by Paul Klemperer

Back in the days of campus activism I remember one grassroots polemicist forcefully making the point that there is no such thing as an apolitical person. Everyone is organized to a political viewpoint, whether consciously or unconsciously. Your likes and dislikes have been instilled in you since birth by complex and ongoing influences.

If we accept this idea, then any discussion of freedom must do away with the notion of a tabula rasa when it comes to people's capabilities and limitations. No man is an island, every choice you make is conditioned by many factors, most of them social. The monolithic advertising industry knows this and spends a huge budget figuring out ways to get into your subconscious so they can make you twitch in the desired manner. The science of mind control may be unwieldy and inexact, but a basic tenet is that repeated information will be absorbed into the mind at some level. Also, the human organism finds it difficult to ignore an irritant. A loud voice yelling at you from your television about some worthless commodity may be highly irritating, but you will remember the brand name of that commodity. And if the name is repeated enough times, on your next foray to the supermarket you may be unconsciously drawn to that particular worthless commodity.

The formula carries over well into the sphere of popular music. We all know the basic rules of pop song construction: simple melodies, simple lyrics, easily identifiable melodic hooks that can be repeated until they are drilled into the brain of the listener. For many people who have been organized since birth to accept pop music as soothing and entertaining, this repetition formula is welcome since these folks actually like the music they are inundated with from radio, TV,and record stores. For other people who may not specifically like the musical crap they are being force fed, the irritant formula can be almost as effective. You hear the saccharin melodies, they irritate you, but with repetition they become familiar, until you accept them as normal, mainstream music. You may not particularly want to consume the sonic junkfood, but soon you are accustomed to it, and it becomes the background music of daily life. You have been politically organized to accept and participate in pop music culture.

What about the rest of us? Do we accept the musical status quo? If we rebel, how do we do it? Personal rebellion may include the headphones and walkman, so that you shut out the sonic mainstream. This represents one kind of personal freedom, but an extra-terrestrial looking down on our planet might be bemused to see armies of individuals alone in their collectivity via their headphones. It might look as much like dissociation as freedom. It might look like we have given up on affecting our sonic environment and retreated to our hermit caves of personal music machines. This is not in itself a bad thing but it sacrifices the social interaction of music in the service of personal freedom.

Another form of rebellion is the time-honored ritual of youth music, music designed specifically to be different from your parents' music, and hopefully highly unpleasant to the parentals. Rock & roll, punk, metal, rap: all share these qualities, and thus represent the struggle by youth for freedom of self-expression. The problem is that these musics are not free from commodification and from coopting no matter how loud and dissonant the sounds, no matter how violent and pornographic the lyrics. The songs of today's rebels will be TV jingles for the next generation. So rebelling against the sonic mainstream is an elusive and illusive prospect.

What other options are there in the struggle for sonic freedom in a world of execrable pop music? Many musicians and audiences find refuge in the ironic stance. You can't escape pop music, you can't ignore it. You can only position and redefine it. This general principle can take many forms: an avant garde jazz band covering Ricky Martin; conversely, a lounge cover version of the Sex Pistols; samples and remixes of various pop schlock to create musical commentary. This is a ripe field of endeavor. Commenting and critiquing on pop music culture, whether through your instrument or by sampling recordings, reflects a contemporary attitude that doesn't dissociate itself from mainstream culture, but asserts its power to respond to it. This may be the strongest expression of musical freedom of which we are capable right now.