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Mandela Day

Hey !

This week, I would like to write about the beautiful song, for me, Mandela Day by Simple Minds.

This song, Mandela Day, was written by the Scottish rock band Simple Minds and released in 1989. It was part of the album called Street Fighting Years, in which were also included the songs Belfast Child and Biko.

Concerning the genre, it was an alternative rock, Irish folk, World music. It has been quite a success as this song has reached No. 1 on the British charts just one month after its release.

Mandela Day has been written in honor of Nelson Mandela, for the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute. First, as I’m sure everybody knows, Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader and philanthropist, and he has served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. So he was the country’s first black head to state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. He was focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid. He has also received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute mentioned before was a popular-music concert in June 1988 in London and was broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million. So everything was made to have a large audience, a wide mediation. It has marked the forthcoming 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela so it was also referred to as Freedomfest, Free Nelson Mandela Concert and Mandela Day. It was a notable example of anti-apartheid music.

Yet this song is mostly about the fact that he has been put in jail several times, and especially in 1962. Usually committed to non-violent protest, he has led a sabotage campaign against the government in 1961 and was arrested and imprisoned in 1962. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but has served only 27 years in prison before being released by the president in 1990 because of growing domestic and international pressure and of fears of a racial civil war. So this song has a historical meaning as Mandela was still in prison when the song was released, even if he will be freed one year later.

Moreover, this song has also a political meaning as it has been made, to some extent, against the government who had put Mandela in jail. They may have found this unfair and unequal as he was a man looking for peace, justice, equality and democracy. It was also a way to keep protesting against apartheid,a system of racial segregation that privileged whites.

The music video may also be interesting because it is the recording of the concert for the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, mixing with images of the crowd, of children playing and smiling, of people walking in Johannesburg and around or working, of some South African landscapes. It really transports any listener to South Africa during this period.

I really like that song. It is really beautiful and it may be enhanced by the melody, the rhythm of the song. It is quite slow, calm, which may remind the audience of the aim of Mandela : peace, unity and equality. It is not fast or what an attractive song usually sounds like, but it has the same effect for me. It is easy to remember it and to keep in mind.

Enjoy !

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Christmas Songs

Hey,

For this post, I would like to write about Christmas songs and their popularization. It is not my usual subject but I have found interesting as we will soon be in December and because they may be now considered as popular songs.

I wanted to write about Christmas songs because I have recently watched some Christmas movies, which necessarily contain those songs, and a program dealing with them and which we listen to the most. And there was the illumination of the Christmas tree in Strasbourg yesterday night, so I think it is a good opportunity.

Christmas songs have always been very popular since their beginning and it has been reinforced by the development of music industry, television, radio or records. Each year, as soon as November comes, we begin to constantly hear those songs everywhere.

All the mediations are used in order to broadcast Christmas songs, that is to say TV, radio, inside and outside. For instance, we may hear them in almost all the shops or even in the streets in some cities. And there are a lot of events during this period, such as the illumination of a street or a Christmas tree, which use these songs. Therefore they are always around us. And it may be seen as a way to “make us” listen to them, like them. This situation may be noticed in a lot of countries, in the US, the UK and in the rest of Europe too.

Another characteristic proving their popularity is the fact that a lot of covers are made from them. Each year, some pop singers do covers of traditional Christmas songs or even write new ones, even if those ones never have the same success as the old ones. Some singers may even be famous just for them, or at least more famous for their Christmas songs than for the others.

What makes them even more popular is the fact that they are really easy to remember, to learn by heart. The rhythm is very simple, attractive, sometimes repetitive. Listening to them, we are practically compelled to sing along, to dance. They are made in order to appeal to everyone as children and adults know them by heart, sing them together. They are made for a wide audience, which seems to always get bigger over time. What is more, we may guess that there is a Christmas song for each person as these songs may be different following the country, even if the most famous ones are known all over the world by those celebrating Christmas.

We may add that most of these songs may have been folk songs at the beginning, and not popular songs. In fact, they were first sung within the family, by a few people and were not as popular as today. But then, some of them have begun to be sung in the church for example, or some famous singers have covered them and they have appealled to a new audience.

