Post by Fuggle on Nov 23, 2004 7:49:07 GMT -5
Clash of civilisations
Andrew Mueller finds a better way to rock the world
Saturday November 20, 2004
The Guardian
Hands up, not
handouts... Joe
Strummer appears
twice on the Rock
the Casbah album.
Photo: PA
Many years ago, during another unprovoked American war waged to make the world safe, satirist Tom Lehrer composed a terse ditty called The Folk Song Army, jeering at contemporaries who were becoming famous by singing of their anger at their country's trampling of Indochina.
"We are the Folk Song Army," it began. "Every one of us cares/We all hate poverty, war and injustice/Unlike the rest of you squares."
Lehrer had pinpointed the fundamental absurdity of the modern protest song: they're almost always a howl from within, a solace to those sections of western society which are against whichever intervention we're putting on at the time. If there was a Vietnamese Dylan, he failed to make a global impact.
There were some Serbian musical responses to the battering Nato dealt the then-Yugoslavia in 1999, but as they were largely rendered in a misbegotten Balkan genre called Turbofolk - imagine the Horst Wessel Lied remixed by Stock, Aitken and Waterman - they never concerned any sane person. We rarely hear, in song, from the receiving end.
This balance is being partially redressed for the modern era by a fine album called Rock The Kasbah. Subtitled Songs Of Freedom From The Streets Of The East, it's a well-chosen selection of 16 artists from corners of the world which rarely contribute to the cast of Top Of The Pops, topped and tailed, after a fashion, by modern Britain's pre-eminent rebel rock icon.
The late and indisputably great Joe Strummer is honoured by the title track - a fabulous, exuberant, Maghreb-flavoured tear-up of the Clash's Rock The Casbah by French-Algerian superstar Rachid Taha - and the album closes with Strummer's gruff acoustic version of Bob Marley's Redemption Song.
In between, Rock The Kasbah gives time to voices from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Iran, among others. Little of it, mercifully, bears much resemblance to the local popular music as most visitors to those countries will have experienced it - ie, a trebly racket played at deafening volume by a deranged taxi driver.
There are many treasurable highlights: the Portishead-like pop noir of Lebanon's Blend; the quickfire Eminem-esque rap of Malaysia's Too Phat; a lovely ballad by the Pakistani rock phenomenon Junoon, restraining their characteristic bombast to fine effect; a monumental remix of the Iraqi singer Kadim Al Sahir by Trans-Global Underground.
The British contributions are also congruent: a typically frenetic Fortress Europe by Asian Dub Foundation, and a superb, monstrous remix of Fun-Da-Mental and Nawazish Ali Khan's Ja Sha Taan by the Jesus & Mary Chain.
Given the recent failure of the combined battalions of America's musicians to sway their presidential election, it might seem that the idea of popular music as a force for change is now thoroughly redundant, and perhaps it is. But Rock The Kasbah demands to be bought, and heard, not as part of a political crusade, or even as a well-meaning gesture of solidarity, but because it's a terrific rock'n'roll album. Play it loud.
Andrew Mueller finds a better way to rock the world
Saturday November 20, 2004
The Guardian
Hands up, not
handouts... Joe
Strummer appears
twice on the Rock
the Casbah album.
Photo: PA
Many years ago, during another unprovoked American war waged to make the world safe, satirist Tom Lehrer composed a terse ditty called The Folk Song Army, jeering at contemporaries who were becoming famous by singing of their anger at their country's trampling of Indochina.
"We are the Folk Song Army," it began. "Every one of us cares/We all hate poverty, war and injustice/Unlike the rest of you squares."
Lehrer had pinpointed the fundamental absurdity of the modern protest song: they're almost always a howl from within, a solace to those sections of western society which are against whichever intervention we're putting on at the time. If there was a Vietnamese Dylan, he failed to make a global impact.
There were some Serbian musical responses to the battering Nato dealt the then-Yugoslavia in 1999, but as they were largely rendered in a misbegotten Balkan genre called Turbofolk - imagine the Horst Wessel Lied remixed by Stock, Aitken and Waterman - they never concerned any sane person. We rarely hear, in song, from the receiving end.
This balance is being partially redressed for the modern era by a fine album called Rock The Kasbah. Subtitled Songs Of Freedom From The Streets Of The East, it's a well-chosen selection of 16 artists from corners of the world which rarely contribute to the cast of Top Of The Pops, topped and tailed, after a fashion, by modern Britain's pre-eminent rebel rock icon.
The late and indisputably great Joe Strummer is honoured by the title track - a fabulous, exuberant, Maghreb-flavoured tear-up of the Clash's Rock The Casbah by French-Algerian superstar Rachid Taha - and the album closes with Strummer's gruff acoustic version of Bob Marley's Redemption Song.
In between, Rock The Kasbah gives time to voices from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Iran, among others. Little of it, mercifully, bears much resemblance to the local popular music as most visitors to those countries will have experienced it - ie, a trebly racket played at deafening volume by a deranged taxi driver.
There are many treasurable highlights: the Portishead-like pop noir of Lebanon's Blend; the quickfire Eminem-esque rap of Malaysia's Too Phat; a lovely ballad by the Pakistani rock phenomenon Junoon, restraining their characteristic bombast to fine effect; a monumental remix of the Iraqi singer Kadim Al Sahir by Trans-Global Underground.
The British contributions are also congruent: a typically frenetic Fortress Europe by Asian Dub Foundation, and a superb, monstrous remix of Fun-Da-Mental and Nawazish Ali Khan's Ja Sha Taan by the Jesus & Mary Chain.
Given the recent failure of the combined battalions of America's musicians to sway their presidential election, it might seem that the idea of popular music as a force for change is now thoroughly redundant, and perhaps it is. But Rock The Kasbah demands to be bought, and heard, not as part of a political crusade, or even as a well-meaning gesture of solidarity, but because it's a terrific rock'n'roll album. Play it loud.