The Birth of Blanguage

Young Thug - "The Blanguage" (Prod. MetroBOOMIN)

"In relation to these unmediated artistic states in nature every artist is an 'imitator', and indeed either an Apolline dream-artist or a Dionysiac artist ofintoxication or finally - as, for example, in Greek tragedy - an artist ofboth dream and intoxication at once. This is how we must think of him as he sinks to the ground in Dionysiac drunkenness and mystical self-abandon, alone and apart from the enthusiastic choruses, at which point, under the Apolline influence of dream, his own condition, which is to say, his oneness with the innermost ground of the world, reveals itself to him in a symbolic (gleichnishaft) dream-image." (19)

The production (the instrumental part of the song which will be referred to as the beat) is the Apolline to Young Thug's Dionysus.

There's always a sense of performance, which is to say this is a production. The video here is obviously produced. Thugger even says in the chorus "If s/he standin next to young thugger/I train them to kill for the camera." The line is a double entendre, as it both refers to the act of murder which is the beast in the human and Young Thug's desire to look fashionable, as in "kill," in front of the camera. Young Thug's tropes of violence and sex serve as equal tropes of representation. As such, the song's production of the image, or the art object, or the musical piece in the case of only the song, reminds us of Nietzsche's description of the Apolline as a figure of images and semblances. This semblance is the oneness of the dream, the instrumental music to the poetry, the human as art.

This is mirrored by the beat's oscillation between the dramatic piano chords that border the song, which contains multiple DJ tags, young thug's silly/violent rhymes, and general play. The sense of play is the sense of music found in the beat, which is why the beat and the rapping flow together. This flowing together is not a mediation of one or the other but an already togetherness that matches Nietzsche's desire for a primordial oneness found in the two forces of Greek culture.

Yet, there is a theme here where Nietzsche confusedly rejects other culture's similarly Dionysian festivals, which probably would include this song, under the auspices of the supremacy of Greek culture.

"From all corners of the ancient world (leaving aside the modern one in this instance), from Rome to Babylon, we can demonstrate the existence of Dionysiac festivals of a type which, at best, stands in the same relation to the Greek festivals as the bearded satyr, whose name and attributes were borrowed from the goat, stands to Dionysos himself."(20)

It would be well to note that these other "festivals" likely represent the complex forms of culture developed by more well-established human civilizations than the Athenians. This project no doubt serves the psychic stability of the European artwork, eventually and arbitrarily represented by Wagner, as it still retains this intelligibility over all the other forms of ecstasy. This is a historical and analytic absurdity on Nietzsche's part, as the Greeks undoubtedly set in motion the destiny of Western philosophy, and thus are its historical and vernacular, or grammatical (philological), foundation. The themes of blackness in the Blanguage, itself inherently a reference to Young Thug's status as a Blood, enmeshed with sex and violence, are not neutral to us as listeners. They represent this cultural limit Nietzsche himself necessarily constructs in service of the Greek artwork, tragedy as derived from the spirit of music. They are the "repulsive witches' brew of sensuality and cruelty" meant to horrify the Greeks and fuse with the Apolline. (21) However, they are really just the arbitrary metaphysical other with which Nietzsche synthesizes the Greek sense of being.

My contention here is that Young Thug and Metro are most certainly playing, and as such represent a sense of tragedy represented in lyrics and production that achieves an equal sense of destiny. We have already seen how they give the listener a performance that is still evocative. Nietzsche's philosophy relies on a sense that the human, to be the work of art, must be dreaming, or at one with the world as a fundamental and vital illusion, We see this in the lyrics Young Thug offers, which are image-laden with money, jewelry, women, celebrities, drugs, and weapons in all sorts of tropological forms. This semblance inherent to the troping of the lyrical content means that Young Thug's rapping is in a sense undergoing the express of the symbolic dream-image of his psyche, making his rapping a performance of poetry, the human as the work of art.

The tragedy also comes from the central, and ultimate, message of the song - that "this is a parade," and it results in the death of a black person, an implied black man. The violence inherent to thugger and metro's sense of jubilation is turned on itself here in the ultimate act of semblance, the process of imagery in which the dream is like a parade, and yet also has the limit of black death. The blackness is where cultural uniqueness creeps up in the music, which does not change the injection of symbolism at the mention of death. Rapping about violence and then referencing the inevitable sense of death are the symbolic tragedy at play in the psychical structure of the rappers.

If you can't understand what thugger has to say, that's okay, you probably don't speak the blanguage. Nietzsche probably didn't.

Coffee Shop Acoustic Session... Get Low Cover by Dan Henig

My essay takes a turn to consider the variation of music in modern American culture, and the implications of this variation according to Plato. It pays homage to the dualism between language and music (mode and rhythm) which Plato believes must be aligned for an individual to lead a graceful life. The idea of imitation is also touched upon. What kind of pasture are we grazing on? Plato claims the purpose of musical education is "the love of beauty". How clear and concise is our conception of beauty? How inclusive?

