Subculture Rant

I like James Blunt. His music is brilliant. Not bad for a former Kosovo peacekeeper and Sandhurst graduate. It's quite refreshing to come across good pop music. Most pop nowadays is not very good at all. It's probably me being old.

However, for the past half an hour I've been listening to the wonderful blast beat stylings of the seminal grindcore outfit Terrorizer.

Oddly enough, so far I have not had the urge to sacrifice goats, rape babies, vandalise public buildings, defile religious literature or other unsavoury acts. In fact, the only violent impulse I have now is to drag members of the moral police and some journalists to an abandoned building and summarily execute them. I wonder why? Oh yes, it must be this violent music that I'm listening to. I'm Malaysian therefore I am easily influenced by everything I hear/watch/read. *Rolls eyes*

I read the paper today, and I saw the news yesterday about that so-called "Black Metal" bust on new year's eve. Or is that supposed to be "Black Mental". This is actually old news. Other bloggers have written about this here and here and I'm sure in other places.

By the way, grindcore isn't black metal. Neither is punk, old school or otherwise. And death metal isn't satanism either. Neither is speed metal, power metal, industrial or thrash.

It's very easy to read up on things like this. Just go to Wikipedia. Oh, wait, Wikipedia is a western creation and therefore immoral, probably. *Rolls eyes again.

I'm not going to specifically write about the raid itself, or the ongoing smear campaign run by the media targeting our "lost", "irresponsible" youth. Lots of things have been written about that.

I'm going to write about ignorance and apathy.

The powers that be in the government do not give a shit about young people. They do not care about what they think. No one in power gives a damn about why young people do the things they do.

Young people are bad. If they had it their way, they would herd everyone within the school age and throw them in religious schools to make exact carbon copies of their conservative, oppressive, narrow minded, ignorant selves.

Fortunately, this practice is very passe and unfashionable nowadays. Lucky for us.

Youth are the perfect segment of society for targeted persecution. Youth has no voice, so they can't say anything. Unlike hardcore criminals or the corrupt, youth can't fight back. If they try, it's easy to rubbish their attempts. It is very easy to potray youth as fucked up, lost, subversive. Just ask the mainstream media.

Why do I say things like these? Because it's true. If anyone cared enough, someone would've taken some time to read up on youth subculture or more importantly, go down to schools and malls and other hangouts to actually ask them. If youth was worthy of respect, someone in power would've asked them what they thought about things that affect them directly, like education and freedom of expression.

The media could've done their part to explain what the musical underground is really about. They failed and instead led the "youth is bad" chorus line.

No one in power cares. Young people are to be whipped and brainwashed, not listened to. End of discussion.

I watched the news yesterday. I watched some people try to defend their rights to make music and play them live. I saw how some other people rubbish and shoot down their opinions. I shake my head.

Futile attempts. No one will listen to young people. Everything we do is wrong. No one gives a shit.

However, there is a slighly less dark side to all this crap.

The underground thrives on persecution. The more the powers that be comes down on them, the more it will push back. The more this keeps up, the stronger it will become. I saw that when I was a kid in school and it'll happen again.

The conservatives think they'll win. But they forget. They will die one day and the young will inherit their world.

So keep playing that metal and screw them all.

Current Music - Enslaved by Propaganda - Terrorizer, World Downfall