Listen to U2
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The West Triumphs -
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RM Radio
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To many, the West post 2000 has had its social consciousness diluted, or evaporated, the result of the onslaught of the culture of cold economic rationalism and the cynical pursuit of individualism. It is now a West in which rampant capitalism is destroying the very communal soul of our society. Or has the West transformed into something else? |
And what about Western Popular Music? How did it change during this era? Did the emergent new forms - or those that became more predominant such as - New Wave, Grunge, Rap, Techno and so on, reflect a society and culture in triumph? Or did they - and do they, reflect a certain protest waged by both class and ethnicity? And in the music is there perhaps a harking back to other eras, when life was maybe more certain? |
Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire
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Operation Desert Storm
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See Operation Desert Storm
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Domestically in the United States and elsewhere in the West, the central social debates are no longer about welfare or the collective good. Society is no longer inclusive - it is individuals and the nation. The West is now driven by different politics- those of rationalists, economists and accountants, all of those marching to the god of profit. The result - the alienation and atomisation of society - big parties, big drugs, exctasy, big beats. |
Pink Floyd - Money
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Grunge was a blend of Punk and Heavy Rock but its lyrics really offered no alternative to the ways of the world in the way that the hippies posed a non-materialist way of life. life. As it was, leading band Nirvana lost leader Kurt Cobain to suicide - the ultimate nihilistic act. Although the early 1990s called its newest music `Modern Rock’, the cutting edge among popular styles became `Rap’ or `Hip - Hop’. Originating among black artists, this half-spoken, half played music spread to white artists as far afield as Christian music. Also, in the early years of the 1990s one thing became clear, digital technology was here to stay and it was to be the wave of the future. But there were new waves and new genres of Pop Music, and so the machine goes on. But was Rock dead by the 2000s. |
Ice Cube - Gangsta Rap
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The Prodigy
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The Chemical Brothers
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First of all a British initiative, even while there was Prime Minister Thatcher and 'Reaganism' (both Reagan and Thatcher promoted what could be argued was the greed generation in the West) there was still recognition that African famine and poverty is a mirror of First World greed, and such concerts acted to tickle First World consciousness. While, Prime Minister Thatcher in Britain promoted a `greed generation’ there were nevertheless many in the industry aware of the enormous poverty and famine in the Third World. As such, Live Aid were concerts designed to spread awareness and gather help for these people. |
Live Aid - 1985 USA For Africa
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