The ’90s rap star swiped a choice Rick James riff and rode it to the top of the music charts with “U Can’t Touch This.” His career crashed a few years later, forcing him to declare bankruptcy despite having made – and spent – millions over a relatively short time span.

Now, Hammer is using his dulcet tones to support Occupy Oakland, one of the country’s more violent chapters of the Occupy Wall Street movement – and that’s saying something.

He’s no longer at the top of the pop charts. Instead, he’s sandwiched between his fellow Occupiers and local law enforcement. And, according to this news report, he may be in serious need of Lasik eye surgery.

After thousands of peaceful protestors rallied and danced in the streets on Wednesday, MC Hammer found himself in the middle of a police standoff before a splinter group clashed with authorities, setting fires, spraying graffiti and shattering windows.

“It’s tense down here .. I’m lost for words … I’m (at)occupyoakland,” Hammer tweeted, posting pictures of officers forming a barricade. “The people are peaceful .. I’m in the camp and now in the streets.”

***

Have you heard about “Poetry Night” at the White House?  I find it appalling and very inappropriate (yet not at all that surprising) that the Obamas have invited “Common”, a rapper who grew up in the pews of America-hating “Reverend” Wright’s church, who he describes as an “intelligent, strong individual…a great man…a conduit of love.”   He denigrates women with his misogynistic lyrics, promotes killing cops, and burning (President) Bush. Isn’t that special?  His lyrics have been praised by a Fox News reporter as being “very positive.”  Are you kidding me?

Hi Caliber

This is just another tactic this administration is using to convince young Americans that Barrack Obama is just that “cool” and that these are the kinds of artists your kids should be listening to.

Please.

In the New York Times Bestseller Obama Zombies:  How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, author Jason Mattera describes how liberals successfully launched their highly successful technology-based campaign to take advantage of and brain-wash his generation into becoming “zombies” for Team Obama.  They used every facet of new media to reach our youth through their computers, iPods, and cell phones via new media venues and services like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and text messaging and “rocked the vote” in favor of “That One.”

Thankfully, we conservative keyboard warriors are fighting back with those very same tactics to reach our young voters using every weapon in our arsenal (e.g., conservative websites, blogs, video rants, music, books, artwork, and the list goes on).   In less than two years (since the 2008 elections), through the effective use of  new media, the TEA Party movement managed to rise up and put a major hurtin’ on the Democrats in the House and Senate in the mid-term elections.  It was interesting to note that younger voters seemed less than enthusiastic about voting in 2010.  Perhaps voter’s remorse is setting in?

Good.

Make no mistake, we have our work cut out for us and it is up to us to reverse the damage done by the left to our kids.  We need to keep hammering away at them with the truth, we need to speak their language, and present the conservative message in ways they are more apt to take notice.  One way is through the music they listen to.

Allow me to introduce Hi Caliber.

Hi-Caliber, one of our fine culture warriors at BigDawg Music Mafia, is a conservative hip-hop artist, a proud TEA Party member, and political talk radio guru.  His mission is to battle the left-wing media with a tool rarely used by his fellow right-wingers.  That tool is hip-hop.  Hi Cal states:

The goal is to show our youth that being patriotic is “cool” and that not all conservatives are rich, racist, hatemongers as some would have them believe.

After a political and spiritual awakening in 2001, Hi Cal discovered conservative talk radio and accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.  It was shortly after that he decided to combine his life-long passion for hip hop with his new-found passion for politics.  His first “buzz” came during the 2008 election when he recorded a song called Use Your Brain which gained multiple spins on the Imus in the Morning show.

Hi-Cal  had heard a lot about the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2009 and decided he needed to be there. With absolutely zero contacts or connections, a backpack loaded with copies of his first CD Mr. Conservative, and $30 to his name, he showed up in an old beat-up Buick carrying a sign that said “Support Conservative Music”.   He was approached by liberal blogger, Max Blumenthal, who was looking to depict him as a nut job.  Hi Cal “spit” a couple rhymes on camera which later showed up on the Daily Beast and Breitbart.tv.