Threfore, some of these popular Christmas songs are more linked to the industry than the others, such as All I want for Christmas is you by Mariah Carrey, song that everyone knows by heart. We hear it every year since 1994, and it may be even too much sometimes. It still is her biggest international success as it reached number one in numerous countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the United States. Still in 2019, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, 25 years after its original release. I think that it may be one of the best, or even the best, examples of the popularity and the popularization of Christmas songs.

On the contrary, some Christmas songs are still unknown for the wide audience, such as The Twelve Days of Christmas for example even if it is part of the old Chirstmas songs. What I mean is that this song may be popular in the US obviously, but not in Europe like All I want for Christmas is you or Jingle Bells for example. I know that I have only discovered this song recently while watching a Christmas movie.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEyMjdD2uk

Here are some other Christmas songs :

Jingle Bells   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CWJNqyub3o

Santa Claus is coming to town  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wzAxkkzS78*

or Deck the Halls   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIFqnEoctI4

Enjoy !

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Freedom

Hey,

Fo this new post, I would like to write about the song Freedom by a chorus of artists.

The song Freedom has been released in 1995 on Mercury Records and has been written by a chorus of over 60 artists and groups of note in hip-hop, pop and R&B music.

What is important is that this chorus was composed of over 60 African-American female artists. Among those artists or groups, there were En Vogue, Aaliyah, Vanessa L. Williams, Mary J. Blige, MC Lyte, SWV, TLC or Monica, but there were a lot more of them. Yet, it was a cover as it originally was a Joi’s song in 1994.

This song is all about freedom, freewill and independence. It is obvious by just looking at the first few lines : “We will not bow down to racism / We will not bow down to injustice / We will not bow down to exploitation / I’m gon’ stand, I’m gon’ stand”. They want to be free, in their mind and their body. They are looking for respect and want to show that everyone is worth it, even Black women. They may also criticize the government as they talk about propaganda, about being chained, and call for unity, solidarity. They use popular music to expose political and social issues that the country may not acknoledge or may even encourage by some actions.

Therefore it is a political and social song as it was also a tribute to women of the past such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisholm and Angela Davis. In fact, all these women were abolitionists, political activists, authors or politicians. Some of them were born into slavery. Each of them has fought for women’s rights, women’s suffrage, African-American equality, or has participated to the civil rights movement such as Rosa Parks (”the first lady of civil rights” or “the mother of the freedom movement”) and Coretta Scott King (wife of Martin Luther King, leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s). And Shirley Chisholm has been the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress for New York’s 12th congressional district. These women have been very important in American history, socially and politically as they have improved American society, have defended minorities, by their actions, their fights.

It may also be a way to highlight women’s importance in general, not only those I mentioned before, and their diversity. In fact, just with the song, their diversity may be seen as each of them has a different way of singing. Some are more rap singers, pop singers, or R&B singers. For me, this combinaison of rhytms, voices, in the song makes it more attractive for the audience.

The song peaked at 10 on Billboard’s R&B Singles Chart and at 45 on Billboard’s Pop Singles Chart. The song and the solemn black-and-white video have been recorded right after the American Music Award in 1995. There was also a rap-only version of the song featuring only the rap singers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNgIAY0yBbw).

The music video is also quite important in order to show the political and historical dimension of the song as there are images of the civil rights movement’s strikes, of Black people being arrested or assaulted by police officers, of Martin Luther King making a speech. It shows the racial discrimination in the 1960s. The song may have been written in the 1990s but it shows American history and its different issues that have happened and were still happening while it was being written. History and Freedom are directly linked together.

This song was part of the soundtrack for the movie Panther. It was the theme from Panther, which was a cinematic adaptation of Melvin Van Peebles’s novel Panther. It portrayed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, a Black Power political organization founded by college students in 1966 in Oakland. It traced the organization from its founding through its decline.

I have to say that I absolutely did not know this song or all those artists but it was really interesting to study them !

Enjoy !

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Music in the Cold War

Hey !

Today, I would like to write about the song Russians by Sting.

Russians is a song written by the famous English singer Sting, released in 1985, and part of the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles. Sting is a singer, but also a musician, a songwriter and an actor. The Dream of the Blue Turtles was his first solo album after having been the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist for the rock band the Police.

