#Listening to the 2023 remaster of Cult of Personality by Living Color;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mssfWohiig
Originally released on Vivid in 1998, I can't think of a song more apt for the times;
"I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
Oh, I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
Oh, I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
Oh, I'm the cult of personality"
As the track fades out, there's a sample of FDR saying;
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
I can't think of a better quote to sum up the social psychology of the situation we find ourselves in.
Living Color's Vivid is such a mixed bag as an album. Ranging from blistering political commentary like Desperate People, Open Letter, Funny Vibe and Which Way to America? - pretty clearly aimed at Reagan Republicans - to pure pop fluff like I Want To Know and Broken Hearts. Then there's the Talking Heads cover Memories Can't Wait, whose opening riffs anticipate the eerie guitar tone presages their darker 1993 album Stain.
(1/2)
As a child and teenager Glamour Boys was one of my favourite songs and videos; "I ain't no Glamor Boy, I'm fierce!". Yeah!
When I got a copy of Vivid in my late teens the slower, more emotive songs bored me silly. I appreciate them more now, but they still sounds like by-the-numbers 80s songs compared to everything else on the album. With the exception of Open Letter (To a Landlord), which resonates with me after decades of renting cheap rooms in run down houses.
(2/2)
3 years before RATM released Take the Power Back on their self -titled debut;
"The teacher stands in front of the/class
But the lesson plan he can't recall
The student's eyes don't perceive the lies
Bouncing off every fucking wall"
... Cory Glover sang a similar lyric on the 1990 Living Color album Time's Up.;
"History's a lie that they teach you in school."
The influence of 80s radical bands like LC, Bad Brains and Fishbone on 90s bands like RATM music can't be overstated.
Some folks didn’t quite understand what Rage Against The Machine were unhappy about.
I heard a lovely retort to one of those misguided folks:
“Which machine do you think they were raging against? The microwave???”
@strypey
I saw them play at Welly town hall in the mid 90s, best concert I have ever been to
