WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS: SOCIETY’S VICTIMS

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Perspectives and tagged abuse, art, arts, Britney Spears, control, DV, Eminem, emotional abuse, empathy, feminism, gender violence, Ghostpoet, harassment, Harley Quinn, internalising, Jekyll and Hyde, Joker, Margot Robbie, Massive Attack, microaggression, personal, Radhika Sanghani, reciprocating, Rihanna, Saurav Dutt, sexual abuse, Suicide Squad, Survivor, Taylor Swift, The Butterfly Room, threat, victim, violence.

by Sunetra Senior

CW: abuse, DV, violence

Male-on-female abusive relationships are often pictured as shows of overt violence and brutalism. You imagine a fragile feminine frame being thrown against a wall by a heaving, snarling man, as if a piece of precious china. But this is only a surface image, and what I would even go so far as to call a political smoke-screen. Though physical intimidation does despicably feature in many cases of male-on-female violence, the less acknowledged – and thus yet more prevalent– characteristic of abuse of women is deeply emotional, and moreover, disturbingly banal.Continue Reading

BEYONCÉ, HILLSBOROUGH AND UNITY THROUGH SONG

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged anthem, artist, arts, Beyonce, black women, BME, catharsis, charts, culture, Drake, empowerment, feminism, feminist, Game of Thrones, HBO, hillsborough, icon, LEMONADE, Liverpool FC, Malcolm X, media, Merseyside, MSM, music, music industry, Pitchfork, politics, pop, pop music, prince, radical, Taylor Swift, unity, VIEWS, Warsan Shire, women artists, You'll Never Walk Alone.

by Mike Vinti

It’s been a pretty big couple of weeks in the pop world. Prince died, Beyoncé pulled a well, a Beyoncé, and today (Friday April 29th) Drake has released his new album VIEWS. If ever there was a week to remind us of popular music’s impact on society and culture, this is the one.

While each of these moments are significant in their own right and worthy of articles of their own, of which there have been many, together they’ve demonstrated the power of music to unite people. Be it through, grief, shock or pure unadulterated hype, the three most significant cultural moments of the past eight days have used music to bring people together and for a few days at least, forget about those intent on tearing us apart.Continue Reading

KNOW YOUR ENEMY – AN INTERVIEW WITH JAKE OF SHOCK ! HAZARD

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Music That Matters and tagged ac/dc, Beyonce, enter shikari, Green Party, jeremy corbyn, justin bieber, Labour, labour party, led zeppelin, motley crue, music, music that matters, one direction, owl sanctuary, people's assembly, politics, rage against the machine, rock, rock and roll, steel pulse, stop the war, Taylor Swift, The Clash, x-ray spex.

By Chris Jarvis

For most, Norfolk boys Shock ! Hazard will appear as something of an antilogy. Their sound and aesthetics are clearly rooted in and influenced by early heavy metal pioneers like Led Zeppelin and the less flamboyant hair metallers of the 1980s – thumping riffs, extended guitar solos and screeching vocals galore. More than anything, this sound and this scene has been known for its bone-headed hedonism, its sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll attitude, and the carefree and unrestricted antics of its participants; hardly the place you go to find revolutionary calls to action or heavily politicised lyricism. Putting aside the question as to whether participation in a counter-culture is an inherently political act for a minute, unlike other musical movements, from punk to folk to hip-hip, this straight-up, hard hitting, in your face rock and roll, has made its name in part for being almost overtly apolitical.

EXPOSURE DOESN’T PAY RENT, BUT NEITHER DOES SNOBBERY

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Perspectives and tagged acting, art, arts, collaboration, collectivism, creative industries, DIY, exploitation, individualism, media, Perspectives, photography, politics, poverty, punk, scottish artists union, solidarity, sophie crow, students, Taylor Swift, teaching, trade unions, unionisation, unions, unpaid labour, work.

By Robyn Banks

“Exposure doesn’t pay rent”- it’s something we’ve likely all heard before, whether you’re a business looking to save money on photography, asking a friend for a favour or simply scrolling through Tumblr. The line “We can’t pay you, but it will be great exposure!” has become the bane of every artist’s life, and it’s understandable why. There has never been a sector of the workforce who have been asked so frequently to work for free as the creative sector. However, I don’t believe there has ever been such an individually vocal sector of the UKs exploited workforce, either.

