Scandals or scandals?
In "Pop and Populism", Jens Balzer analyzes song lyrics, which he finds are becoming more provocative and aggressive in parallel with politics. The reviewer agrees with this analysis only to a limited extent.
The questions are interesting: How much responsibility does a rock musician have? When does he or she reach the limit where provocation crosses over into taboo zones, into so-called "no-gos"? Rock and pop musicians have always dabbled in precarious areas - be it openly displayed sex fantasies (Rammstein eloquently: Bend over) or dark scenes of violence with references to the Third Reich (Slayer: Angel of Death). But not all the lyrics should be taken at face value. Some things - see Rammstein - are ironically broken, others - see Slayer - are deliberately inscribed with that scandal and are not necessarily politically motivated, but merely sales-promoting. A big outcry is advertising. It arouses interest.
The many pop and rock phenomena can hardly be reduced to a common denominator. In this respect, the author and pop critic Jens Balzer does well to start with a few selected examples. There are, for example, those rappers who have late adolescents in mind. "Young, brutal, good-looking xxx" is the slogan of rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang. Their lyrics are full of sex, violence and even anti-Semitism, which led to the Echo scandal. "My body more defined than by Auschwitz inmates", says the song 0815. Elsewhere they rap: "Make another Holocaust, come on with the Molotov."
Whether something like this can be justified with the concept of artistic freedom remains doubtful. For Balzer, in any case, such misconduct is an indication of the brutalization of morals. He sees clear parallels between music and today's politics, where Syrians, Muslims or Jews find themselves in the verbal crosshairs. For Balzer, pop's responsibility would mean a conscious counter-reaction to the new right in the sense of intelligent lyrics without phrases, without catchphrases à la Kollegah. And also a politically correct language, as he describes it in the case of the English performance artist Planningtorock, which is open to the different, the foreign in the sense of differentiated transgender considerations. "It's about," says Balzer, summing up, "the irreplaceable hope that pop can give us places and spaces, moments and opportunities in which people who are perhaps very different from ourselves meet us not as competitors and opponents, but as friends."
The 200-page book Pop and populism is already thought-provoking. However, it is questionable whether the cloak of silence would not be a better alternative than criticism, which is easy in the case of less intellectual rappers, but ultimately leads nowhere. Pop as a mass phenomenon is usually superficial to highly embarrassing per se. The same applies to right-wing politics. The lyrics there are also "emotional" - but far more dangerous than music for teenagers who just want to be strong.
Jens Balzer: Pop and populism. On responsibility in music, 206 p., € 17.00, Edition Körber, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-89684-272-5