This song was quite a success without being a hit or a number-one song in the different charts. It was number 2 in France, number 4 in Germany or number 7 in Belgium. The song does not have a lively or swinging beat, but the slow rhythm enables the audience to really understand the lyrics and to be moved by it, by the meaning. It is attractive, but not necessarely in the same way as usually.

Sting’s song is about the Cold War, the great opposition between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. It started just after World War II, in 1947 and ended with the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Sting releasing his song in 1985, during the Cold War, shows how music, popular song are linked to history. Songwriters are used to writing about what is happening in the world (war, crisis, death...), they use the current events. Popular music and histories have always been linked.

In this song, Sting clearly shows his oppostion against both strategies, ideologies : “I don’t subscribe to this point of view / It’d be such an ignorant tihng to do” or “There is no monopoly on common sense / On either side of this political fence”. He shows the pointlessness of all this and that there is not one country better than the other. He even quotes Mister Reagan with “We will protect you” saying he does not believe it, there is no way for everyone to be protected.

Therefore there is a strong political message as this song is considered as a commentary and plea that criticises the then-dominant Cold War foreign policy and doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) by the United States and the then existing Soviet Union. Each side wanted to destroy the other as soon as possible and whatever the cost. They were ready to do anything to win this war, even to sacrifice their own children, just for an ideology though they shared the same biology.

This may be the most important meaning of the song, the one concerning the children. Russians is about hoping that “the Russians love their children too”. In fact, it could be the only thing to save them from destruction if the East and West keep provoking each other. It is even more clear when he refers to Oppenheimer (”How can I save my little boy from Opeenheimer’s deadly toy ?”) as he was nicknamed “the father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project. Therefore Sting criticizes, exposes, the fact that both countries are ready to sacrifice their children in order to win a pointlessness war, which only goal is to have more power.

During the Cold War period, a lot of other songs have been written from both sides, American and Russian. We may mention Atomic Cocktail by The Slim Gaillard Quartet, The Great Atomic Power by The Louvin Brothers, or Back in the USSR by Paul Mccartney. A lot of American or European singers have written about it.

Enjoy !

For my project, I have chosen to write about inequalities, discrimination (whether it is feminism, racial or political oppression, opposition, issues), through popular, how it has exposed all of this.

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Born in the USA

Hey everyone !

This week I am not going to write about my traditional subject. With the presidential election in the US, I have decided to talk about another big issue in the American society and history, which has sometimes been evoked during presidential speeches or debates : the Vietnam War and its consequences.

For this, I have chosen the heartland rock song Born in the U.S.A by the very famous American singer Bruce Sprinsteen, “The Boss”. This song has been released in 1984 on the album of the same name.

This song was very famous, one of Springsteen’s best-known singles. The magazine called Rolling Stone ranked the song 275th on its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” and, in 2001, the RIAA’s Songs of the Century placed the song 59th out of 365. It has been number one in Ireland, New Zealand, number 2 in Australia, peaked number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 single charts and was a hit in the UK (number 5). He has performed Born in the USA at every concert and it even was the object of several remixes, covers or parodies.

This success may also be linked to the fact that the song and the image of the album seem to represent THE American Man. First, on the album, there are just the American flag and Bruce Spingsteen wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a red cap in the back pocket of his jeans. He represents the ideal American boy from the countryside at that time. And in the song, being about war, we may see, to some extent, the ideal image of the American boy fighting for his country, for its freedom, its happiness, against the big enemy. It may allow some people to identify themselves with the song and therefore it may enhance American identity, the sense of community, of belonging. All these proofs of its success also show the possibility and even the duty of popular music to gather people, to create identity, national identity.

However, there is more to this song than meets the eye. It conveys a strong political message about war, veterans and its consequences on the nation and on the individual. It deals with the return of American soldiers to their country after the Vietnam War. It gives a tragic image of the veteran, who is alienated upon his return from the war. It is the story of a working-class man almost forced to join the armed forces (”So they put a rifle in my hand”) to “fight the yellow man” and he is dissafected upon his return to the US, but his friend is dead, “all gone”. He ends up having nothing when he returns home, no work, no friend, no home, “I’m ten years burning down the road / Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go”. The repetition of “Born in the USA” as a chorus may be a sign that this situation was common in the US, almost inevitable.

