Hmm

[tgies]

I just realized that there really ought to be a snappy name for songs which are about commercial radio or the pop music industry, such as "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Buggles, They Might Be Giants' "Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal", or Bis' "Action and Drama", or (urk) "We Built This City" by Starship. Shouldn't there be a name for that? A friend suggested that they constitute topical protest songs, and indeed many are, but not all of them, and that still doesn't convey that they are specifically about the music industry.

What would you call these?

Also, feel free to add songs to my short list. I have developed a fascination with this particular topic recently (over the past eight minutes).

Edit: I just noticed that Bis - Action and Drama is overwhelmingly tagged "feminism" on last.fm. I think I might be missing something here. I can kind of read a Self-Actualization Theme into it if I try, but that still strikes me as an odd way to think about it. Here's the video to Action and Drama on YouTube, if anyone cares.

Comments

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Ani DiFranco -- "The Million You Never Made", "Egos Like Hairdos", "Napoleon"
Kris Delmhorst -- "Little Wings" (sort of indirect, but I think that's what it's about)
David Wilcox -- "Sex and Music"
Dar Williams -- "Are You Out There"
Jim's Big Ego -- "Desperate Times"
Barenaked Ladies -- "Box Set", "New Kid on the Block"
The Beautiful South -- "Song for Whoever"
Bill Morrissey -- "Motels and Planes"

Okay, that's all I can think of right now.

[tgies.livejournal.com]

Huh, don't know how those Barenaked Ladies songs and "Napoleon" slipped my mind.

[tgies.livejournal.com]

"Have a Cigar" obviously, yeah. I always felt The Wall was more about Generic Isolation than any experience peculiar to rock stars, with the exception of minor allusions here and there, but then I'm not permitted to have opinions about music in general, let alone Pink Floyd, because I do not much like Pink Floyd.

"Some shit like that" (where "that" is left undefined) seems to have been a popular theme in 1970s art rock.

[tgies.livejournal.com]

if I went in for that kind of litmus test for Musical Opinions I'm pretty sure my petard would get hoisted on the "likes Kansas" clause

I am going to agree with this, only adding that (a) your a petard, and (b) the "likes Kansas" clause does not apply to "Carry On Wayward Son" and everyone is allowed to like that one.

[(Anonymous)]

I sadly don't have time right now to make this long and boring, but Destroyer, while not having songs "about" things per se, tends to use a lot of music industry jargon and throw in references to such things.

For instance:

"I was silver and reviews were rave/ I dug your poetry a grave and it felt good" (Holly Going Lightly)

"We hung from a thread, just to prove poetry undead, we rendered ourselves perfectly suitable for public consumption" (Queen Of Languages)

"A touch of class/ -icism in the night, your backlash was right where I wanted you, yes, that's right, I wanted you to" (What Road, from his synth album, Your Blues. He wanted to make with a bunch of classical instruments but couldn't get people to play them so he just did it all with a Roland XV3080 and a Kurtzweil K2600, whatever those are.)

I want to quote extensively from English Music, because it's just so awesome:

Soldier, you got to get out more.
There is life after property.
Everyone has got a finder's fee.
Find something difficult to do and do it.

Write your english music,
Run free.

She tasted of the Christmas wines and said:
"So many things have run through me.
I know the altar boys, they just wanna do me and that's fine...
You got to have faith. Yeah, you got to have it..."

(That, you will note, is a George Michael reference he totally gets away with.)