Ashley Judd’s no conservative, that’s for sure, but the predicted backlash has already begun. Here’s where it started – excerpts from her memoir:

Along with other performers, YouthAIDS was supported by rap and hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy to spread the message…um, who? Those names were a red flag.

“As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music — with it’s rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’ — is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.

“I believe that the social construction of gender — the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women — is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.”

After the backlash hit, Judd got in touch with rap mogul Russell Simmons. He interviewed her for his website. To her credit she didn’t appear to back down:

My intention was to support artists to know that they have so much power. They make incredible life changing impressions, particularly on the young. And we have choices everyday with our expressions, either empower and celebrate people or to re-enforce inequality and degradation. We are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. There is no in-between.

There are elements, and that is the part that has been so distorted, what I’m being accused of is condemning rap and hip-hop as a whole, and the whole community and when they say community, they mean the fans, and African-Americans, it’s become so generalized. …

My intention was to take a stand to say the elements of that musical expression that are misogynistic and treat girls and women in a hyper-sexualized way that are inappropriate. That is not acceptable in any artistic expression, in any cultural form, whether its country music or in television story lines. And if they read more than one paragraph in the book, they would see that all four hundred pages are about that.

Like Bill Maher and the threat of Islamo-fascism, this is an important debate to have within the world of popular entertainment culture and it’s going to take the rare liberal moire interested in truth than being politically correct to have it. 

Hopefully, this will encourage others to speak out.

Note the progressive buzzwords:  “reverse racism,” which I never mentioned and is a silly concept (racism is racism, no matter from whom), and “scary Black people,” which I never mentioned either, yet seems to be the default spin thrown at Andrew Breitbart for pointing out racism in the NAACP.  The point of the article was that comments and actions which would have drawn the ire of the NAACP if made by white entertainers (can you imagine the response if Lady Gaga made a video where she wore a pointed hood and rallied a mob with torches and lead pipes?) were ignored when they were made by black entertainers—entertainers lauded at the Image awards. 

As some in the comments suggested, however, these entertainers cannot be racist, because racism is not about race but about power; only whites can be racist because only whites have the power to oppress.  Ridiculous as that is, let’s just assume that it’s correct for the sake of argument.  So if it’s not wrong for Ice Cube to refer to white people as his “enemy” and to rap about shooting white people– since as a black man, he cannot oppress a white man—is it wrong for Ice Cube (an Image award recipient) to rap, “Fuck and get up is how I do them stank hoes”?  Regardless of race, the Left cannot deny that men are still in a position to oppress women (just ask about Clarence Thomas), and the NAACP has been woefully silent on the open advocacy of misogyny and sexual violence amongst its Image award nominees and winners.

Discussing sexism in rap is nothing new; I won’t linger.  But do check out this analysis by Edward G. Armstrong.  It’s old, but it’s thorough.  And there are a few egregious examples to focus on:  if you can stomach it, read the lyrics to “Giving up the Nappy Dugout” by Ice Cube, and keep in mind that all of this Polanski-esque perversion is a fantasy involving a 17-year old (he states, “I know she’s a minor and it is illegal, but the bitch is worse than Vanessa del Rio”).  Also note that, with many of the examples I gave of Image awards being given to entertainers with racist lyrics, their nominations were for other works of art.  However, in 2002, Ja Rule won an Image award for his song “Living It Up,” which states, “Half the hoes hate them, half of them love me / The ones that hate me only hate me ‘cause they ain’t fucked me.”  And finally, consider the case of Nelly’s 2008 song “Tip Drill,” whose music video features the artist sliding a credit card through a woman’s buttocks.

The NAACP has said nothing to criticize the debasement of women in these songs.  However, have no fear.  They really hit it out of the park with that Hallmark card that warns black holes that a recent graduate is going to be successful in life.  They’ve got this violence against women thing down pat.

