Trent Reznor Reveals Why 90’s Grunge Era Was Better Than ‘Shitty’ Modern Rock - (My thoughts)

in #steemit7 years ago

Original article is located here.
https://www.alternativenation.net/trent-reznor-reveals-90s-grunge-era-better-shitty-modern-rock/


reznor90sangry-696x428.jpg

From the article :
"“In the 90’s, it did feel dangerous, it did feel – as an artist – that you were taking chances,” Trent explains. “The power you had as an influencer to culture felt combustible at times. I’m not saying a song doesn’t resonate with someone these days. But as a cultural force or sense of rebellion? America is imploding right now, I don’t hear that in the music.”"


My Thoughts

One of the things I think we should mention right now is that Trent admits that "America is imploding right now" yet he doesn't quite seem to understand why its imploding. Trent makes the correlation that at a time like this is exactly when it would make the most sense for us to have politically charged combustible counter culture.

Trent Rezner was at his height at around the early 1990s. One of the things that was going on around that time was the satanic moral panic. This meant that there was a large amount of fear surrounding Christian dogma. At the time, people were losing their minds at the idea that satanism was eating America alive.

We started to see this panic call for the banning of movies and video games. In the late 80s it was even possible to lose your job and be ostracized for being a possible devil worshiper. These were scary times for anyone who might have said anything that might have got them branded as a satanist.


Moral Panic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society. A Dictionary of Sociology defines a moral panic as "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media".


We are right now in the middle of another moral panic.

Once you understand what a moral panic is, it will likely be hard not to look at the current political climate and not see it for yourself. We are, right now, in the dead center of a new moral panic. We are seeing literally all of the exact same aspects surrounding the phenomenon from the previous moral panic.

Replace Nazi with Satanist and its almost comical at this point to not see it as plain as day. You might see people who consider key people as "suspected Nazis" and even just talking to the wrong person might land you a Nazi sympathizer status.

And for that matter, what the hell even is a "suspected Nazi" is the guy a Nazi or not? Is he a secret Nazi? Those devil worshipers are evil secretive people after all. Maybe its part of his evil satanist plan to pretend to be good when he hides an evil devilish agenda!

We will see people wanting to ban music, movies and video games for promoting sexism/satanism! Video games are promoting patriarchy/satanism and a brain washing our men/kids into toxic masculinity/satanism.

In the 90s the moral panic was about satanism. Anyone could have dressed up in all black and yell how "god is dead" and it would cause a shit storm of controversy.

The best kind of controversy is when you do something obviously harmless and it still causes people to lose their minds.

People who are sick of the moral panic will almost always instantly resonate. That was why it worked so well in the 90s. It was the heart of the combustive counter culture.


Not everything is the same though.

The interesting thing will be how this will cause a schism within goth culture as a lot of goths have become moralist authoritarians. This tends to be mostly true in my personal observation.

A lot of people are still trapped in this mindset that we are only moments away from seeing piles of dead bodies filling the streets at the hands of some insane supremacist uprising.

Another thing is that the fear takes on a lot of names this time around. You see the term Nazi used a lot but you will also see a lot of different groups all using slightly different terms. Patriarch, Nazi, sexist, Racist, Islamophobia and yada yada. Each term boils down to essentially the same exact thing as calling the person a satanist though. But things are a lot more splintered this time around.

Another difference is that while devil worshipers come off as basically calling someone a witch or a magical unicorn. Neo Nazi's actually do exist. They also promote shitty authoritarian ideas. In the 90s it was a lot easier to just dress like a devil and it was instantly cool.

The next counter culture is going to be constantly riding a much finer line when it comes to how things are said and done. While in the 90s adding more Satan was a lot like adding more cowbell. Coming on stage looking like a 12 foot tall demon was an obviously awesome thing to do. You probably wont have the same results dressing like Hitler...

If we are lucky we might just see a push back on authoritarianism in general. If the 90s showed us anything its that moralists always lose in the end. It doesn't matter who or what they are. Maybe what we are seeing now is just a lot more moralists this time around thus the controversy will likely be even more explosive as well.


My main take away on this is that...

When you promote bad ideas loudly enough you ultimately promote the opposite of what you wanted to say, while giving people something to galvanize around. That is exactly why the christian evangelicals practically birthed the industrial and metal era as well as the alternative music scene.

The social Justice Warriors are going to birth a new scene and its going to be a lot like the 90s all over again.

Sort:  

I was thinking about this just the other day. Counter culture presumably arises to offset the social norm when a certain voiced opinion is being oppressed or threatened. I think (frighteningly) that this whole fascist thing IS the current counter culture because those are the opinions that are currently trampled. The arts have become so freely expressed and the internet is such a liberating platform that Im not sure whether there will be enough necessity for an arts-led response (at least until its too late!). The balanced and healthy response may well have to come in some other form.... and probably NOT through the internet (or any other media communications for that matter!) because of all the closed loops..... In fact, that seems to be how the disparity has become so amplified and why we're seeing Trumps America and Brexit Britain. I don't know what the answer is, Im just predicting that the Arts will be late to the party on this occasion

It wont be a fascist counter culture but rather the pointing out that not everyone with a different opinion is a satanist. And that its time to lay to rest these weak ideas.

Though a lot of it will just be shock. WHich will happen the moment people realize they can tripple their sales the second they name their new album "2 genders" or "The gender pay gap is a lie" or "free speech or no speech"

I think it will happen on the internet and its going to happen on the alt tech. Gab, minds, Steemit, bitchute. If you look at the 90s and previous moral panics, they usually happened around a time when new technology emerged.

Video killed the radio star. MTV played a huge role in the 90s. Next will be decentralized mediums that cannot be censored.

There are a few bands that are "dangerous" in the same way grunge was, Death Grips is a prime example. They capture the heart of grunge for me in the modern era :)

Much of Trents early work, Downward spiral etc were dangerous from another perspective as they explored the real dark side of the human nature.

"He put the gun to his head, problems have solutions"

Brutally dark.

All the SJW, Antifa and safe space BS we have today is not counter culture. It is people that should be adults but still have the mind of children. They have never been allowed to fail. Everyone gets a medal for taking part shite that has taken away their ability to see they need to compete in the world to progress. To suffer loses to learn what does not work. You need to fail to grow.

I feel so sorry for them that this has been allowed to happen and that university has pandered to them as it does. Uni should be a place to challenge you, push you out of your comfort zone so you can grow.

Calling people nazi or racist because they do not agree with you will never get you what you want. It is why Hillary lost to trump. Sooner or later they will realise and then you will see counter culture again :)

I don't think SJWs will create a musical backlash. I just don't see there being a connection. I'm not even sure the "Rock is the Devil's Music" crowd caused grunge.

Grunge came about because people were tired of hairbands and fake celebrities. Different counter culture.
Goth industrial and Heavy metal were all about pissing off the religious zealots.

Good stuff doesn't come from just trying to piss people off. If pissing self-righteous people off is a side effect though, I can't fault it.

Its a perfect storm that is necessary. I agree.
But when you can make a lot of people angry super easily it works very well to increase sales. Its free advertising especially when the things said and done didn't do anything morally wrong.

thanks for sharing keep it up