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Gang of Four and Pop Music as Marxist Critical Theory A Market of the Senses
By Timothy Sexton
On their second album Solid Gold, the postpunk rock group Gang of Four openly assert their intention to approach pop music as critical theory with a song titled, appropriately enough, "Why Theory?" In answer to their own query of why critical theory should have a place in rock music, the band sings "Each day seems like a natural fact / And what we think changes how we act." The critical theory that Gang of Four present in their music is a Marxist one centered on the premise that before revolt can take place, one must first penetrate through the consciousness that is determined by capitalistic ideology in order to understand why a revolution is necessary.
Gang of Four locate their Marxist theory in the Althusserian notion of expressing resistance through the contradictions inherent in the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) of the corporate-controlled rock music industry, and the way in which Gang of Four express their theory of Marxist thought is by inducing in the listener an alternative consciousness achieved through contradictions and disorientations that serve to mirror the very sense of disorientation and contradiction that capitalistic consciousness creates.
According to neo-Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, an ISA is the site in which the class struggle takes place and Gang of Four grandly engaged in this contradiction by proudly signing a contract with the huge multinational conglomerate EMI as well as by choosing to ironically title their first album Entertainment! and then serving up a collection of songs that critique the very idea of entertainment being used to propagate an ideology with which the band disagrees. In a footnote to his essay Althusser somewhat fails to present a concrete view of how contradiction within an ISA actually works, but a hint of what he's trying to say is expressed when he writes "the class struggle extends beyond the ISAs because it is rooted elsewhere than in ideology, in the Infrastructure, in the relations of production, which are relations of exploitation and constitute the base for class relations." The contradiction inherent in the music industry is that a company like EMI can only exist by making profits off its acts and Gang of Four presented themselves as a potentially profitable band despite their dissident theories.
But what reason could a devoutly Marxist band have for signing with a devoutly capitalist entity like EMI? Realizing that signing with any company constitutes an exploitative relationship in which it is the artist that is exploited, Gang of Four consciously decided to enter the belly of the beast, reveling in its implications. In the booklet accompanying the band's compilation album 100 Flowers Bloom guitarist Andy Gill says, "From the beginning, we picked EMI as being a perfect label for us to be on; one of the biggest industrial conglomerates in the UK—a huge multinational, trading in everything from arms to entertainment. If we'd been on Rough Trade [another record label], it would have been a far less potent juxtaposition." Gang of Four clearly sought to delineate in their theory the Althusserian notion that everyone is complicit in accepting the ideology, that there is no point in trying to escape responsibility. By signing with Rough Trade or any other smaller record company Gang of Four would in effect have been accepting an imaginary relationship as their "real conditions of existence." By signing with EMI and juxtaposing their radical politics with a hugely successful capitalistic behemoth, Gang of Four attempts to bypass an "imaginary relationship…to the relations of production and the relations that derive from them." Potent juxtaposition in order to expose that complicity in an imaginary relationship and to raise awareness of it in the listener went far beyond deciding which company to sign with, it became a staple of their message to the rock world.
The critical theory that Gang of Four attempt in their music is not one that didactically hammers away that Marxism is the only path toward living wages and a better life, but rather draws the listener in as subject/object of the lyrical ideas, forcing him to re-examine the consciousness that he has come to accept as natural, presenting him with the idea that he is complicit in the power structure and must come to accept that responsibility. The lyrical content is remarkably consistent with Marx and Engels' exhortation that "consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production."
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