But criticizing rap is old hat, you may say.  That’s just part and parcel of a subculture that has nothing to do with the NAACP (despite their Image awards given to woman-objectifying rappers).  Touche, progressives.  I submit to your superior logic.  But what about Image award recipients and hosts whose sexism has been ignored by the NAACP?

D.L. Hughley, the 2008 host of the Image Awards, said to Maryline Blackburn, who beat out Sarah Palin for Miss Alaska, discussed Palin’s performance in the 2008 Vice Presidential debate on his CNN show.  When Blackburn said Palin became a good public speaker through beauty pageants, Hughley suggested, “If you had a thong and couldn’t talk, you would still get my vote.”  Black commentator tells a black woman her underwear is more important than her thoughts:  no comment from the NAACP.

Spike Lee was honored with the Hall of Fame award at the 2003 Images.  Lee’s depiction of women has long been considered misogynistic, from his exploitative nude scene with Rosie Perez in Do the Right Thing (her words, not mine) and his 2004 film She Hate Me which depicted a throng of lesbian couples paying the film’s protagonist 10 grand to impregnate them (and not through clinical sperm donation).

And, you’ll love this:  in 2001, Bill Clinton– the textbook case of a politician using sexual harassment to control women—was given the President’s Award.

Silence on racism, awards given to racists.  Silence on sexism, awards given to sexists.  Accusing non-racists and non-sexists of racism and sexism with no evidence whatsoever.  This is the modern NAACP.  How does this fulfill their titular goal of advancing people of color?

So begins /\/\/\Y/\ by rapper/pop star/activist M.I.A., cutting to the heart of the cultural sea change wrought by the Internet.  If there are only six degrees of separation between us and the feds, who monitor as much of our communication as they can, what’s the point of trying to keep anything private?  It’s an introduction that piques our interest and prepares us for an uncensored albeit uneven look into the mind of an indie critical darling who, with fame, is losing the political edge that made her famous.

The Sri Lankan refugee, real name Maya Arulpragasm, has named her last two albums after her parents: Arular after her father, a Tamil political activist, and Kala after her mother, who raised her in Wimbledon after Sri Lanka erupted into civil war.  Those albums created an exhilarating synthesis of exotic world rhythms, Western hip-hop attitude, subversive political references, and an ADD-addled, pastiche production style that does for music what Dogme 95 only wishes it could accomplish in film.

Starting out, M.I.A. proclaimed that she wanted to make her music about something more than the superficial fluff that normally populates the airwaves:  “Every bit of music out there that’s making it into the mainstream is really about nothing,” she’s quoted as saying.  “I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.”  With controversial name-drops of the PLO and rants against corporations, her lyrics swapped the sweet nothings of tween-targeting songwriters for the shrill nothing of her art school peers.  Regardless, her style injected fresh life into the hip-hop world, which Jay-Z famously declared had entered its “hair metal phase.”

I was worried by the end of Kala that M.I.A. had lost sight of her mission statement.  Despite its catchiness, the smash hit single “Paper Planes” was a jarring departure from the the rest of the album’s style, and album closer “Come Around” with Timbaland was a generic clunker about hooking up in clubs—a tawdry and boring loop-fest far below someone of M.I.A.’s talent.  Now, with an album comprised of her unedited interior monologue, there are even more songs about nothing.  The longest cut on the album, “Teqkilla,” is six minutes dedicated to what kinds of liquor exist in the world and how “freaky-eeky-icky-wicky-wheeeee” she becomes when drinking them.

What seems to have happened is M.I.A. was pressured by her label to write vapid chart-toppers, like the first official single “XXXO.”  The track, a first-person tale of submission to a controlling lover, is a catchy but puffball Ke$ha sound-alike on autopilot.  I suspect that since the punk-flavored “Born Free” leaked online and was given an R-rated shaky-cam video before “XXXO” came anywhere near pitchfork.com, M.I.A. is as embarrassed by the song as her fans will be, and she’s compensating for this pop-star turn with heavier, more “hardcore” music. 

