Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

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Farcevalue
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by Farcevalue »

Curious Shill on the Marc Maron WTF Podcast

Lately, (well, for probably two years or more) I have been occupying my commute time almost exclusively with podcasts. It has been a real pleasure to hear Simon on the Ab Irato podcast, and there are a few others I indulge in frequently as well.

Recently, I tuned into comedian Marc Maron's WTF podcast featuring an interview with the writer/singer Mark Oliver Everett from Eels, episode 371. At 41:40, for those who are interested, but after this why would you be, he (Everett) recounts how his cousin, Jennifer Lewis nee Gore and her husband were flight attendants on the plane that hit the Pentagon. WTF, indeed.

Coincidentally, this is another artist whose father worked in the Pentagon that migrated to LA to hit the big time and did, to a degree. Laurel Canyon reprise, perhaps.

I had heard the track Novocaine for the Soul, and thought it was cool. I haven't given much thought to new artists being incubated in the MIC as tools for the psyop, but this could be another one.

Not much back-story available on the cousin, typical hack memorial superficiality.

I actually wrote a song years ago about trying to sell my soul but there not being a market for it. Maybe that's why I still have a day job.
Lazlo
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by Lazlo »

Music as Mind Control

This is a very interesting topic but hard to get a handle on. We know that at the least that the Brits, by way of the BBC, engaged in cultural propaganda by stiffing Rock and Roll on the airwaves as pointed out in the, so-so, movie Pirate Radio http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1131729/. Most of the research I have seen in this area is of the highly speculative nature that you also find with discussions of "free energy." Q. "How do you know that the government is suppressing alternative energy?" A. "Tesla, man Tesla!" Another "researcher" assumption that one sees all the time is to suggest that Edward Bernays got his mojo just from being Sigmund Freud's nephew and nothing could be further from the truth. The best assessment of Freud comes from Nabokov who stated: Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts. A good starting point is The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, and Political by John Coleman. Check for the book on a toЯЯrent feed.

I don't think I have seen this video, so I can't speak for it, really:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXr6fkff6zg
ElSushi
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by ElSushi »

I remember that I used to listen to Supertramp quite a lot when I was young ("When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful...") and I recently stumbled across their 1979 Live in Paris DVD and found that rather interesting video clip taken out of this DVD footage. Interestingly enough, that theme song is also the song played at the very end of the radio abirato show hosted by the great Tim.

I think that video slip says it all, once again. Aerial view of a digitally simulated Manhattan peninsula, the twin towers are no longer here since the DVD was released on 27 Aug 2012, which is 11 years after the 9/11 thing (and I guess I should also point out that 2+7=9) ...that was the "Breakfast in America" era.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supertramp-Live ... B008B3MZMY
ElSushi
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by ElSushi »

I also found that other quite interesting picture...also taken from the DVD...
I quite like the way they used both the " I " and " N " letters in order to "simulate" the tower.

Image
Farcevalue
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by Farcevalue »

I listened to Breakfast in America (it was near unavoidable) quite a bit in that era. It seemed to make sense at the time that a rueful lament about the "tragedy" of learning to use logic would be a bane to the ruling class.

As they say, youth is wasted on the young.
teriyaki taryaki
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by teriyaki taryaki »

Farcevalue wrote:I listened to Breakfast in America (it was near unavoidable) quite a bit in that era. It seemed to make sense at the time that a rueful lament about the "tragedy" of learning to use logic would be a bane to the ruling class.

As they say, youth is wasted on the young.

You can underrate "Logical Song" all you want because it came from an album that sold 20 million copies and is overplayed but just like "Hotel California" by the Eagles and "Hitch A Ride" by Boston, it remains one of the greatest songs ever written. It synergizes into something well-beyond what the writers themselves may have intended. The lyrics are simple and direct but the perfect fit of the music and a proper mixture of satirical undercurrent achieved in the performance through brief mood meditations on the very conflicting feelings of despair, longing, frustration and romanticism that gave rise to the need of creating this song & not another, the attempt to resolve this puzzle in the realm of artifice, in the realm of 'riddles with elegant solutions' as Nabokov called it, send it to another level altogether, that of the 'art song.' Schubert would have been proud. The danger, of course, of the willingness to be tempered by fire, of maintaining the extremely fragile tensions needed in order to process contradictory information coming from all directions elegantly, is burn-out and hardly a single great musical artist of the 1960's and 1970's escaped this predicament when the security blanket that the zeitgeist of that era had provided to exploratory mind-sets was summarily removed.