Therefore, this song exposes the harmful effects of the Vietnam War on Americans and the treatment of Vietnam veterans upon their return home. Khe Sanh (evoked in the song) thus became one of the media symbols of the futility of the whole war effort in the States. It may also be seen as a denunciation of the fact that when the soldiers came back, after sacrificing their lives, they had nothing waiting for them, only desesperation, sacrifice and desperation being relayed in the verses. They were met with indifference and hostility. And it is still the case today. The institutions do not really take them into account when they return home. It is a huge issue in the US as some veterans end up being homeless, without the others knowing they were soldiers. It shows how popular music has always been a great way to convey a strong political or social mesage when people won’t listen. It has a high power.

The music video also conveyed this political message. In fact, besides of a video concert footage, there are compelling mid-1980s scenes of working-class America, and images linked to Vietnam veterans, Amerasian children, assembly lines, oil refineries, cemeteries.

Yet, this song has sometimes been misinterpreted as purely nationalistic by those who were only concentrated on the anthemic chorus and not on the bitter verses, while it exposes a certain futility of this war, of the high number of dead in both sides.

I have recently rediscovered this song and it still has the same effect on me, thanks also to a strong rhythm and a chorus easely learnt by heart and extremely appealing. Springsteen was also awarded the Presidential Medal for Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016 and has just released a new album.

Enjoy !

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Music Videos as Black Feminist Thought

Hey !

For this new post, I wanted to write about an article I have read, Music Videos as Black Feminist Thought - From Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda to Beyoncé’s Formation by Katariina Kyrölä, a white scholar, in 2017. She also uses theories from other people such as Patricia Hill Collins, José Esteban Munoz or Bell Hooks. https://www.lectitopublishing.nl/download/S2MSF584

Indeed this article is about two music videos : Formation by Beyoncé (2016) and Anaconda by Nicki Minaj (2014), two Black American female artists. First, we may notice that those two music videos went viral immediately. For Beyoncé’s song, it was also incited by her performance of the song during the halftime show of the Super Bowl the day after the release. She was accompanied by a group of Black female dancers dressed in black leather costumes and black berets, as a way of paying tribute to the Black Panhers and Mickael Jackson. Yet, Anaconda provoked a plethora of remixes, parodies and reaction videos.

Yet both became targets of debate and controversy as they quickly appeared as popular cultural boiling points for questions of race, gender and sexuality. There were a lot of heated arguments about the kinds of Black feminisms those videos were represented. The author of the article describes Anaconda as sexually explicit and campy, while Formation is directly political and aesthetically stunning. Those songs are very different musically, visually, in tone, style, lyrics and aesthetics but both elicited many analyses and online debate pieces about these music videos and the artists being feminist or not.

However, for the author, the important is to acknowledge that Formation and Anaconda are creative works of Black feminist thought (in the same sense as Black feminist theorist Patricia Hill Collins when she claims that “analyzing and creating imaginative responses to injustice characterize the core of Black feminist thought”) because they are not forms of expression that the white-dominated academia has traditionally considered thought or theory, they command global attention to the complex co-production of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The real questions are : what kind of strategies and understandings of empowerment do Anaconda and Formation suggest for the marginalised ? what kind of critiques do they offer, continue and develop as Black feminist thought ?

At first, the song Anaconda may not appear as “feminist” as Nicki Minaj and her Black and White female dancers writhe, twerk, slap and caress each other in scanty clothing in a stylised jungle setting. And the most interesting is the end , when Minaj gives a lap dance to Drake, slaps away his hand and leaves : it is a much-debated scene. On the contrary, Formation, besides including sexually straghtforward lyrics and dance, has a subtle humour and includes direct commentary on racism in the South and critique of the killings of Black people by the police force in the US. It shows Black women and girls sitting and dancing in traditionally white Southern antebellum settings, a scene reminding of Hurricane Katrina, a little black boy raising his hands in front of white police officers...

Watching those music videos, three intertwined main lines of critique, or contexts have been found, which give a negative answer to the question “feminist or not” :

First, there is the claim that Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé have sold out to white people and capitalism, and thus lost their empowering potential. Those critiques come from Black feminist thinkers and writers. Those songs are not cultural products made for white people. Some white social media commentators even expressed about not feeling included in the formation Beyoncé calls for, as in Saturday Night Live with the sketch The Day Beyoncé Turned Black (2016) that we once mentionned. It looks like a horror movie sproof where white people panick over the realisation that Beyoncé is not white and has never been white.