For the most part, it works; “Steppin Up,” the album’s first proper song, uses sampled power tools and lo-fi, choppy metal guitars to great effect.  “Meds and Feds” is a thunderous, overdriven march that might make Sleigh Bells want to contact their lawyers.  “Born Free” is a rollicking anthem that gets your toes tapping with a grungy bassline and chaotic live drums.  But before those two tracks, the album breaks into saccharine sweetness with “It Takes A Muscle,” a bubblegum reggae love song inevitably bound for the radio, and “It Iz What It Iz,” an admirable but uninteresting ode to the singer’s newborn son.  The revolutionary thriller “Born Free” loses some of its bite placed after songs that sentimentally embrace domestic, bourgeoisie concepts like romance and motherhood.

And though these stylistic jumps don’t make for great listening, they highlight the theme of the album.  In response to a world that doesn’t care what she has to say, she alternates between screaming all the louder as M.I.A. and just letting it go, focusing on her personal life as Maya. 

And, as M.I.A., she’s losing sight of her origins. In the stream-of-consciousness “Born Free,” she admits, “I was close to the ants, staying undercover/ with a nose to the ground I found my sound.”  But now, as an iTunes-topping superstar, she’s 25 years and millions of dollars removed from the political violence she once escaped.  She’s had an audience with Oprah, the world’s biggest Celebrity who Cares™, and seen nothing come from her pleas to raise awareness of the Tamil people’s plight.  Instead of facing off with the armies of Sri Lanka, she’s taking on corrupt journalists by tweeting their private phone numbers.  Her frustration couldn’t be symbolized more clearly than the rendering of her moniker in bars of gold; now, she feels, she is little more than a commodity, a brand to be packaged and sold, an image out of her control.

This tension is what makes the album as fascinating as it is.  M.I.A. is at a crossroads in her career, one step closer to world domination but ever more powerless to stop the injustice she sees in her home country.  She’s strapping herself into the jetski on the beach next to the shark-infested water, but she’s still looking over her shoulder for a way out.  If you can overlook the banality of “XXXO” and its ilk, and if you can accept the know-it-all college hippie talking points for what they are, /\/\/\Y/\ is an album with many masterfully crafted moments from a supremely talented artist, so you’ll want to pick it up in case they’re the last ones she’s able to make.

NOTE TO PARENTS:  The album has a Parental Advisory due to explicit language.

1) The Scorpions- hair metal popular in the 80s, approximately as good as Winger.

2) KMFDM- plodding industrial metal from the late 80s/early90s.

3) That Nena chick of ‘99 luftballons’ fame. 

In short, a roster of acts so unnecessary that we could safely consign them to the same dark abyss as Croatian thrash or Russian hip hop and the human race would be none the poorer for it. And yet fortunately for the glory of popular Deustche musik this is not the end of the story- for in the mid 90s what rough beast slouched towards Germany to be born? Breathing flames and reveling in death and all manner of deviancy, its name was Rammstein. 

Formed in the early 1990s by veterans of several crap East German groups, Rammstein consisted of six men in their 30s who had grown up under communism. They took their name from Ramstein, a US military base where a terrible disaster had occurred during an air show in 1988, adding an extra ‘m’ to dislocate it slightly. With the Berlin Wall fallen, the band was now liberated to steal as many sounds and ideas as they desired. These included elements of classic heavy metal, industrial metal and gothic synth pop such as Depeche Mode; not to mention liberal appropriations from Laibach, a Slovenian group fascinated by the links between mass culture, pop music and totalitarianism. (If you have a few minutes I recommend you watch Laibach’s reinterpretations of Queen’s One Vision and Opus’ Life is Life: the originals will never sound the same again.)

From Laibach, Rammstein also stole the cross as a symbol, a collectivist ethos, and a fondness for flirting with totalitarian imagery. Most strikingly of all Rammstein’s singer Till Lindemann’s vocal style ‘borrowed’ heavily from Milan Fras’ absurdly deep bass snarl. As Laibach did not believe in ‘originality’ they did not complain; and as Rammstein were a much better band, they did not compete either. 