The iPod and The Monster (Repost of music torture blog post)

I ended up changing my song for the paper as I feel the beginning of this song represents my essay better than my original song. The opening line, "he who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man" better represents the idea of music as weapon and Plato's idea of music providing valor to soldiers.

Music and the Peculiarity of Existence

It appears as though congenital to Schopenhauer’s concept of the will there exits the conception that the world itself is irrational. That in meditating on existence, there derives no greater sense of unity to be found within the phenomenal world, no etiological explanation as to the root of our representation. The world itself is infinitely mysterious for this reason. For Schopenhauer, logic has its limits; the extent of our understanding of the phenomenal world begins to break down within a purely etiological explanation of things. He claims that the objects of our perception may stand as “hieroglyphics that are not understood,” (The World as Will and Representation, 62). It is for this reason that Schopenhauer praises music as a phenomenal vehicle for epistemic understanding; sans reason, sans logic. To explanatory extent, Brian Eno’s “The Big Ship” from the album Another Green World demonstrates this phenomenon, both in its title and its musicality.

Plato and Kanye West

[there's no y/t link for this song bc of Kanye's debt concerns but here's the recent SNL performance: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/kanye-west-highlights/2985364 ]

Plato's Republic excerpt sees a discussion on the laws of culture, namely what stories, poetry, and music should be allowed to be expressed in the city, and how. Specifically, Plato warns against that which would inculcate injustice as profitable, and prefers that which puts crime as crime. (Republic, 79) The song 'Highlights' by Kanye West would surely be one of criticism, as Kanye prefers that existence should be a series of highlights rather than a production or maintenance of the good. Moreover, Kanye raps about women and money, in the silliest (most humorous) of ways by wishing he could stick a POV camera on his genitalia during sex. This casual humor which prefers partying to meditation on wisdom or justice is definitely the most dangerous sort of music for Plato, as it teaches lessons of lasciviousness and unbridled joy in the excesses of a society. Such a message has the relation of being, contrary to Plato's message, superfluous to the founding and support of society.

Essay: Schopenhauer and Electronica

Schopenhauer posits that the Idea expresses itself in a moment the subject experiences "directly...in feeling," and that art requires this "feeling" to occur through the dedication of "the whole of our mind to perception." (WWR, 77, 79) My essay posits that this "feeling" is a new metaphysics that privileges the bodily sense of being over the rational, and as such Schopenhauer's thing-in-itself, the essence of a thing or its Idea, only exists as knowledge when the object is felt by the subject. This means there is no longer a strict body-mind dualism, as it is now a unity, for knowledge appears through an attuned being one with the object - the subject must find that which is communicated not by thinking on it but being one with it. We see what this means for music in Tim Hecker's "AMPS, DRUGS MELLOTRON" because the essence of the song, its beauty, is experienced through the act of listening, and the song does not distract the listener to think but seduces into having the listener listen.

Essay 1: Schopenhauer and Ocean's "At Your Best (You are Loved)"

The song that I chose for this essay is Frank Ocean's cover of Aaliyah's "At Your Best (You are Loved)". I specifically selected this song in reference to when Schopenhauer writes: "The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain" (264, The World as Will and Representation)

In general, my essay focuses on the ways music, in Schopenhauer's mind, influences the soul. I discuss the ways in which music not only eliminates the potential for suffering through a quieting of individual willing, but also gives the listener true pleasure by the way in which it facilitates a, at least brief, connection to the Will and thus also to one's true self. Connecting this them to the song selected, I discuss its poignant simplicity, candidness and the immersive experience it creates. 

Essay 1 - Schopenhauer & Andrew Bird, Danse Caribe

The passage from the text that I used in my original blog post and in my paper is the following: "He therefore draws nature into himself, so that he feels it to be only an accident of his own being. In this sense Byron says: Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part / Of me and my soul, as I of them?" (83)

My paper is structured first with an overview of Schopenhauer's philosophy, then with a more in-depth look at how he conceives of art and music. I look at how the listener is transformed, body and soul, when listening to music, and I argue that Andrew Bird's "Danse Caribe" is the type of song that Schopenhauer had in mind. I talk specifically about the combination of lyrical and non-lyrical music in the song, and about how it accentuates the non-lyrical violin solo that has the type of powerful melody, one that brings us up and down, then side to side, as non-representational feeling, a story of movements that allows us to access and ultimately glimpse the Will.

Essay 1: Schopenhauer on Music and Experience

In my essay, I am arguing that Schopenhauer would argue that music effects the listener by enhancing the way a listener experience particular phenomenon. In other words, how music makes life more fulfilling, compared to a world where music does not exist. The music I am using is a song called 'Unravel' by TK. The conclusion that I arrived at is that music is the mediator between the experience and the person experiencing, because it creates an understanding between the 2 subjects by communicating the will of each subject as a universal language, and connecting them to the Will.  

