Blues, Jazz, Rock

Aesthetically and almost always in terms of their content, these genres are at odds with the values of a democratic culture that emphasize humanism, close ties with the people, and a revolutionary spirit. As a rule, these genres of music preach a rotten, petit-bourgeois individualism and political indifference, harmful to the interest of the struggle for freedom and social progress.

Some reckless, ultra-leftist adventurists for the creation of a proletarian culture want to deny the cultural heritage of the past and all of its rich accomplishments. Lenin himself attacked these deviations, and said that "We must preserve the beautiful, take it as a model, use it as a starting point, even it is old. Why must we bow low in front of the new, as if it were God, only because it is 'new'?" The Blues, Jazz, Rock, and all of their offshoots represent the sort of cultural decay of capitalism against which it is necessary to fight.

Some helpful statements about the decadent, reactionary styles of music that emerged in bourgeois society during the first half of the 20th century.

The scholar Dorothy Scarborough wrote about the primitive, vulgar Blues music of America:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ame/cig/cig12.htm
For the last several years the most popular type of Negro song has been that peculiar, barbaric sort of melody called "blues," with its irregular rhythm, its lagging briskness, its mournful liveliness of tone. It has a jerky tempo, as of a cripple dancing because of some irresistible impulse. A "blues" (or does one say a "blue?"--what is the grammar of the thing?) likes to end its stanza abruptly, leaving the listener expectant for more, though, of course, there is no fixed law about it. One could scarcely imagine a convention of any kind in connection with this negroid free music. It is partial to the three-line stanza instead of the customary one of four or more, and it ends with a high note that has the effect of incompleteness. The close of a stanza comes with a shock like the whip-crack surprise at the end of an O. Henry story, for instance--a cheap trick, but effective as a novelty. Blues sing of themes remote from those of the old spirituals, and their incompleteness of stanza makes the listener gasp, and perhaps fancy that the censor has deleted the other line.

The great author Maxim Gorky would write about jazz in an article titled "Music of the Fat Men"

"An idiotic little hammer knocks drily: one, two, three, ten, twenty knocks. Then, like a clod of mud thrown into crystal-clear water, there is wild screaming, hissing, rattling, wailing, moaning, cackling. Bestial cries are heard: neighing horses, the squeal of a brass pig, crying jackasses, amorous quacks of a monstrous toad... This excruciating medley of brutal sounds is subordinated to a barely perceptible rhythm. Listening to this music for a minute or two, one conjures up an orchestra of madmen, sexual maniacs, led by a man-stallion beating time with an enormous phallos."

The great choreographer Isadora Duncan wrote correctly about Jazz:

"It seems monstrous that any one should believe that the Jazz rhythm expresses America. Jazz rhythm expresses the primitive savage. America's music would be something different. It has yet to be written. But some day, America will be expressed in some Titantic music that will shape its chaos into harmony, and long-legged shining boys and girls will dance to this music, not the tottering, ape-like convulsions of the Charleston, but a striking, tremendous upward movement, mounting high above the Pyramids of Egypt, beyond the Parthenon of Greece, and expression of beauty and strength such as no civilization has ever known. And this dance will have nothing in it of the inane coquetry of the ballet, or the sensual convulsion of the Negro. It will be clean.

In China during the 1980s, the following was issued about Rock music:

"In June 1982, the People's Music Press isued a guide titled "How to Distinguish Decadent Music." The booklet explained the perils of the "quivering" rhythm, its unclear melodies, and its drunken pronunciation. Dancing to the music amounts to having "nervous convulsions." With regard to rock dances the guide noted that, "Rock music mixes with drinking, drug abuse, violence and homosexuality. A rock dance actually is mad chaos at which people riot. For this reason, police are present at every rock dance to prevent na accident." The music was said to have no artistic value and existed to meet "the needs of people's negative spiritual life in capitalist society. It also meets the needs of the capitalists who make money."
Anti-rock: the opposition to rock 'n' roll By Linda Martin, Kerry Segrave

Seems pretty hypocritical of the Chinese Communist Party considering this performance.



Not a bad rendition though, I must say.

I would question some of those assumptions, but I will simply state for now that no amount of anti-social content in the genres you have targeted will ever compare to the mind numbing trash pumped out by the mainstream, commercialized establishment, which is, by its very nature, infinitely more influential. If anything, the type of individualism that the more "rebellious" genres promote is conducive to our cause, as it acts to consciously detach people from bourgeois society and instill in them a heightened rationality. Also, sub-genres of rock such as heavy metal (particularly extreme variants) and punk have always existed as predominately working class phenomena; indeed, these genres probably persist largely as a testament to their overt rejection of contemporary (artificial) mores.

Whether or not this music truly does propagate social negativity and therefore runs counter to socialism, a concept I am not entirely unsympathetic toward, the bad "grain" it plants can never be removed until the underlying forces which beget it are abolished. It seems fantastical, however, that such genres will completely disappear once socialism has been installed. Music is music, and some people (myself included) will continue to be drawn to the, to borrow an appropriate term, "radical" end of the spectrum.

In any case, there is a qualitative difference, in my view, between honest rebellion and commercialized obnoxiousness.

A dark and strange post, sir. I support Rev Scare's response. Music and all artistic expression can be anything from powerful to obnoxious to noble to irrelevant. It may or may not be politically relevant and is so in the ear and soul of the hearers(s). The mass produced audial sludge I cannot seem to avoid is part and parcel of the amoral, life-stifling global corporatism looming ever more omnipresent. I, and I suspect others will always find much strength in music. Mine doesn't have to be the same as yours. Music is at the last timeless and irrational and cannot ultimately be molded to or suppressed by sociopolitical structures. In the past some of mine (the same singers, actually) has been attacked by both Stormfront and Revleft types- for being, respectively, "anti-White", and "racist/ reactionary". Don't matter. It's always going to be there for me. You'll have to pry my Emmy Lou tapes from my cold, dead fingers.

I hope you're not Minister of Culture in the Republic To Be.

The great choreographer Isadora Duncan wrote correctly about Jazz:

Isadora Duncan whose main contribution was to bare her breasts on stage and declare herself red. What a great Leftists.

I'm sorry but I can't take any of these quotes seriously. For the most part they seem like the fearful rantings of the bourgoise as their 'high' culture is being surpassed by the artistic expressions of the downtrodden.