But Rammstein also introduced elements hitherto absent from hard rock, such as lyrics informed by German romanticism (decadent and otherwise), and elements of martial music. Rammstein thoroughly embraced their national identity and this unabashed ‘Germanness’ became key to their success- disciplined, ultra precise drumming, grinding riffs played by two guitars in perfect synchronicity, futuristic synths, a surprising ear for melody and sturm und drang lyrics sung entirely in German, with every guttural sound emphasized, and every ‘R’ rolled almost to the point of parody. On the last tour two members even wore lederhosen. Rammstein had thus revealed that heavy metal in its ideal form was not Anglo-American but Germanic, and having done so built a massive fan base in Europe, Asia and Latin America.  

–

Rammstein’s live shows are legendary. The band loves fire: walls of flame; fire-breathing; self-immolation, you name it. At the center of this grandiose spectacle however stands front-man Till Linemann wearing a look of profound suffering on his face, as if he is being martyred every night. When he’s not in pain he inflicts it, usually upon the keyboard player, Flake, who is as lanky and skinny as Lindemann is huge. On Rammstein’s last tour, Lindemann roasted Flake alive in a giant cauldron while singing an ode to the German cannibal Armen Meiwes. Flake was also Lindemann’s victim in simulated male rapes that took place on a nightly basis during the band’s tours of the late 90s and early 2000s (I shall spare you the link.) And yet however outrageous that sounds, Rammstein’s provocations are always informed by an ultra-dry, ultra-black German humor.  

Unsurprisingly, Rammstein’s love of shock tactics has embroiled the band in numerous scandals. Their first album cover was an outrageous piece of totalitarian homoerotic camp, depicting the band as oiled, muscular Übermenschen stripped to the waist, standing in front of a giant flower (I remember wondering whether I had made a terrible mistake the day I bought it on cassette in Moscow’s Gorbushka market). German music critics accused them of being Nazis. Delighted, the band then used footage from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia in the video for their cover of Depeche Mode’s Stripped. Later however Rammstein would insist that they were perplexed by all the Nazi hullabaloo- was it not obvious that they were fervent leftists? After all on their 3^rd album ‘Mutter’ (the one with the dead baby on the cover) they had recorded a song entitled Links 234. Now admittedly this is simply the march ‘Left 2, 3, 4’ sung in German and the video showed thousands of ants stamping around in militaristic fashion, even saluting grainy black and white footage of the lead singer. But Rammstein insisted that it was a song of praise for left ideas, and really meant ‘forward with leftism’, or some other such nonsense. Whether the band’s members were being naïve, humorous or archly ironic, none of the other songs on the album were notably left in orientation (‘Zwitter’ was a song about a hermaphrodite in love with him/herself, ‘Rein Raus’ a spectacularly blatant metaphor for sexual intercourse). 

It was perhaps a different set of scandals that stung the band more. The Columbine massacre shooters were big Rammstein fans, and around the same time as that tragedy members of the band were arrested in Massachusetts when Lindemann prepared to rape Flake on stage with an ejaculating dildo. Clearly that experience left a bad taste in the mouth, because Rammstein have never returned stateside. Indeed the band has had a troubled history with the USA. On their second release Sensucht (Longing), they succumbed to record company pressure, recording some embarrassing English language versions of selected songs. Although Rammstein swore never to do this again, they have since played with the English language on tracks such as Amerika and Pussy (find that video yourself). Now however there is a political undercurrent to their use of English- admittedly it is a tedious, Coca Cola bashing, anti-globalization kind of undercurrent, but then, nobody’s perfect. 

–

At the end of October Rammstein released their sixth record ‘Liebe ist fur alle da’ (Love is there for everyone). The record goes nowhere new, Rammstein choosing instead to elaborate upon the sonic and thematic realm they have made their own. However this lack of innovation is no weakness, and from the very first track ‘Rammlied’ all memories of Rosenrot, their wretched fifth album, are dispelled. ‘Liebe..’ is their heaviest release in years, faster, darker and more punishing, a brutal noise made by ageing men striving to prove they can still crush their peers, and succeeding. It is the sound of six Germans on the march, six Germans out to conquer, six Germans intent on proving that they reign supreme over the heavy metal reich. 