Plato's Love/Hate for Kevin O.

My essay will speculate  how Plato would react to this piece, which combines beatboxing (the modern) with a classics-inspired tune. My argument is that Plato would both love and hate this jack of all (two, in this case) trades and be frustrated by his defiance, oblivious to the freedom Kevin has as he deviates from his one talent, or purpose. I'm sure Plato would prioritize the mastery of cello and completely bash the beatboxing. He would be offended by the destruction of Julie-O via useless addition of the imposing rhythm Kevin performs. This and more are included in my essay.

Overture to Tristan and Isolde. In honor of the young Nietzsche and his Birth of Tragedy

Essay Blog Re-Post

In my essay I argue through Plato's perspective that music torture is the operationalization of music's ability to copy emotion and alter identity. I define how Plato views music as a medium for metamorphosis and apply that concept to the forced listening that occurs in music torture. Subjects in music torture undergo forced metamorphosis that transform them into beings that are not them -- so music torture is harmful in the sense that it strips away identity and destroys will to endure.

The Stasimon Chorus from Euripdes' Orestes; a Literal "Classic"

Papa Roach - Last Resort lyrics

My original intent was to write about my most recent post on A Perfect Circle song titled, "Judith." However, after a personal experience this week, I decided to post this song as an alternative. "Last Resort" by Papa Roach came on Pandora Radio and I found myself to be incredibly influenced subconsciously by the lyrics and heavy metal—it even altered my thinking momentarily. This being a unique experience I felt inclined to write about it. In my essay, I speak about music's ability to become a power dynamic that shows its force in the historical (through soldiers in Plato's era) and modern era (U.S. Military today). This being most eminent in recent no-touch or music torture cases in the present era. I made comparisons to historical and present day militia in music's ability to imitate and express behavior as well as emotions.

It's Never Too Late For Good Music: Essay Short Summary

I wrote about Carole King's "It's Too Late" in relation to Plato's ideas about what makes good music, what makes it transcendental, and why this distinction even matters. I argue that Plato would agree that this song is "Good" music, and that he would easily accept it into his city.

Essay Post: Dancing to the Beat of Submission to the State

I argue that regulation of musical expression is done for the benefit of the state over the individual. Censorship of music for the purposes of maintaining order is not unique to Plato's ideal republic, it actually pervades the modern American pop music industry, which rather than limit us to two modes has shaped popular tastes to enjoy common chord progressions and themes.  Among indie and punk artists, who challenge these norms, Sufjan Stevens breaks these molds, allowing the individuals who listen to confront uncomfortable or unproductive themes and experience more sounds.

From the Mouth of Gabriel- Sufjan Stevens

"Lucid Stillness"

I looked into a phrase that Professor Naddaff used in class while discussing Schopenhauer, "lucid stillness." T.S. Eliot writes it in the first of his Four Quartets, "Burnt Norton," and this poem helped me understand some of Schopenhauer's ideas about the temporality and aesthetic experience of art-viewing , or -hearing. I thought I'd share it below:

T. S. Eliot Poems

The Four Quartets

Burnt Norton

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                                   But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
                                   Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
                                                    Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.

III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
Wtih slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plentitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

      Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Dessication of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movememnt; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.

IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
the black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

      The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

To get a better understanding of what Eliot means when he refers to the "Chinese jar," I read online that he's alluding to a poem by Keats called "Ode to a Grecian Urn," which I've also included below.

Ode on a Grecian Urn
BY JOHN KEATS
       
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both,
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
         For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
                For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
         When old age shall this generation waste,
                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Essay Re-Post

For my essay, I chose to expand on my blog post about the song "My Body" by Young the Giant. Specifically, I explore the aesthetic experience of music-listening that brings the perceiver closer to themselves. I also note how the body manifests, or expresses, the will directly and discuss the relationship between will/Will.

Repost: Lux Aeterna and Schopenhaur's philosophy

Lux Aeterna is representative of the music Schopenhaur speaks of: it carries its listener into another world, imparting the feelings of stress and tension into its listener's heart.  Musical pieces, such as Lux Aeterna, are capable of connecting the self with the other as their audiences are submitted to pure, enrapturing melody. As self and other are no longer divided and willing is forgotten, listeners of music are able to come into contact with the Will and are momentarily relieved from the suffering of a human existence.

Music’s Ambiguity as Access to the Otherwise Ineffable

     Because music’s qualities and effects cannot be directly translated not words, music maintains an ambiguity that Schopenhauer values particularly for its lack of strict  literal representation. While the ambiguity and lack of representation are not strictly exclusive to art in our modern era, Schopenhauer’s value on music due to its ambiguity has validity since music can be and is consumed as humans’ closest materialization to otherwise ineffable feelings/ideas. Engaging in this access to those feelings/ideas (which are irreplaceable because they are so unique) gives the listener access beyond other arts and simple human interaction, thus bringing the listener closer to what Schopenhauer describes as Will.

