Public Carmodism

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Discussion on the tournament thread about GHOST TOWNE by the Specials - is this the biggest example of Carmodism being generally accepted and written into the executive summary of rock history?

(Definition of Carmodism for the 99% of you who won't know what I'm on about: the belief that the state of the charts reflects the state of the nation, or at least the belief that it makes for more interesting analysis to pretend it does. From Robin Carmody, cultural critic and high practitioner of the art.)

Comments

Re: full-on carmodism...

[koganbot]

Also - and I don't know how much this has to do with Carmodism - there was the really irritating "unemployment causes punk rock" tendency in early "reporting" of the British punk movement. Maybe there is a connection, but to say that dole queues somehow caused or are reflected by, say, the Clash's "1977" and the Pistols' "Seventeen" and "Pretty Vacant" and such is to ignore the fact that those songs were following a lyrical template created in a college town in Michigan in 1969 ("It's 1969, okay?, all across the U.S.A./Another year for me and you/Another year with nothing to do") if not NYC 1966 ("Oh, Mama, can this really be the end/To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again").

Re: full-on carmodism...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Also, the 3 million unemployment 5 years later caused, erm, "Wham Rap" (which is actually a terrific song about unemployment, but doesn't fit any kind of dole-to-punk theory obviously)