It's really about the very trap that 'logic' represents when the confines or various 'dialectics' within which that logic is exercised are pre-determined through indoctrination and mass-media programming. Davies and Hodgson may not have even consciously identified the problem as being one of relentless propaganda saturation and almost certainly not as coming from a deliberately camouflaged poisonous 'leftist liberal' root ideology out to branches all sickened as a consequence, but having sensed it through instinct are trying to point listeners in the right direction. The flip-side of this recognition of systemic indoctrination is apathy and resignation to illogic and irrationality. This inability of synthesizing poisoned, inorganic knowledge into a new integrity, a temperance that is not compromised and can fight off mental viruses as a spiritual martial art, this is not just the 'hippie trap' and hippie dilemma but the problem of most modern artists.


Songwriters: RICHARD DAVIES, ROGER HODGSON

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical
There are times when all the world's asleep
The questions run too deep for such a simple man
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am


You haven't learned much of anything, you've been indoctrinated with dialectics

I said now, watch what you say, now we're calling you a radical, a liberal, fanatical, criminal
Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable
But at night, when all the world's asleep
The questions run so deep for such a simple man
Won't you please (Won't you tell me), (You can tell me what) please tell me what we've learned (Can you hear me?)
I know it sounds absurd, (Won't you help me) please tell me who I am, who I am, who I am, who I am

But I'm thinking so logical

Did you call, one two three four

It's getting unbelievable


Image


The problem of cracking through brainwashed ice to 'freedom' is expressed very elegantly on Boston's 17 million copy selling 1976 debut album:


Songwriters: Scholz, Donald T.

Day is night in New York City
Smoke, like water runs inside
Steel idle trees to pity
Every living thing that's died

Gonna hitch a ride
Head for the other side
Leave it all behind
Never change my mind
Gonna sail away
Sun lights another day
Freedom on my mind
Carry me away for the last time
Oh yeah

Life is like the coldest winter
People freeze the tears I cry
Words of hail their minds are into
I've got to crack this ice and fly


Gonna hitch a ride
Head for the other side
Leave it all behind
Never change my mind
Gonna sail away
Sun lights another day
Freedom on my mind
Carry me away for the last time

Gonna hitch a ride
Head for the other side
Leave it all behind
Never change my mind
Gonna sail away
Sun lights another day
Freedom on my mind
Carry me away for the last time

The performance and very mode of expression of the song itself, the mode of being it represents is the most elegant solution found to the riddle of 'the words of hail their minds are into' the song has presented. The unspoken message is: if you process reality in a similar fashion to Tom Scholz, Brad Delp and the rest of the band when they created this song under the influence of the zeitgeist of the early 1970's, then you may have a chance to crack that ice and fly, otherwise you will freeze to death or commit completely unexpected suicide 30 years later like Delp did in 2007.


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp4Ugebi608


Image

Image


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

Personal life

Delp was twice married and divorced, and had two children by his second wife. He was a vegetarian for over 30 years, and contributed to a number of charitable causes.[3] He was set to marry Pamela Sullivan, his girlfriend of seven years, at the time of his death.

Death

Delp committed suicide on March 9, 2007, aged 55. He was found dead in his home on Academy Avenue in Atkinson, New Hampshire, from the smoke of two charcoal grills he lit inside his sealed master bathroom.[4] Delp was found by police and Delp's fiancee together, lying on a pillow on his bathroom floor. Delp left 4 private notes to his family members plus a public note paper-clipped to his shirt which read: "Mr. Brad Delp. "J'ai une ame solitaire". I am a lonely soul." [5][6][7][8]

The official cause of death was listed as carbon monoxide poisoning.[9] Delp was known for his considerate nature and gentle spirit. He had left a note on the front door and master bedroom door of his house warning that there would be carbon monoxide present and mentioned that someone please see that "Floppy", their cat, was unaffected by the carbon monoxide. That day, the official website for the band was taken down and replaced with the statement: "We've just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."
AmongTheThugs
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by AmongTheThugs »

Flipping through some LP's today at Goodwill I came across some Super Tramp. I have not seen their record, "Crime of the Century" mentioned here.
Farcevalue
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by Farcevalue »


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3UlacWXwGQ

Bon Jovi never piqued my interest at a time when there were far more interesting actual rock bands, though I always admired Bernie Taupin's contribution to some iconic, classic material.