Paper Preview (Repost)

In my paper I think about Schopenhauer's notion of the Will and of the genius. Using Guitar God Stevie Ray Vaughan as a case study of the genius I show how what the text claims can be observed in an actual song, but also identify ways in which the text misses the mark by emphasizing melody and not focusing on technique. By the end I hope that I accomplish relating the text to a real life example and revealing some of the practices that might create a genius and a will-less subject lost in aesthetic appreciation. In addition to "Scuttle Buttin," my paper is informed by Vaughan's rendition of Hendrix classics like "Little Wing" and my own experience playing the guitar and attempting to learn their songs.

Paper summary w/ music- Simple Man & Angel

My paper covers Plato and what music is acceptable to him and why. I point out how he likens music to the condition of the State; thereby calling for total control and censorship so as to control and censor the condition of the state. For, if music changed, then the State would be in danger of changing with it. It covers the beginning of his argument when he censors stories based on the idea that youth/man can't differentiate between allegory and reality. Then I review how he wants to censor speech and poetry because of how it "creates" brave and courageous men, but also lamenting, weeping and wailing men. And lastly I discuss how this ultimately leads to his argument for censoring music based on all the previous concessions. Simple Man is an example of a contemporary song that I think Plato would allow, as it comes down as advice to a man from his mother on how to live like a simple man. And I think that Angel by Sarah Mclachlan is an example of a song that would be banned because it incites weeping, wailing and lamentation. It's often played at funerals, and it brings me to tears when I hear it played over the pictures of abandoned and abused cats and dogs in that commercial about adoption. 

(Paper #1) [Repost] "The Parting Glass" by Ed Sheeran

In my paper I discuss the difference between Will and will and how Schopenhauer describes the two. I also talk about how to go from one to the other, making the subject and the object one. In relating this to the song, Ed Sheeran helps take the listener away from his own personal pain and connects people on another level.

Torture lite - Slayer - Angel of Death

I truly hope this song, or similar ones, do not get played in class, because that would be torture!

I post this song in response to reading This Muslim American Life - Dispatches from the War on Terror, by Moustafa Bayoumi. After reading it I found it interesting that there seemed to be about three different types of songs that were used for torture. There was the class that saw cheesy pop songs/singers like Brittany Spears, Christina Agulara, etc., as torturous, the class that saw it as an opportunity to reinforce American Pride with songs like Born in the USA, etc., and then those that used loud, invasive music like the song above. I feel like the first two made whimsical choices based on humor and ego, whereas the third group really wanted to break their victims and cause serious psychological damage. Obviously, any song looped over and over, causing you to lose sleep and not be able to maintain a thought in your head, would be horrible and torturous, but there's something extra horrible and maddening about loud and aggressive music. I am mortified by this whole concept, but I think I was extra offended by the whimsical and ego driven choices of music. A baby crying, sure. Loud death metal, sure. Super psychologically damaging. But the other choices feel like the cat that bats around the mouse for a while and then gets bored and lets it run off.

Also interesting is when this article and the article Shoot the Singer! overlapped. On page 182 of Bayoumi's article when he writes: "What the practice of sounding loud American music at Muslims reveals most is the power American forces associate with American culture. Any prolonged loud noise in the right circumstances stands a good chance of driving you mad. Yet narcissistically, American intelligence seems to believe American music will break you more quickly. 'These people haven't heard heavy metal. They can't take it.'" This part of the article relates nicely because Shoot the Singer! goes into detail about why Islam is offended by music, and why loud, vulgar American culture offends also. And I found it ironic that we were torturing them in response to the 9/11 attack. The 9/11 attack was done in the name of their beliefs against the western infidels with their drugs, sex and rock n roll. And then we reinforce their very reasons for hating us by using said rock n roll to torture them. And considering that Islam doesn't condone music because of how it is linked to sin, and then we use music for one of the most sinful things humans can do to each other...it's all just so ridiculous and horrible.

Late Post: Music Torture- Land of Confusion by Disturbed

In my opinion, one of the most interesting aspects of music torture is the selection of music during interrogations. During my group's presentation I feel that we only touched on this slightly. But some of the thoughts that came to mind personally during the research phase was does the choice of music have a effect on the torturer? We have seen from the readings in Plato's republic that music can actually boost "valor" in battle. Furthermore, I would like to say that it is made clear in some articles that there are artists who actually support the use of their songs as "torture music". Although I do not know if Disturbed supports their music being used in combat or torture, there are accounts of their music being played during raids in Afghanistan. When listening to the music, we can hear in the lyrics the anger against the current state of affairs in regards to national security. With the threat of terrorism being one that is faceless, operating in the shadows. It is understandable to see why so many artists, especially in the rock/metal genre, are angry. The music they write, empowers troops, but does it also lead to alterity, the creation of a generalized enemy as a result of the imminent threat attack and lack of information?  

