mark 2 of the Boys, the supposedly right-on version, can be objected to on political grounds).
I find it hard to believe anything in this song is news to the majority of their listeners... but maybe I'm wrong. I'm sure there *is* a case to be made that this song has political value regardless of the success of its execution - I'd like to hear it.
Oh - and if you want to hear some good political rap, you should be checking The Coup.
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