Bell Hooks, a famed Black feminist thinker, has criticised both of them for sexually objectifying their bodies, which is not too different from white beauty ideals, in order to make money. So, they seem to do nothing to uplift other Black women and submit to the conditions of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in exchange for becoming ultra-rich. This “selling-out” might be seen as a disidentificatory strategy in relation to queer of color performance art. As explained by José Esteban Munoz, disidentification is “a survival strategy that works within and outside the dominant public sphere simultaneously”. That is to say, they searched to please white people in order to succeed.

Then, they are said to promote harmful, white and heteronormative body and beauty ideals while appropriating queer of color culture. They are also criticised for “skinny shaming”, especially Anaconda as it celebrates the big Black butt while telling “skinny bitches” to “fuck off”, while for Formation the criticism is more about “racism against white people”. It comes from both some white feminists and Black feminist thinkers and writers.

Eventually, they are accused by white audiences of promoting forms of so-called “reverse oppression”. It is linked to the former oppression of Black people by masters and the theory of Audre Lorde (Black feminist thinker, writer and poet) that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. At first, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj used some of the master’s tools (idealisation of mega-richness for example) and seemed less threatening and more marketable for the white dominant. But they have made themselves formidable forces inside the master’s house and have a chance to rule it and “dismantle the house”.

However, the author, through the theories of others, highlights how both singers, and especially Beyoncé, have explored the complexities of Black women’s agency, self-worth, desire, rage and desperation. They have a vast cultural influence and cannot be ignored. There is a unavoidable political nature of Beyoncé’s Black feminity, turning Formation into a powerful tool of Black feminist pedagogy. Feminist standpoint theories have challenged the false universality of white male-stream knowledge production.

I’m sorry this is long but I tried and told what I thought was important... Though I hope this is understandable.

Enjoy !

https://www.lectitopublishing.nl/download/S2MSF584

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Wind Of Change

Hey !

For this post, I would like to write about the song Wind Of Change by the Scorpions.

The very famous song Wind Of Change is a power ballad written by the group Scopions, recorded in 1990 and released in 1991. Scorpions is a West German rock band but they write all their songs in English.

One of the reasons of its success, besides its message I will mention later, is linked to the audience (”Audience” in Popular Music in Theory by Negus). The song is really easy to understand and to remember thanks to a simple and appealing rhythm. It allows the song to touch a wider audience, to touch more people who may not come from the same country. It is easy to know it by heart even if you do not really know the language or the context of the song. To some extent, it may have been done on purpose in order to have more success. No matter what, this song had and still has a worldwide audience.

Yet this success is also linked to the story, the message of the song. It is directly related to the international context as the lyrics were written just after the band’s visit to the USSR which was at the height of perestroika (period when the enmity between the communist and capitalist blocs subsided concurrently with the promulgation of large-scale socioeconomic reforms in the country).

They have written this song in order to celebrate glasnost (the end of the Cold War) in the Soviet Union and to speak of hope at a time when tense conditions had arisen due to the fall of Communist-run governments among Eastern Bloc nations beginning in 1989. Through the lyrics, they refer to the city’s landmarks such as the Moskva (a river running through Moscow) or Gorky Park (urban park in Moscow) : “I follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park”. There is also a reference to a Russian stringed instrument, the balalaika : “Let your balalaika sing”.

With this song, they wanted to convey a strong political message (”Politics” in Popular Music in Theory by Negus). They aimed at attacking the previous political power and at promoting freedom, peace, happiness and family after a difficult period of totalitarianism and of oppression. They wanted to give some hope to people for the future, with the birth of a new period of freedom. Music, popular music, is often a great and easy way to express a commitment, to make people understand a specific event.

The music video also conveys this message as we may see images of people demonstrating during a strike or images of the Construction and of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and in 1989, of people reuniting with their families after the Revolution of 1989. The music video strengthens the lyrics for it touches people even more. It also discredits the political power by showing images of Russian soldiers with their weapons or images of dead people. This song is even more committed as the group is German, so directly linked to this context.