But the 70s and 80s are but specks in the rear-view and now there's nothing going on but the rent.

Speaking of which: It was recently rumored that Richie Sambora was fired for continuing to collect his 2 million a month touring salary, while paying his sub a paltry 10k a month. And I thought, "Can that whole tour make 2 million a year?" I then ran into the paradox of using the MSM to validate and/or discredit the MSM.
RogerSmith
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by RogerSmith »

Surprisingly haven't seen this linked in here:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIjiYnGFTRc

Here's a Wikicrap article on the tour if any interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_TV_Tour

I haven't seen any official statements suggesting so on this tour, though I'd like to imagine this ZooTV tour by U2, as one can note through the video above, was to wake the ignorant zombie populace back to consciousness (or something like that?). Of course, it didn't work very well. When I first found this video, it was through another (questionable video, may have been a different part of the same series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qru8jSxhqLc) that noted scratchy audio tracks and other obscure sounds (as one can note in this video above) may in fact be examples of "Acoustically Delivered and Phonetically Accelerated Posthypnotic Commands", a supposed NSA tactic according to this document I have yet to read in its entirety and have no certainty of its validity:
http://www.whale.to/b/nsa4.html

Ultimately, I find this video interesting, as well as the tour as a whole, because it very clearly suggests mind-control themes and other hypnotic madness.

Edit: Here's an even closer look

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMneYa8gJBY
Libero
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by Libero »

It's always interesting to revisit the lyrics of certain songs once one is apprised of the evidence of propaganda and media fakery. Even though "Rage" is most certainly part of the machine, this is great example of an ode to the psyop (replacing 'died' with 'lied' or 'are CGI'd' when applicable, of course ;) .)
The band's debut album, Rage Against the Machine, reached triple platinum status, driven by heavy radio play of the song "Killing in the Name", a heavy, driving track featuring only eight lines of lyrics.
The album's cover featured Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the murder of Buddhists by the US-backed Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem's regime.
(See Viet Nam War topic for additional info regarding the photograph.)

Lyrics to "Killing in the Name"
http://www.ratm.net/lyrics/kil.html

"Some of those that work forces,
are the same that burn crosses"

"Those who died, are justified. For wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites"

"And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control"

"Killing in the Name" **Explicit** version

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNzIKoAy2pk


This is probably worthy of a mention too regarding RATM.
In 1999 Rage Against the Machine played at the infamous Woodstock '99 concert.

That same year the song "Wake Up" was featured on the soundtrack of the film The Matrix. The track "Calm Like a Bomb" was later featured in the film's sequel, 2003's The Matrix Reloaded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine


Edit: Having examined the full lyrics to each of their songs featured in the Matrix movies, I would definitely consider these guys a "limited hangout." Also, having introspectively analyzed my own experiences of being psy-opped over the years, I find that it's not necessarily so much "And now you do what they told ya, now you're under control" as it is processing false inputs and contriving a false conclusion based upon them in one's own mind, and then basing a reaction to them accordingly. The best customer is the one who sells himself type of thing. Hopefully, these songs which are seeded by the 'officially reported conspiracies' but tied to the Matrix movies will get some folks curious enough to carry on further investigation and begin the process to "free their own minds."
simonshack
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by simonshack »

Thanks Libero...

Now I have a better reason for having always (intuitively) utterly disliked that RATM band. :P
hoi.polloi
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

I dunno, any band that releases a pop song that consists of someone just screaming "Waake uuuup!" over and over to the American populace can't be all bad in my book. Regardless of intent, background noises, and subliminal what-have-you, at least that much of the song's message isn't subtle or manipulative.

Ineffective maybe ...
I, Gestalta
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by I, Gestalta »

Well, it depends upon what the general message of the band's lyrical content tends toward.

For instance, if most of what you're singing about is, say, why it's imperative that one votes Democrat come next election in 90% of your songs, then I'd say that screaming "Wake Up" is indeed manipulative within the context of the message. People love the idea of feeling or being "awake" and "aware"---just look at the youtube comments made by what I call "truth hipsters" on videos about "greys", or about how James Holmes was a Monarch/MK slave. Those positions are typically the product of very savvy, fearmongering disinformation agents; and they are seldom propagated without some fashion of the adage, "wake up, sheeple"!