The plan seems to have worked. Liebe entered the charts at #1 in multiple countries; # 16 in the UK and most remarkably of all- #13 in the Billboard Hot 200. As a Briton, I am already accustomed to the fact that Rammstein have superseded the accomplishments of metal bands from the UK, in much the same way I know that Germany has a superior infrastructure, stronger industrial base and higher standard of living than my homeland. And now with Rammstein’s unprecedented assault on the American charts, will all you patriotic Americans begin to feel that you are living inside a Philip K. Dick style parallel universe? Are Slayer, Metallica, Mastodon et al about to surrender before the might of their Teutonic metal masters?  Is this the latest sign of what the perpetually grinning Fareed Zakaria- a man who looks as though he just swallowed a live hamster and is terribly pleased with himself for this achievement- calls ‘the Post- American World’? 

Ich don’t think so. But it might mean that Rammstein will come here on tour. And as someone who has seen the band live four times in three different countries I can reassure you that that would be a very good thing indeed. Unless you don’t like middle-aged East German provocateurs bludgeoning you to death with heavy music, that is. Then you might want to consider staying home, and play your Colbie Caillat records instead. I don’t know- whatever turns you on.  

Auf Wiedersehen!

In a suit for defamation you need damages. Provable damages in this case would center on the value of the airtime Swift was deprived of to speak about her recordings. Expert witnesses would testify as to the “bump” typically witnessed after an acceptance speech in such a valuable forum. Arguably, West deprived Swift of this sales bump.

West also defamed Swift when he announced to the world, in the most damaging forum possible, that Beyonce made “one of the best videos of all time,” so obviously Swift was on stage accepting an award that she didn’t deserve– more damages.

And what of Joe Wilson’s arguably barbaric shouting, also in the most damaging forum possible, that the President was lying as he spoke to Congress and the American people? If true, this was pure defamation and created quantifiable damages to a politician whose ability to govern and raise funds for re-election depend on his credibility.

Public figure exceptions (requiring “actual malice”) and governmental immunities aside, the interesting difference between these two cases is the ability to mount a viable defense. Truth is the best defense in any defamation case. If the defaming speech is true, it is protected by the 1st Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing free speech.

Wilson, and many pundits, have probably already gone far enough to establish that a reasonable person could infer that the President was not telling the truth when he asserted that illegal aliens would not be covered under the government’s proposed health care plan. The fact that Wilson and his supporters tried to add language to the bills specifically prohibiting coverage for illegal aliens and it was removed by their opponents, and the fact that non-citizens have to be covered in some ways by the plan, at least in emergency rooms, is enough to establish a reasonable basis for Wilson’s belief that the President was indeed lying. So the apparent truth to Wilson’s beliefs is a good faith defense to being punished for stating them in public.

On the other hand, Kanye’s attempt to prove truth as a defense to his defamation troubles would be impossible. He would have to spend all his energy trying to argue for minimal damages.

What will actually happen? Wilson’s outburst has already put the spotlight on this issue for his supporters so it was an effective, albeit rude. Kanye will return to next year’s VMAs to a mindless standing ovation as a prodigal son, and security will be stepped up a bit on the side of the stage.

But let us consider the forum of a Presidential address to Congress. Every time the President says anything of significance, true or not, his supporters are allowed to go nuts and violate decorum. For Wilson and his colleagues to just sit there and not point out an opposing sentiment representing at least ½ the country, every time, may be too much to ask.

Is it too much to ask a hip-hop “musician” formed by the juvenile arrogance of a genre with almost zero positive contributions to popular culture to resist the easy prey of a humble and traditionally wholesome artist like Taylor Swift. Actually it is too much to ask, way too much.