(I'd like to apologize for my late post on the topic of music torture. Although I was part of the group that presented on the topic, I was having some issues in my personal life that needed to be attended to which prevented me from creating a post.)  

Kanye West Is Fixing His Album in Public. You’ll Want to Read the Edits.

http://nyti.ms/20KhTiR

Music as Torture: American Badass by Kid Rock

This song is a little bit of country, rock, and metal, but it's also a whole lot of torture. I think this song is as haram as it gets because "instead of giving praise to Allah and learning about Islam, (the) musicians engage in useless and sometimes harmful activities." (Otterbeck, 14) Here are some lyrics from the song that I think capture this point:

Devil Without A Cause
And I'm back with the beaver hats
And Ben Davis slacks
Thirty pack of Strohs
Thirty pack of hoes
No rogaine and the propane flows
The chosen one
I'm the living proof
With the gift of gab
From the city of truth
I jabbed and stabbed
And knocked critics back
And I did not stutter when I said that
I'm going platinum
Sellin rhymes
I went platinum
Seven times
And still they ill
They wanna see us fry
I guess because Only God Knows Why
Why why why why


So, Kid Rock talks about the American "badass" as being someone who is a "devil without a cause." The "badass" is someone who "shows no shame" and would "live and die for this." His message in the song seems to be something like this: He is proud of being a cowboy and an American "badass" because he's the "shit shit shit shit."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJN8IiDse0

Mort Garson[Plantasia] 1976 Full Album

While I'm not quite convinced in its capacity to influence plant growth, Plantasia by Mort Garson has an undeniably soothing effect on its listeners. It is what came to my mind as the opposite of torture music. Yet, it seems music torture is more complicated than it seems. That is to say, the type of music in itself doesn't fully determine the magnitude of the torture. Music's effects can morph in different situations. I'm not sure how I'd take this album looping while shackled to the ground in a dark prison with a butt plug in me. The same sounds which once provoked a warm, thoughtful presence could easily turn ominous here. Think of "Goodbye Horses" in "Silence of the Lambs". It's a nostalgic, catchy song turned horrifyingly eerie in its context.

Nelly - Hot In Herre

MUSIC as TORTURE

Latino Mix 105.7 played Neyo's "Hot In Herre" for three days straight back in March of 2014.
It caught media attention and increased the popularity of the station. It also left many questioning this choice of music.
Supposedly the station wanted to copy the movie Life is Beautiful, where this exact scenario plays out, and so achieve a marketing stunt.
I for one believe this particular move was a tactic for repositioning - the station wanted to change its identity, to get rid of the current following and build up from the ground once again, in the hopes of better ratings/rank.
It's interesting that this particular tactic was used. The same way a repeated song would become noise to the victim during torture, losing its meaning and causing the victim to lose sense, so does the repetition of a song wipe away the message/identity of the station playing it.

Here are the song and one of the articles announcing this:

Article:

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/03/nelly-hot-herre-san-francisco-radio-station-latino-mix-1057-plays-nonstop

Music as Torture: "Aw Yeah?" by Tech N9ne

"American intelligence seems to believe American music will break you more quickly. 'These people haven't heard it. They can't take it,' a psy-ops sergeant told Newsweek. And in Guantanamo, they even have a name for it. The Pentagon's Schmidt investigation identified it as "futility music" - that is to say, screamingly loud and deliberately Western music that will, per the Army field manual, "highlight the futility of one's detainee's situation.'" [Bayoumi, "Disco Inferno"] _____________________________________________________________________________ The employment of music in torture is distressing to the detainee by the mere unfamiliarity of the style of music imposed upon them in repetition and volume for prolonged periods. This song not only embodies a style of western music altogether estranged from the cultural music of the detainees, but it utilizes an ominous quasi-religious chanting in the background throughout the entirety of the song. Ironically, despite the detainees' inability to focus and complete the traditional prayers of their religion, the song is an appeal to God, one they might utter themselves in their native tongue, indignantly repeating "Audire Domine!" In latin this appeal means "Hear me, God!" or "Listen God!" in regards to the injustice the artist recognizes is due to the sinful nature of this world. Is this torment due to transgressions of the detainee and his offense against American law, or is it a result of the retaliatory nature of the American forces and their desire for retribution, humiliation, and persecution of their enemies? At the conclusion of the song, the yell of the artist's final word is analogous to the detainee's inner torment and the decomposition of their mental and emotional stability while enduring this form of "futility music" torture.