Could some of the people who create tons and tons of videos and articles of this sort simply be confused individuals struggling to find the truth? Certainly. Does that acquit them of charges of manipulation/obfuscation/disinformation? I suppose.

So, with that said, the questions I have about RATM are:

1.) What is their message?

2.) Be it correct or incorrect, do they believe in this message?


As for me, I just don't care for their actual music. Tom Morello usually played in a straight-forward, pentatonic style augmented sometimes with chromatic runs/chromatic blending. Boooriiiiiing. Petrucci, Michael Romeo, Tosin Abasi, Chimp Spanner and other hard-working gentlemen are actually advancing the instrument and exploring it creatively. Morello chooses to play insipid, mediocre wallpaper music. To me, RATM was nothing but bubblegum pop music.
MrSinclair
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by MrSinclair »

RATM's vibe always seemed co-opted to me and rang false, not that I listen to stuff like this anyways but younger family and friends were into them. One of them went around w/ Springsteen for awhile, there's a guy with a lot of message which builds him a following (along with his genuine talent) used to what purpose, leading people to Obama? They are just more Obama devotees who think the Democratic party represents some kind of enlightenment and victory. I find next to nobody I meet offline shares my disdain for both parties, all politicians and all big media reporting. It seems as if people are compelled to pick a side as if either/or represents an actual choice. It doesn't. RATM always seemed sanctioned and sponsored by the very forces they vaguely seem to be against.

For me at a younger age Dylan, Phil Ochs and others really hit home and the lyrics of tunes like "Masters of War" or "I Ain't a Marching Anymore" still hold up. My favorite couplet in this genre comes from Grace Slick in Rejoyce, on the Jefferson Airplanes , After Bathing at Baxter's.

"Steven won't give his arm
to no gold star mother's farm;
War's good business so give your son
and I'd rather have my country die for me."

I'm not sure that rock music has much more left to do with awakening people at this stage of the game.
hoi.polloi
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Re: Is MUSIC used as a propaganda/mind-control tool?

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Sheesh, I guess I should have been interested in their songs long enough to actually listen to the lyrics.

All I remember is the screamy bit from the first The Matrix soundtrack. The song is actually apparently about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King getting killed, and the 1960's. Seems an appropriate topic since we are also discussing the Viet Nam era here: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f= ... 3&start=30
Come on!
Ugh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it'll never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Ugh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!

I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

He may be a real contender for this position should he
Abandon his supposed obedience to white liberal doctrine
Of non-violence and embrace black nationalism'
Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
Pinpoint potential trouble-makers and neutralize them,
Neutralize them, neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow
I can see how they might be disingenuous in general, and perhaps even deceptive about Malcolm X, MLK and FBI matters (particularly, if they are aware of some role to the mass media, even if they don't seem to be aware of media fakery) but it's interesting that something so culturally specific would be played in the context of such a vaguely American (or is that Americanly vague?) movie as The Matrix.

I agree with MrSinclair that rock is generally too misinformed and too un-poetic these days to be effective. And that makes Rage more like the band version of Alex Jones instead of anything real.

Reminds me of a funny collection of pseudo-punk called Rock Against Bush that worked out to be about as effective at "waking people up" as the double sens of softly humping bush implies. The point was to just get people to vote - and for anyone but Bush. What a "wake up". Sad.

While it seems we generally agree music is not truly effective at waking people up, and I am a die-hard skeptic, I do want to speak for those I have witnessed becoming at least slightly more aware and skeptical through bands. I know, I know, not necessary, this site is all about critique and not endorsement. And I completely acknowledge people just as easily get sucked into the minutia of the song writer's often misinformed world view.

Listening with the intent of critical thinking, and hearing the exercise of critical thinking in the song, is up to the listener. Just like interpreting any art, most will not 'escape' the loop given them by the media, no matter how far out the art is. But the artist's job is perhaps to help people try. That's probably why music is such an effective propaganda tool. It makes people think they are exercising free will while they unconsciously download all sorts of misinformation. Hopefully online threads like this can help people "compose" themselves when listening to any song, and sort of help build an immunity against the less inspirational lyrics all over the airwaves.
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