Siouxsie Sioux is making a comeback. The singer, now 65 years old, will be playing a concert next March, her first in 10 years.
This is exciting news for those of us who are fans not just of rock ‘n’ roll but of rock ‘n’ roll rebellion. Yes, rock ‘n’ roll has always had a reputation as a rough art form that subverted middle-class propriety, but in my heyday in the 1980s, when Siouxsie was at her peak with her group Siouxsie and the Banshees, it meant a lot more. Rock ‘n’ roll meant the freedom to criticize anybody and anything — even political correctness, the government, and communism.
These days, pop musicians just don’t have the guts to go near certain topics.
In his new book about the rock icon Lou Reed, Transformer: A Story of Glitter, Glam Rock, and Loving Lou Reed, Simon Doonan laments that today, even our would-be groundbreaking rock stars are neutered before they can do anything groundbreaking. He writes, “Great artists are now consigned to the trash heap based on past transgressions great and small. Being a hell-raiser has gone out of fashion. This is a shame. As Flaubert said, ‘You don’t make art out of good intentions’.”
One of Siouxsie and the Banshee’s finest songs, “Rhapsody,” is something I could not conceive of Taylor Swift or Beyonce performing. The song was inspired by Shostakovich, the genius Russian composer who was brutalized by Stalin in the 1930s. Over a menacing beat, Sioux sings:
<bsp-quote data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1672259807915,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1672259807915,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0662-db24-a17f-4e6771eb0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"quote":"Across this crooked land
Runs a crooked man
Our loved ones die under the hammer
Of the Soviet sun
Nothing can erase this night
But there’s still light with you rhapsody
And if we can never see the sun
There’s still light with you rhapsody.","_id":"00000185-5a73-d008-adad-faff47050000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b92f10002"}”>Across this crooked land
Runs a crooked man
Our loved ones die under the hammer
Of the Soviet sun
Nothing can erase this night
But there’s still light with you rhapsody
And if we can never see the sun
There’s still light with you rhapsody.In Transformer, Doonan, a gay man, celebrates how, in the glory days of rock ‘n’ roll, anyone could sing about anything. As Doonan writes: “The astonishing thing about glam rock — the style and the music — was its aggressive heterosexuality.” As critic Dave Hickey pointed out at the time, “The world of Hollywood is filled with gay people trying to act straight while the world of rock’n’roll is filled with straight people trying to act gay.”
Now, of course, you can’t have any “appropriation” that allows an artist to explore a new style. In an absurd and sad 2018 article, Washington Post pop critic Chris Richards argued that musicians should self-censor themselves in deference to prevailing political orthodoxies. Richards describes a band that so loved a record by an R&B artist that they wanted to cover it. They finally decided not to: “A band of white indie rockers performing the songs of a black R & B singer? No way. It would be seen as cultural appropriation.”
The only rock rebels left are almost ready for assisted living. Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, a recent 28-track double album from 77-year-old Van Morrison, was savaged in the press. Morrison has come out strongly against vaccine mandates and shutting down society, which particularly hurt musicians who make their living playing live.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Latest Record Project “veers off in a conspiratorially cranky direction with songs titled ‘The Long Con,’ ‘Big Lie,’ ‘Why Are You on Facebook’ and ‘Stop Bitching. Do Something.’”
The Guardian (“depressing rants by tinfoil milliner”) and Rolling Stone (“a delightfully terrible study in casual grievance”) also blasted the record. Rolling Stone‘s Jonathan Bernstein wrote, “Morrison’s repetition sounds less like the trance-like mysticism of a Caledonia poet and more like a furious customer demanding a refund.”
It is heartening to know that America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll rebel is still on his feet. Scott “Wino” Weinrich, 62, a true free thinker and hellraiser, has reformed his legendary “doom metal” group the Obsessed. They are releasing a new album in 2023. Full disclosure: Growing up in Maryland in the 1970s and ’80s, Wino was my next-door neighbor. People would sometimes walk the other way when they saw his Eddie Van Halen hair or his nasty tattoos, never mind the monster riffs that would quake the basement where he rehearsed. Wino was and is an awesome guitarist, a highly intelligent guy, and fierce lyricist.
And, most importantly, artists such as Wino and Morrison — those willing to buck the cultural trends and defy our woke censors — may be the last truly free men in America.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM RESTORING AMERICA
Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of the book The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.
