Triumphing Over Stupid Bureaucrats

Die Hard 2 continues the pessimistic view developed in the first film in the series, but to much more incisive ends. In the first Die Hard Bruce Willis's solo cop John McClain goes up against terrorists, hindered by the stupid, greedy, or willfully malicious. The film is built around the notion that the USA in the 1980s might be a land in terminal decline that can only be saved by a few good guys who know the ropes and don't take shit from nobody. As deadly as the terrorists are dimwitted cops, FBI agents used to treating the USA like Vietnam, duplicitous yuppies, moral-less newshounds. The vital forces of action shown actually getting things done are New Women (gutsy like men, in business, although Bonnie Bidelia's Holly is defined mostly by her marriage to McClain and her family), the Japanese (the action takes place in what feels something like foreign soil, or an everyplace, a chunk of California signed off to Tokyo), and a gang of multi-national/racial terrorists.

Die Hard 2 of course repeats this, unhelpful cops and conniving bureaucrats and so forth, although actually the air control staff are depicted as resourceful and courageous: possibly, like Billy Elliott, a segment of the workforce that had struck a blow against neoliberalism, and becomes its victims (the PATCO strike of 1981), was being rehabilitated. If anything the film's failure at being as wholly enjoyable comes from repeating the first film on a vastly smaller scale (also Willis wanted out by this point, asking for his character to be killed off). What is more pointed here is that the film draws direct links between the USA's overseas wars and the military-industrial complex. The backing of a Latin American drug dealer leads to a team of US Special Forces turning rogue in a bid to free him from prison: such as links are well established and still being raised.

Though 90s action films are largely fluff, some seem very remarkable when looked back on.

Either in their vision of the 1990s as a grim near-future, or chaotic distant 'dark age':

Or in fairly critique/contempt for the government from within the military:

Something of a 'Praetorian guard taking over the republic' feel to all of it really.

 

"Here's a revolutionary thought for you. Music should be free. You shouldn't have to pay for it. It's too important to be owned by the few, it should be readily available to the many. Music plays too big a part in people's lives. Whatever that is not food, clothing or heating is a want not a need. Music is a need, through music we construct definitions of ourselves, rebel, rejoice and articulate our deepest fears and  desires. The ability of music to encapsulate a moment, a feeling, an emotion and transcend race and class is beyond measure. The ability to change a day from shite to glorious within four minutes is something that should be free to everyone."

Two Fingers, Bass Instinct, 1996.

A post all about Rap Metal

Heh.

A peerless tune from Gunshot, remixed by Napalm Death. Rap and metal but not rap metal if you get me.

Britrap, one of the lesser 90s Britthings.

And since this post was a little thin on the ground, here's some more 90s Britrap.

(really good this one)

These are less interesting for various reasons: the Hijack tune formidable but owes a bit too much to Public Enemy; whilst Killa Instinct sound a bit indistinct, although seem to prefigure the sound of Gravediggaz a little.

(The obvious entry here is Anthrax/Public Enemy's Bring the Noise, but it didn't fit with my loose thing about heavy sounding UK hip hop. It's largely pointless: too cluttered; too sped up; Public Enemy had already incorporated metal quite convincingly into their sound. Were any of the thrash lot besides Sepultura, and to a lesser degree Slayer, actually any good? So tedious and uptight about it.)

And several years later, from a not immediately obvious quarter

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Will rap metal ever get it's day? Some scholar to chart it's obscure inlets and undiscovered plateaus of meaning?

Nah. None of it was very good.

Occupational America

"The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the report, said leisure and hospitality added 75,000 jobs in June. Monthly job growth in this industry has averaged 55,000 in 2013, almost twice the average gain of 30,000 per month in 2012. Employment in professional and business services rose by 53,000 in June.
Employment in most other major industries, including mining and logging, construction, manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing, showed little change in June. The government continued to cut jobs during the month, shedding another 5,000 positions to make up a total of 65,000 in the last 12 months.
The number of long-term unemployed (those left jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 4.3m, accounting for 36.7% of the unemployed. Unemployment rates for teenagers (24%), black people (13.7%), and Hispanics (9.1%) remained stubbornly high."

phantom images of work

phantom culture

phantom history

conspicuous consumption

Before last weekend

the largest ever crowd at Glastonbury was for The Levellers in 1994.


Musically, Mumford and Sons could (if they had a bit of wit about them) fit this in their set quite happily. But just as leaders are made by their followers, so some songs are made by the audience. It just wouldn't work, the meaning having dissipated long ago.