This week we are discussing music torture. It was tempting to find the song that I thought might be most torturous, or a song comparable to the specific songs mentioned in the text. But I decided to try a different angle. To start, on page 17 of the Cusick it reads "My interlocutors often argue that it is the detainees' utter powerlessness, reinforced by the congeries of nakedness, humiliation, fatigue, and self-inflicted pain of stress positions that causes unwanted music to move from annoying to torturous." It's worth mentioning that this is not a position Cusick totally aligns with, but in this quotation we can read that there is a question of is the music itself torturous or does it become torturous based on the situation of the subject (either already under stress of interrogation or not). Obviously the songs used to torture the victims can be pleasant for us consumers in the comfort of our homes, but could a song be pleasant for a victim if it has comforting mood? Or would the severity and humiliation of being a detainee make it so any song played on end is torturous?

This song I chose by the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros will not answer this question conclusively but I think it is useful to consider my questions. This song is not in English so we as listeners will not gain any meaning from the lyrics just like the prisoners in the article. I personally find the song to be soothing and warm. The falsetto voice, angelic background, and swelling instrumentation bring about a feeling of peace. Of course, I have never experienced what is described in the article. The most I've listened to this song in a row is maybe four times, so its possible I could feel tortured with is on repeat for a day. But I think it is worth wondering whether music could also help people in such a stressful situation as being imprisoned and questioned to stay sane. Music that evokes peace could be even more torturous in an environment that is the opposite of peaceful,, but on the other hand peaceful music could help someone survive a violent environment.

I remember in the video we watched on Tuesday, the soldier said that for certain songs the prisoners would sing along. I imagine this would hep them to stay centered and not lose themselves in the sensory manipulation. I offer no grand answers in this blog post, but can at the least say that I think the choice of music is very important in determining the outcome of the intended torture.

(Music as Torture) Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off by Joe Nichols

I thought this song would be torturous to the class since everyone seems to absolutely loath country music. This song by Joe Nichols sounds pretty country and you can definitely hear the twang in his voice. It also reflects what we talked about in class how one of the prisoners hated when country was put on by the interrogators and quickly caved in. For those who truly hate country, this song will be one that bothers people.

Tri-tones - "Devil's Interval"

For a period in the Middle Ages, the Christian Church banned tri-tones (the interval of three whole steps between notes) for sounding "demonic," thus earning the tri-tone recognition as the "devil's interval." It was thought to be inherently evil and therefore dangerous, similar to our reading regarding music as temptation towards the devil in some examples of hardlined Islam.

More modern music has heavily incorporated tri-tones, both with intentional demonic sound (Black Sabbath) and with music that has no intention to sound demonic (the first two notes of the Simpsons Theme, which resolves with a happy-sounding 5th).

On example of a song that uses tri-tones to create a slightly unsettling and mysterious feeling is David Bowie's "Station to Station" - a song more strange than dark and demonic, but one that demon started the effectiveness of the tri-tone nonetheless. The tangible example is the alternating piano notes that start the momentum of the song.

This week I chose the song “Torture Me” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, not only because of its obvious link to our horrific topic of music torture but also because of the reasons for which Anthony Kiedis wrote the song. While it may not be obvious, Kiedis’s autobiography, “Scar Tissue,” allows us to see that this song is about his drug addiction to heroin and cocaine. What I find interesting is how the drugs have broken his will down to the point that he has no control over his actions or psyche, such that when he doesn’t consume the drugs for long enough he sees it as torture. This breaking down of the will in drug addiction is comparable to what detainees experience when exposed to mind-jarring repetition and decibel levels during music torture. Similar to Plato’s description of music as a “drug” that can transform the listener’s character by stirring their emotions, music torture causes the prisoner’s identity to disintegrate. They call this "torture light" because it leaves no visible marks on the body, except the swelling and bruising of the feet and legs that have been stood on for days on end in stress positions, but is not the imposition of psychological trauma, say regression to childlike behavior or the formation of PTSD or schizophrenia, permanently altering someone's physicality and ultimately their life? Western music torture and the cultural imperialism that it inherently carries with it are reprehensible, a huge breach of human rights and global civility. The US needs to reevaluate its hegemonic exemption from international human rights standards and law because inflicting this type of psychological trauma on a human being is unjust, cruel and inhuman.

“Clearly, torture music is an assault on human rights. But more broadly, what does it mean when music gets enrolled in schools of torture and culture is sent jackbooted into war? With torture music, ourculture is no longer primarily a means of individual expression or an avenue to social criticism. Instead, it is an actual weapon, one that represents and projects American military might. […]

Thus, torture lite slides right into mainstream American acceptance. It’s a frat-house prank taken one baby step further—as essentially harmless, and American, as an apple pie in the face. It’s seen as a justified means of exacting revenge on or extracting information from a terrorist—never mind that detainees in the War on Terror are mostly Muslims who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

‘Without music, life would be an error,’ writes Nietzsche, but for Muslim detainees, it’s the other way around. Mind-numbing American music is blasted at them with such ferocity that they will believe their lives are a mistake.” (Bayoumi, 176-177).