This song was a worldwide hit as it topped the charts in Germany and all across Europe. But it only peaked at number four in the United States and at number two in the United Kingdom. It even is one of the best-selling singles of all time and holds the record for the best-selling single by a German artist. Another proof of this success is that Scorpions recorded a Russian version (Veter Peremen) and a Spanish version (Vientos de Cambio) of the song. Moreover, Wind of Change has even been performed by the Scorpions at the Brandenburg Gate on 9 November 1999 for the 10th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

I really love this song, it is beautiful ! Enjoy !

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They don’t care about us

Hey !

For this post, I would like to write about the song They don’t care about us by Michael Jackson, “The King of Pop”.

They don’t care about us is a pop rock song, written by Michael Jackson and released in 1995. The song belongs to the album HIStory : Past, Present and Future, Book I. Just with the title of the album, we may guess that it may be a “serious” and personal album because it seems to be about him, his story, and what has happened and will happen, for him and in the world.

This song has been a commercial success for it has been a top ten hit in all European countries, number one in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Italy. Yet, in the US, it only peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is quite unusual for one of his songs to only be at this place but it is explained by its protest dimension and its two music videos.

First, this song was aimed at highlighting the difficult situation of some people in the world. Therefore, it had a political message adressed to the different governments and maybe especially to the American government and the Brasilian government, country in which one of the music videos took place. In the New Brasilian Cinema, Lúcia Nagib said : "The interesting aspect of Michael Jackson's strategy is the efficiency with which it gives visibility to poverty and social problems in countries like Brazil without resorting to traditional political discourse." The lyrics convey a strong political and social message. It is an opposition to prejudice as he wanted to expose the behavior of the authorities towards some people in a lot of countries. The meaning is even stronger because, at the beginning, children are singing the chorus (”All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us”) and two others sing “Don’t worry what people say, we know the truth” and “Enough is enough of this garbage”. It may really touch the listeners.

Therefore, popular music may have a strong political and social meaning and is often aimed at defending, exposing, attacking something or someone. What is more, there is a specific beat, an original clattering rhythm, making the song even more attractive. It is easy to remember it. It has even been used during Black Lives Matter protests in 2014, 2015 and 2020. (”Industry” and “Politics” in Popular Music in Theory by Negus).

But at the same time, it is one of the most controversial pieces Jackson ever composed. Some people said the lyrics contained racist and anti-Semitic contents, such as : "Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me.". By the way, "Don't you black or white me" may be a reference to another song of Michael Jackson, "Black or White". Michael Jackson defended himself by saying that it was not his goal : "The song in fact is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking. It is about the injustices to young people and how the system can wrongfully accuse them. I am angry and outraged that I could be so misinterpreted." Some said that it was not clear enough that he was criticizing those words. He apologized several times and at some point decided to change "Jew me" and "kike me" into "do me" and "strike me". Yet, some people of the Jewish community only said that those words were probably not adapted or understandable by a teenage audience who would not really understand the context. Some songs are  just not made for everyone (”Audience” in Popular Music in Theory by Negus).

The music videos also were criticized. The first one, the most famous, took place in Brazil and especially in Pelourinho (the historic center of Salvador) and in Dona Marta (a favela of Rio de Janeiro). But the state authorities were trying to ban all production in those places because they were afraid the video would damage their image. In fact, there were prospects of Rio staging the 2004 Olympics and a video revealing the huge poverty of the area would destroy it and reveal the failings of the government. They even accused Jackson of exploiting the poor and they wanted editing rights. Yet, people were happy because their problems would be made visible to a wider audience, even if it would not change things right away. During the video, two women tried and hugged the singer, ignoring the policemen who were holding the crowd back. The second one was set in a prison and there were multiple references to human rights abuses, for example the police attacking African Americans. This video did not have a lot of success. It is a way of enhancing the opposition between authorities and citizens.

What do you think ? Was Michael Jackson anti-Semite ? Or did he only want to expose this difficult situation without realizing the impact of his words ?

Enjoy !

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Charity songs

Hey !

Today I would like to write about charity songs and especially about the most famous one for me : We are the world.

We are the world is a very famous song written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson in 1985, and produced by Qunicy Jones and Michael Omartian. It was sung by the collective USA for Africa, a group composed of some of the most well-known artists in the music industry at the time. For example, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Cindy Lauper, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Kenny Rogers, Bob Dylan or some of the former Jackson Five were present.