Unanimity of public opinion over popular song has passed.  Music, which used to unite, now divides.  Eminem and Ludacris would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.  We live in an antinomian age where it’s hip to defy conventional wisdom long after every vestige of conventional wisdom lies in tatters.  Where Keats’ Grecian Urn once proclaimed, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” today’s antinomian consumer proclaims, “Whatever,” in a voice oozing ennui.

Cultural arbiters such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and People regularly cover hip-hop as serious art, generally in the music section.  But if music is a combination of rhythm, harmony, and melody, where does hip-hop, with its chanting and choruses “sampled” from better songs fit in?  Is it music?  Not by definition.  It’s a perpetuation of “the dozens,” the tradition of black cultural put-downs and sports-style cheerleading set to a beat.

The Billboard Top 100 is depressing.  The artists are either rappers or American Idol survivors.  It’s great that Stevie Wonder sings a song with the Jonas Brothers, but where is the new Stevie Wonder?

Thank God for the divas.  Thirty years ago, the divas were Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, Patti LaBelle and their ilk–real women with real songs.  Today’s divas are Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, and Ashlee Simpson.  Can anybody hum anything by Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera?  How about the Back Street Boys, ‘N’ Sync, or Justin Timberlake?  Today’s divas, exemplified by the vocal acrobats on American Idol, prove their divaness by avoiding the melody.

There are Top Forty artists who still value craft.  Occasionally, a real song makes it on the play list.  Maroon 5 and Leona Lewis suggest song craft is not entirely dead.  It has merely been driven underground.

What an underground.

If you’ve never hummed a Beatles song, have no love for The Who, Cheap Trick, the Raspberries, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Stone Roses, Tom Petty, Linda Rondstadt, the Bangles, the Beach Boys, the Beckies, Badfinger or the Byrds, stop here.  Go back to your X-Box.

Like Australian convicts, eucalyptus trees and the nutria, pop music has flourished in exile.  Thousands of bands have taken advantage of new technology to record themselves, and offer their product over the Internet.  Thanks to downloadable programs like GarageBand.com, you don’t even need to produce CDs.

Most self-released records go for twelve to thirteen dollars.  Not cheap, but they offer things no major label can match: unalloyed joy and soaring pop song craft.  Peter Townshend, lead singer and guitarist for The Who, coined the term “power pop” to indicate the type of complex, joyful, upbeat music pioneered by the Beatles.  Power pop songs use harmonies and have at least three chords.

PowerPop keeps track of many of these bands.  Most have their own websites.  All pursue song craft with skill and passion: The Offbeat, The Churchills, The Davenports, The Wigs, The Wellingtons, Scott Miller, Sloan, L’Avventura, Superdrag, The Shazam, Heavy Blinkers, Bryan Scary, Hindu Rodeo, Michael Carpenter and Ness, to name a handful of the more important bands.

Independent popsters are more politically savvy than their gargantuan Top 40 Counterparts.  (Did you ever imagine that Bruce Springsteen, who started so well, would end up spouting socialist crap?)  Hindu Rodeo in particular gets it.  On their first, self-titled album, “Evil White Man” gleams with pop smarts and a great hook.  “I wish I was a woman/ So I’d think with my head/Not just the one ‘tween my legs/So I’d live twice as Long/Dance on my grave when I’m gone/But I’m an evil white man.”

Their second album, Nalladaloobr, is even better with brilliant, incisive, and danceable songs such as “McLife,” “American People” and “Somebody’s Eyes.”

Greg Pope’s Popmonster which dominated ‘08’s Top Ten Lists, proves the power of the lone artist working by himself.  Unbelievably, Greg Pope recorded every sound: drums, guitar, keys, you name it, and provided all the vocals.  The results are one of the most dynamic shout-it-out rock records since Born to Run.

The songs are way beyond my baby don’t love me, dealing with family responsibility in “I Got a Life” and individual responsibility in “Burden.”

