Gang of Four as critical theorists
[thanks to Lou Proyect for pointing this out]
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/55565/gang_of_four_and_pop_music_as_marxist.html
Gang of Four and Pop Music as Marxist Critical Theory A Market of the Senses
By Timothy Sexton
On their second album Solid Gold, the postpunk rock group Gang of
Four openly assert their intention to approach pop music as critical
theory with a song titled, appropriately enough, “Why Theory?” In
answer to their own query of why critical theory should have a place
in rock music, the band sings “Each day seems like a natural fact /
And what we think changes how we act.” The critical theory that Gang
of Four present in their music is a Marxist one centered on the
premise that before revolt can take place, one must first penetrate
through the consciousness that is determined by capitalistic ideology
in order to understand why a revolution is necessary.
Gang of Four locate their Marxist theory in the Althusserian notion
of expressing resistance through the contradictions inherent in the
Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) of the corporate-controlled rock
music industry, and the way in which Gang of Four express their
theory of Marxist thought is by inducing in the listener an
alternative consciousness achieved through contradictions and
disorientations that serve to mirror the very sense of disorientation
and contradiction that capitalistic consciousness creates.
According to neo-Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, an ISA is the
site in which the class struggle takes place and Gang of Four grandly
engaged in this contradiction by proudly signing a contract with the
huge multinational conglomerate EMI as well as by choosing to
ironically title their first album Entertainment! and then serving up
a collection of songs that critique the very idea of entertainment
being used to propagate an ideology with which the band disagrees. In
a footnote to his essay Althusser somewhat fails to present a
concrete view of how contradiction within an ISA actually works, but
a hint of what he’s trying to say is expressed when he writes “the
class struggle extends beyond the ISAs because it is rooted elsewhere
than in ideology, in the Infrastructure, in the relations of
production, which are relations of exploitation and constitute the
base for class relations.” The contradiction inherent in the music
industry is that a company like EMI can only exist by making profits
off its acts and Gang of Four presented themselves as a potentially
profitable band despite their dissident theories.
But what reason could a devoutly Marxist band have for signing with a
devoutly capitalist entity like EMI? Realizing that signing with any
company constitutes an exploitative relationship in which it is the
artist that is exploited, Gang of Four consciously decided to enter
the belly of the beast, reveling in its implications. In the booklet
accompanying the band’s compilation album 100 Flowers Bloom guitarist
Andy Gill says, “From the beginning, we picked EMI as being a perfect
label for us to be on; one of the biggest industrial conglomerates in
the UK�a huge multinational, trading in everything from arms to
entertainment. If we’d been on Rough Trade [another record label], it
would have been a far less potent juxtaposition.” Gang of Four
clearly sought to delineate in their theory the Althusserian notion
that everyone is complicit in accepting the ideology, that there is
no point in trying to escape responsibility. By signing with Rough
Trade or any other smaller record company Gang of Four would in
effect have been accepting an imaginary relationship as their “real
conditions of existence.” By signing with EMI and juxtaposing their
radical politics with a hugely successful capitalistic behemoth, Gang
of Four attempts to bypass an “imaginary relationship�to the
relations of production and the relations that derive from them.”
Potent juxtaposition in order to expose that complicity in an
imaginary relationship and to raise awareness of it in the listener
went far beyond deciding which company to sign with, it became a
staple of their message to the rock world.
The critical theory that Gang of Four attempt in their music is not
one that didactically hammers away that Marxism is the only path
toward living wages and a better life, but rather draws the listener
in as subject/object of the lyrical ideas, forcing him to re-examine
the consciousness that he has come to accept as natural, presenting
him with the idea that he is complicit in the power structure and
must come to accept that responsibility. The lyrical content is
remarkably consistent with Marx and Engels’ exhortation that
“consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of
material life, from the existing conflict between the social
productive forces and the relations of production.”
[…]