This song aimed at raising funds to fight against the starvation in Ethiopia, to relieve it. It shows the political dimension of music, of popular music, because thanks to this song, a lot of people finally realized what others in the world were going through, and the American government was more involved in this fight as some of its most famous artists were talking about it. A part of the world would perhaps still be ignorant of what was going on in the world without this song or others because some people, and especially some teenagers prefer to listen to music and not to watch the news or to read. And this song has allowed everyone to know and even to care about this event. It was also revealed that Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wanted something that would be easy to sing and memorable. They wanted to create an anthem in order to touch the more people possible. The chorus is repeated a lot, especially at the end of the song. It is really easy to remember it and learn it by heart.  (Popular Music in Theory, chapters Audience and Industry, by Negus)

However, it was a huge international and commercial success, in the United States but also in the whole world. It topped music charts throughout the world for it was number one in the United States but also in Australia, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. We are the world has been considered as the eighth best-selling physical single of all time and the fastest-selling US pop single in history. This song has even won some awards, such as 3 Grammy Awards. Yet, the most important is that over $63 million have been raised for the association, thanks to all the singles sold. It is said that some people even bought two or more singles in order to donate more.

But this historic event was not the first. In fact, for those who know, this song may refer, to some extent, to another charity song. The year before, in 1984, in the UK, the group Band Aid has sung Do they know it’s Christmas ? also in order to raise funds for Ethiopia. It was the fastest selling single in UK chart history and the biggest-selling single of all time in the UK until 1997 and Candle in the Wind by Elton John. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjQzJAKxTrE

Even today, those songs, the American one and the British one, are still famous, known by everyone. They may even be some classics. When they are heard, all the generations sing along. And there have also been some covers of both songs by the new generation : in 2010 for We are the world in order to help Haiti after the most severe earthquake in over 200 years and the 300 000 injured citizens (Lionel Richie has participated in this version too); and in 2014 for example for Do they know it’s Christmas ? to help with the Ebola crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w7jyVHocTk

Despite the criticisms that may be made about this type of songs, mostly about the funds raised or the real intention of the artists, I personally love them and have shivers down my spine everytime I listen to the orignal song or to the cover. For me, they are still great.

Thank you and enjoy !

[ambreuniverseblog]

Girls like you

Hey !

For my first post, I would like to talk about the pop song “Girls like you” and its music video which I like a lot, by the American group Maroon 5 and the American rapper Cardi B.

I find this song and especially the music video very interesting because it is somehow different from their other music videos. At the beginning, it is very simple as it is just him in the middle of a room, with a mic and his musicians around him. The camera is just turning around them. Only with this piece of information, we may see the difference because most of the time they make something big, and even surprise their fans as in “Sugar” in 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09R8_2nJtjg.

But, for me, what is really important is the rest of the video which may be considered, to some extent, as feminist. In fact, this music video is a succession of women having fun, singing and dancing with Adam Levine. These women represent all the women in the world because they have different origins, different bodies, different jobs. Some are actresses, singers, humorists, athletes or even politicians. There are for instance the singers Camila Cabello, Jennifer Lopez or Rita Ora; the actresses Millie Bobby Brown, Elizabeth Banks or Gal Gadot. We may also see the athletes Aly Raisman, Chloe Kim or Alex Morgan. But what is more is the presence of activists or politicians such as Jackie Fielder or Ilhan Omar, giving some political and social meaning to this music video.

I guess that this may not be the first thing we might think about watching this, but for me this is a certain celebration of women. These women are American, Black, Israeli, English, Muslim... All the women matter, are worth it, whoever they are and whatever they do. Consequently, it may be linked to the #Metoo Movement which has aimed at defending women rights in the United States since 2007, and especially since 2017 and Harvey Weinstein. It is a way of recognizing these rights, of highlighting ordinary women. We may add that Ilhan Omar is now the representative of Minnesota at the Congress and the first veiled woman there, slightly disturbing the current American politics.

And at the end, there are his wife and his daughter with him. They are hugging and it is really a beautiful vision. The whole music video is so beautiful and thoughtful for me. This message is reinforced by the entertaining rhythm of the song.

Enjoy !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJOTlE1K90k