Other power poppers who do it all themselves include Bryan Scary on his first record, Ed James, Josh Fix whose Free at Last came out of nowhere to land on everybody’s Top Ten, Jason Falkner, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Michael Behm, and the Well Wishers to name a few.

Bill Majoros of The Foreign Films released a two disc debut set in 2007 that compares favorably to The White Album for sheer breadth and scope.  The Foreign Films play with an overwhelming emotional power that most modern bands can’t grasp.

Some power poppers achieve major label success but they are the exception and not the rule.  Barenaked Ladies and Fort Collins, Colorado’s Color Me Pink are two such bands.

Seattle-based Sub Pop has offered haven to The Shins, Fleet Foxes, and Flight of the Conchords.

Not Lame Records is foremost among the tiny independent labels carrying the power pop torch.  Not Lame’s premier act is the Nashville-based Shazam, a trio with soaring, anthemic songs and enormous guitar.  Not Lame’s owner, Bruce Brodeen, is a devout Christian who trained to be a Lutheran minister.  One day he had an epiphany: he was to start his own label.  Not Lame has rescued stunning power pop from the past such as the two Toms records, another one man band in the person of Tommy Marolda.

New York-based Rainbow Quartz Records is another outstanding power pop label, specializing in finding acts from all over the world.  Especially Sweden.  During this season of ABBA revival it comes as no surprise that the dark Scandinavian countries produce some of the sunniest music ever recorded.  In particular, Rainbow Quartz’ Marmalade Souls is a haunting evocation of Mommas and Poppas era rock with a spark of fresh genius.

Rainbow Quarts is also home to Andy Bopp (Myracle Brah) and RockFour, the tightest rockin’ psychedelic band to ever emerge from Tel Aviv.

You can find most of these bands on fan sites such as Powerpopaholic and Absolute Powerpop.  Every year going as far back as I can remember has been notable, but 2008 was one of the very best.  You can find my Top Ten list and numerous others at:  Not Lame Blog.

Freshly minted Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele gave an interview to the Washington Times in which he detailed his plans for making the GOP relevant again.  Says Steele:

We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.

Hip-hop.  Really?  That’s Chairman Steele’s reductive take on people of color?  That unless “principles” are framed in rhyme and break beats we will have no interest in them?

Steele’s view seems oddly contrary to those people of color who are in fact ascending (or have ascended) in politics.  Barack Obama’s resonance with the populace was hardly based on any hip-hop cred.  The same could be said for Deval Patrick and Harold Ford, Jr.  They campaigned on issues, rather than disguising a dearth of ideas with faux “urban-suburban” hipness. 

Yet Steele’s entire interview with the Times is laced with an odd argot.  His new PR campaign is going to be “off the hook.”  Steele “don’t do ‘cutting-edge.’” He does “beyond cutting-edge.”  His critics can “stuff it”…ya dig?  Rather than a politician with fresh ideas, he sounds more like somebody’s uncle trying to be hip while playing some black-top hoops with 16 year olds.

Chairman Steele would do well to take a page from the play book of George W. Bush.  Bush, amazingly, was able to increase his share of the black vote from about 8 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2004.  Although slight, this uptick was driven by Bush’s flogging of issues of faith. Unfortunately, the primary “issue of faith” was a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  While I don’t advocate the demonization of one group to get votes from another, blacks do form a disproportionately large block of voters who regularly attend church.  It would be more correct and probably more effective for Steele to recruit potential GOPers from the pews than by going “beyond cutting edge.”

Whatever that may be.

If this photo is authentic, it serves as a perfect example of what the hip-hop mentality can do to women. Chris Brown may not be a hip-hop artist, but he’s certainly part of its culture and attitude. This culture is anti-women, and basically anti-civilization.

Rihanna should use this opportunity to educate and influence youngsters in a positive manner. For years, she and her ilk have taught youngsters that dressing like a prostitute and behaving like one is ideal behavior for a girl. Boys, of course, should behave like pimps.

Let’s hope Rihanna does teach girls (and boys) self-respect and humility, and takes on the hip-hop culture’s destruction.