George Orwell's cult novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) belongs to the tradition, identified by the author himself, of “Utopia Books” and it is, as Parrinder puts it, “awkwardly poised between imaginative fiction and a book of essays, between satire and a political prediction or warning” (2006: 319). This very last trait explains the very strong impact of the book on contemporary popular culture and on popular music. The book’s themes became, indeed, central in popular music throughout the last decades from punk-rock to rap, from indie to jazz. This is particularly relevant if we consider that music can be considered a space of resistance to communication control and of subversion of the order of discourse (During 2005). In this sense in 1973 Stevie Wonder published a song entitled 'Big Brother' while in 1974 David Bowie published a work which was initially conceived as a concept album on Orwell’ s cult novel, namely Diamond DogsIn the context of the avant-garde it is worth mentioning jazz-rock bassist Hugh Hopper's 1984 (1973), Zappa's Joe's Garage (1979) and Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief (the thief being G. W. Bush who notoriously stole votes during the Presidential campaign) whose opening track is entitled, after Orwell' s famous equation, '2+2=5'. This paper investigates Orwell’s legacy in popular culture in terms of Radiohead’s strategies of resistance in relation to the imperatives of the pop establishment both in terms of musical form – and musical communication, focussing on the political content of works such as Ok Computer, Kid A/Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief and on the dialogic relationship established by Radiohead with their supporters through the alternative marketing and eco campaign behind In Rainbows. What emerges from our analysis of the band’s soundscape and politics is the very idea that artistic creativity and intelligence can at times combine in fresh and unprecedented ways to create spaces of enunciation which (resounding of a sort of collective conscience) can articulate a critique of the dark, Orwellian forces governing the world, within the same channels used by those forces to “get inside our head”. Radiohead’s appropriation of the protest slogan Hail to the thief - with its satiric subversion of the American ceremonial tune ‘Hail to the chief’ (Tate 2005: 180) - has the transitory but destabilizing effect of getting the “chief”, and the Big Brother , out of our head: with its combination of dissonance and melody and its rejection of sameness Radiohead’s art insinuates difference within our minds, allowing us to recover our sense of the human, our musical capacity to listen to “the other” outside and inside us.
2+2=5.George Orwell and Radiohead. Writing, totalitarianism and cultural resistance
Martino P.
2020-01-01
Abstract
George Orwell's cult novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) belongs to the tradition, identified by the author himself, of “Utopia Books” and it is, as Parrinder puts it, “awkwardly poised between imaginative fiction and a book of essays, between satire and a political prediction or warning” (2006: 319). This very last trait explains the very strong impact of the book on contemporary popular culture and on popular music. The book’s themes became, indeed, central in popular music throughout the last decades from punk-rock to rap, from indie to jazz. This is particularly relevant if we consider that music can be considered a space of resistance to communication control and of subversion of the order of discourse (During 2005). In this sense in 1973 Stevie Wonder published a song entitled 'Big Brother' while in 1974 David Bowie published a work which was initially conceived as a concept album on Orwell’ s cult novel, namely Diamond DogsIn the context of the avant-garde it is worth mentioning jazz-rock bassist Hugh Hopper's 1984 (1973), Zappa's Joe's Garage (1979) and Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief (the thief being G. W. Bush who notoriously stole votes during the Presidential campaign) whose opening track is entitled, after Orwell' s famous equation, '2+2=5'. This paper investigates Orwell’s legacy in popular culture in terms of Radiohead’s strategies of resistance in relation to the imperatives of the pop establishment both in terms of musical form – and musical communication, focussing on the political content of works such as Ok Computer, Kid A/Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief and on the dialogic relationship established by Radiohead with their supporters through the alternative marketing and eco campaign behind In Rainbows. What emerges from our analysis of the band’s soundscape and politics is the very idea that artistic creativity and intelligence can at times combine in fresh and unprecedented ways to create spaces of enunciation which (resounding of a sort of collective conscience) can articulate a critique of the dark, Orwellian forces governing the world, within the same channels used by those forces to “get inside our head”. Radiohead’s appropriation of the protest slogan Hail to the thief - with its satiric subversion of the American ceremonial tune ‘Hail to the chief’ (Tate 2005: 180) - has the transitory but destabilizing effect of getting the “chief”, and the Big Brother , out of our head: with its combination of dissonance and melody and its rejection of sameness Radiohead’s art insinuates difference within our minds, allowing us to recover our sense of the human, our musical capacity to listen to “the other” outside and inside us.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