Suzanne Cusack's piece “Music Torture/Music as Weapon” included some fascinating comparisons, analysis and information. Interestingly, Cusick brings in Foucault and his thinking about Power, saying that music torture removes the ability for a prisoner to escape into his interiority and therefore exerts total, unavoidable Power over him. She brings up another interesting point about the bloggers from home who are put into a feminized position in a hyper-militarized and masculine, warrior-lauding American society; therefore, they become comfortable justifying and glorifying torture and American cultural hegemony from a homophobic, racist and misogynist position of privilege and power. I underlined quotes that I thought were especially relevant or interesting. 

" This modern system aims to combine “sensory disorientation”–isolation, standing, extremes of heat and cold, light and dark, noise and silence–with self-inflicted pain, both physical and psychological, so as to cause a prisoner’s very “identity to disintegrate”. {14} Whether that disintegration takes the form of induced regression (to infantile behavior) or induced schizophrenia, “the effect is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved or deprived of sleep” {15} . The prisoner becomes psychologically powerless before the authority of interrogators, both dependent and unable to resist. Moreover, the experimental data showed this “modern system of torture” to be much more efficient than beatings or starvation, producing psychological disintegration in a matter of days, rather than weeks or months. And, as one CIA researcher noted, it was hard to document, for with the exception of the standing (which can cause grotesque swelling/bruising of the feet and legs) these “techniques” leave no visible marks on the fleshy surfaces of a human body. [...]

A detainee, too, must experience himself as touched without being touched, as he squats, hands shackled between his shackled ankles to an I-bolt in the floor, in a pitch-black room, unable to find any position for his body that does not cause self-inflicted pain. Surely, among many other things, the experience creates a nexus of pain, immoblility, unwanted touching (without-touch); and of being forced into self-hurting by a disembodied, invisible Power. A dark ecstasy, the experience must be neither isolation nor communion, but a relationship that mimics the effects of the chains–the relationship of being utterly at the mercy of a merciless, ubiquitous Power. I imagine it, sometime, as being plunged into it something like the post-modern, post-Foucauldian dystopia where one is unable quite to name, much less resist, the overwhelmingly diffuse Power that is outside one, but also is inside, and that operates by forcing one to comply against one’s will, against one’s interests, because there is no way–not even a retreat to interiority-- to escape the pain. What better medium than music to bring into being (as a felicitous performative) the experience of the West’s (the infidel’s) ubiquitous, irresistable Power? {23} [...]

In the last few days, thinking about this panel’s overall focus on the relationship of musical culture to the state that is the USA, I’ve been pondering the gradual institutionalization of this scene in the global imagination–through, for instance, its visual representation in the film The Road to Guantanamo. I’ve been thinking that the scene, both as drastically real for interrogators and detainees, and as virtual for filmgoers, press readers, bloggers, and me, bears thinking about as an artifact of the global war on terror, itself an artifact of the US’ newly unabashed effort to project itself as global sovereign. I’m struck, for instance, by the fact that “no touch torture” using music to dissolve others’ subjectivities has been imposed on persons picked up in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Indonesia, Iraq, Mauritania, Pakistan, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, including British and Canadian citizens. Thus, the performative scene in which music is the medium of ubiquitous, irresistable power that touches without touching has been imposed on representatives of the entire Muslim world. Music, then, is not only a component of “no touch torture” but also a component of the US’ symbolic claim to global sovereignty–but in a way that is almost the polar opposite of the Louis Armstrong “good will ambassador” tours of the 1950s.[24] . At the same time, however, the US has given the detainees thus treated over to its own soldiers as scapegoats, toward whom their choice of music linked to working-class masculinities can channel their rage at the economic and political forces that make them–like their captives–human beings that the state allows to be killed with impunity. Moreover, because media representations on the one hand and the technologies of “new media” on the other allow the scene to be widely imagined and responded to at home, the US has, perhaps inadvertently, given the same detainees over to a certain swath of the homefront, where they can be scapegoats for a different kind of rage. Believing they cannot be killed with impunity, the homefront bloggers at littegreen footballs and freerepublic do more than express their rage at the feminized position they occupy as non-warriors in an increasingly warrior-worshipping public culture. They create (and occupy) as homophobic, racist and misogynist the subject position of virtuous, justified torture–a subject position identified with, and occupied by, the global national security state that has, in its most recently passed law on the treatment of detainees, declared itself exempt from international law. All the while, the scene–at least as one can currently know it–allows certain kinds of repertoire to stand for the violence of “Western”, “infidel” conquest, leaving repertoire that is more likely to be valued by elites both innocent and intact" (Cusick, Music as torture/Music as weapon).