RAISE THE PITCHFORK: MUSIC AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged blog, blogosphere, commercial, Conde Nast, Ed Sheeran, establishment, GQ, journalism, Major Lazer, media, MSM, music, music artists, music journalism, music media, Nasties, niche, Pitchfork, public, Stormzy, Taylor Swift, The New Yorker, The Weeknd, underground, Vanity Fair, vogue.

by Mike Vinti

It was announced on Wednesday that influential music blog Pitchfork – virtual second home to many music nerds – has been sold to Condé Nast, the publishing group behind Vanity Fair and Vogue.

On the face of it, this is a pretty boring piece of news to anyone other than music journalists; Condé Nast is no longer the giant of media it once was, and Pitchfork has a relatively niche audience. As such, this announcement has been met with derision by many in the blogosphere, perhaps wary of the old-world Nasties infringing on their ad revenue, alongside some legitimate concerns for the diversity of its audience and contributor pool. Yet aside from the dull business of one company purchasing another, the deal proves far more interesting than it first appears.Continue Reading

POP POWER

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged austerity, big weekend, conservative, ge15, general election, government, Grime, human rights, indie, left wing, media, music, music industry, norwich, politics, pop music, popular music, radio 1, radio 1 big weekend, Slaves, Taylor Swift, Tories.

by Mike Vinti

It has been three weeks now since David Cameron Inc. and things haven’t exactly started smoothly — there have been protests up and down the country, the SNP are already pissing off half of Westminster, and the new Cabinet is somehow worse than the old one.

Hanging over it all is the question of what the left is going to look like over the next five years and how best to fight the newly upgraded conservative government and their inept, yet terrifying, policies for the new parliament.

SMASH THE CHARTS – POP, POLITICS, AND PUSSY RIOT

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged 70s, activism, artist, Beyonce, climate change, Eric Garner, fascism, feminism, government, journalism, kanye west, lady gaga, mainstream, music, music charts, music industry, music journalists, musicians, politics, pop, protest, punk, pussy riot, race, racism, Russia, Taylor Swift, Warhol.

by Mike Vinti

It often seems today that everything exists in its own sphere — music in one box, politics in another, and visual art in another still. This is self-evident when you take a look at a lot of popular culture. For example, the rise of TV shows and films, such as The Interview, that use politics as backdrop for their plot, yet fail to engage in any substantial political critique.

The same thing has been taking place in music for the past twenty years, and musicians who have attempted to rectify this have either been relegated from their illustrious chart positions, or left to the underground.

This separation has made it harder for writers and artists of all stripes to experiment with the boundaries of their medium, and there’s been a death of explicitly political works of culture which make into the mainstream because of this. Of course, challenging the dominant perception of your chosen field always creates a stir. However it seems now, more than ever, musicians aren’t even being afforded the chance to do that.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MUSIC

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, Azalea Banks, bloggers, cinema, film studies, hipster, journalism, media, music, music industry, music press, nme, Noisey, Pitchfork, Quietus, Taylor Swift, Vice.

by Mike Vinti.

If 2014 was the year of anything it was the year popular music started to be taken seriously. Services such as Spotify, and the dawn of Smartphones, means that music is more a part of our lives than ever before; a trend that’s influencing the way we engage with it both in terms of platform and as an art-form. It’s easy to view music as a compliment to life, a melodic enhancer to otherwise mundane activities and there’s nothing particularly wrong with treating it as such — I can’t force you to like Death Grips. Music can and should bring pleasure, but as we listen to more and more of it, its messages and intentions are being ignored.

For years now, debate has raged about the messages and politics in TV, Cinema and in Literature, hell, even music videos have had their fifteen minutes of ‘long read’ blog coverage, yet music itself has gone largely ignored. The reason for this, as a friend of mine noted recently, is because of music’s ubiquity — it’s everywhere, all the time. It soundtracks our walks home and our work, our free time and our periods of most intense concentration — as I write this, I am, totally unsurprisingly, listening to music.

Taylor Swift

WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS: SOCIETY’S VICTIMS

BEYONCÉ, HILLSBOROUGH AND UNITY THROUGH SONG

KNOW YOUR ENEMY – AN INTERVIEW WITH JAKE OF SHOCK ! HAZARD

EXPOSURE DOESN’T PAY RENT, BUT NEITHER DOES SNOBBERY

RAISE THE PITCHFORK: MUSIC AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA

POP POWER

SMASH THE CHARTS – POP, POLITICS, AND PUSSY RIOT

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MUSIC

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