I love underground bands that I find randomly. warrenpeace are definitely underground. Signed to Scroobius Pip's Speech Development Records, they're a combination of Punk, hip-hop and spoken word. And if you don't think I'm geeking out on that, you must not know me well. Made up of two guys, warrenpeace decided to go big time with their first single. If you're going to talk truth to power in pop music, who better than to go after one of the biggest stars of the last 30 years.
"FRNKLYSTVN" starts off with a spoken word intro by Scroobius Pip. Great flow, and a fantastic stream of thought on how love exists because you believe in it. The act of believing you're in love makes it exist. (His example of the tooth fairy is awesome, by the way.) The video is brilliant too, with the opening starting with Pip in the living room and a mellow flow then moving to the basement where warrenpeace start in.
The basics of the song are a punk guitar and a drum machine. Pure adrenaline, with a pounding beat that pushes the song along. Now, I will say for my American readers, it'll be difficult for you to understand the accents. These are not the posh movie accents of Downton Abbey. if you needed the subtitles for the movie "Snatch" then you're definitely not going to pick up these lyrics. So let me just clue you in. The basics of the song deal with a very famous singer who flirted with the very right-wing BNP in the late 80s and early 90s. Heck, this singer even named his first solo album, "Viva Hate" and had songs that many people said were possibly racist. (The singer stated that, and I'm paraphrasing here, that only an idiot would think these songs were racist and that they were actually not.) I speak of course about Stephen Morrissey, former lead singer of The Smiths. The song basically bashes him for what they see as his hypocrisy, and say that he's "working class for the middle classes." It's a brilliant and breathless take down of a man that I personally think might take himself a little too seriously. (Cue the hordes of people coming for my head. Morrissey fans can be some of the most passionate I've ever seen, and that includes football fans and "Twilight" fans put together.)
The idea is that at one time, Morrissey might have flirted with right-wing xenaphobia in the 1990s. Some of his songs, which most of his defenders say are tongue in cheek, could be a bit hateful if viewed one way. "National Front Disco" and "Bengali in Platforms" are the usual examples, plus his interview in the Guardian where he referred to the Chinese as a subspecies. (I know, it was probably taken out of context, so I'm not going to get into that.) The fact is that Morrissey is very outspoken about everything, and warrenpeace decided to say something about it. It's an awesome song.
Here's the question: Can you love a performer and detest either their personal views or actions? Are you able to make the distinction and still appreciate the music away from the musician? The best example of that is of course Michael Jackson. Great entertainer, but it was very difficult for me to separate the things he'd been accused of doing from the music. However, with bands or musicians that don't share the same political philosophy as I, it's much easier for me to separate out what my differences from their music. Interesting thought on this. You can love a performer without actually liking them, at least in my opinion. Give the song a chance, as you might like it.
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