Company by Disasterpiece (Music as Torture)

Music that does not please but rather displeases or tortures should "dissolve subjectivity, releasing a person into a paradoxical condition that is both highly embodied and almost disembodied in the intensity with which one forgets important elements of one’s identity," bringing them to the discomfort they have but away from thought, and to a timescale that forces one to "lose track of time’s passing." (Cusick)

I chose this song by Disasterpiece from the soundtrack to the horror movie It Follows. The music is specifically designed to keep the listener attending to something other than themselves, yet requires that they *pay attention* as only a conscious subject could react and feel in response. This track is particularly unnerving. I could not find the original motion picture online, but it is worth watching. 

The music gives a sense of foreboding when it is quiet. It uses the silence between crescendos and movements to draw on this foreboding and to stretch and confuse the listener's sense of time and anticipation, which takes far too long for what we would expect. The drums leading up to 1:06 further attune the listener's perception to a sense of dread that isn't ready to be disturbed, but the powerful synths violently interject into the time which has just gained rhythm. The long keys that are played follow the same time but because of their electronic quality do not give the listener the same sense of time's passage. In the movie, this helps to shock the viewer as an image of a phantom woman emerges, and from a listener's perspective it makes us listen more attentively to the music. 

The shock (or trauma) from this moment lasts long enough for the second crescendo to approach, which is more of a twisting of the knife to the original violent interruption that brings back the sensation while adding a layer of chaos and distortion not previously heard. This brings about the hopelessness of trauma's presence that the film itself is quite good at expressing. The impossibility of detaching one's senses from what one hears means that the more horrifying music can make you listen to it, the more it becomes a part of your lasting impression of that time in your life.

Love You Like A Love Song

Sound, is indeed, what one would turn to (Cusack, Suzanne pg.5) if s/he had to endure the types of torture detainees of war have had to face: wall standing, sleep deprivation, starvation and dehydration techniques, being naked for many hours, getting urinated on, etc. I hated hearing the horrible accounts of what happens in war time, but even more learning about how our culture directly supports (if not, encourages) such behavior: literally, some American artists being proud that their music is used "against terrorism." Initially, I was going to post "Killing Me Softly" by The Fugees, but I felt like common musical trends that were played to terrorists fell under the genres of hard-core rock and baby-soft pop (Barney even), so I chose "Love You Like A Love Song" by Selena Gomez.

"Cultural differences are exploited, and multiculturalism becomes a strategy for domination. Torture music is the crudest kind of cultural imperialism, grimly ironic in a war that is putatively about spreading 'universal' American values. Yet the first reaction torture music inspired among Americans was not indignation but amusement. Finally, dangerous terrorists- like everyone else- will be tortured by Britney Spears's music!" (Bayou, Moustafa pg.176-177). Or Selena Gomez in this case.

Music a Torture?

One of defining aspect of music torture is repetition: the idea that if something is played repeatedly then it becomes obnoxious or even psychologically harmful. The detainees at Guantanamo were subjected to the same music for hours, sometimes days at a time. This extreme level of repetition caused a paralysis of will and cognition. 

But repetition itself is not harmful. If anything, small amounts of repetition can be beneficial to psychological awareness and stress purging. The issue lies within the degree of repetition, from healthy to lethal. As Paracelsus said of substances, “everything is a poison. The difference between a poison and a remedy depends on the dose.”

A band that I believe straddles the fence between healthful and harmful repetition is the noise-rock outfit Swans. 

Below I included a link to one of their songs.

Music as Torture

I chose this song because I think it relates to several things deemed both characteristic of 'torture music' and music prohibited by most if not only traditional, hardliner Muslims. The music is repetitive, western as well as demeaning in the context it would be played. Not only is the majority of the lyrics dominated by the word "womanizer", but also it would serve as an ironic taunt directed at the detainees since it contrasts their lack of power with the supposed power of a 'womanizer' and also blatantly insults their religion since it is obviously associated with "forbidden pleasures"(15, Otterbeck) as well as dangerously distracts one from their devotion to Allah. However, it should be noted that this song may be unlikely to be played since it would seem traditionally unlikely that a guard or soldier would own this song especially since I would assume it does little to prepare one for battle. While the song first gives the impression of casting an image of male power and dominance, the fact that Britney is declaring the man as a womanizer and essentially forcing him into such a position seemingly inverts the gendered positions of power. 

"Womanizer" by Britney Spears 

Music Torture - Stupid Hoe by Nicki Minaj

Stupid Hoe by Nicki Minaj is haram on multiple levels:

• The song is in violent intention. The majority of the song can be considered profane and attacking to whoever "stupid hoe" is. 
• The song is also almost narcissistic. Nicki is speaking to whoever this "stupid hoe" is in a condescending manner.
• The song is purposeless; Stupid Hoe moves the listener away from Allah because it does not help humans be productive.