Cheap Shock Doesn’t Sell Anymore, The Sad Embarrassment of Brass Against
“In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” – Andy Warhol (allegedly)
I lived through the height of the 1990s “shock rock” craze. An era when artists like Marilyn Manson, Gwar, Rammstein, and others lucratively milked the easily stoked outrage of parents during the waning days of the heyday of moral panic and the height of political correctness 1.0. It was quite easy, it seemed, for Gen X musicians of marginal ability to generate lucrative revenue streams as long as they were willing to debase themselves on stage in exchange for a pearl clutching segment on Montel or the Jenny Jones Show. Time, however, as it tends to do, marched ever onward. The 90s gave way to the 00’s. The Gen Xers entered their 30s and 40s and began raising the early part of what we call Generation Z. The people who had found Marilyn Manson and Rammstein’s antics entertaining were now parents themselves. Baby Boomer revulsion began to fade. So now, no one bats an eye when Lil’ Nas X puts on a G String and performs simulated fellatio on a man dressed up like Satan, when Lady GaGa wears a dress made of meat, or when Cardi B and that fat chick parade around singing about wet ass pussy. They simply roll their eyes, call it stupid, and move on. I recall watching one of perennial poseur Sam Dunn’s documentaries on the subject of “shock rock” and he interviewed one of the fellows from Rammstein. He asked him what could possibly shock an audience nowadays when seemingly every possible act that could cause revulsion had already been performed – or simulated – on stage. To which the reply was “on stage suicide.”
Enter New York “brass collective” (quick aside: when a band refer to themselves as a “collective” or “creative collective,” the likelihood of their being terrible increases by a factor of 50) Brass Against. During a performance at something called Welcome to Rockville on November 11th, frontwoman Sophia Urista performed what could best be described as a live watersports demonstration with a willing audience member by pulling him on stage, squatting over his eager face and proceeding to piss on it. The act was performed to the cheers and laughs of the audience, and to a collective eye roll by those of us who were made aware of the incident after the fact. Where in the past, this would have led to a moral outcry from the likes of Hillary Clinton, Bob Dole, and Joe Lieberman and an increase in concert attendance for the band, nowadays it will be forgotten by next week, maybe next month. I know my own reaction to it was a hearty “who gives a f**k.” The same reaction I had to Lil Nas X gyrating on Satan’s cock or colouring unlicensed bootleg sneakers with his “blood” and to Cardi B proclaiming that she’s a whore in song for the septillionth time. The band Ghost is another good example. When I was a teenager, making papal themed dildos and melding Catholic iconography with performative Satanism would have likely landed them on the cover of every music magazine, gotten them featured on cable news, and outrage segment on a prominent daytime talk show, and they would have been huge. Now? Their whole schtick is just a fun, goofy gimmick. And make no mistake, folks, the Brass Against nonsense was planned. There’s no way in hell that was impromptu. It’s Florida, authorities would have been busting both of their skulls if that would have been random. The music industry just subjected two successive generations, Gen X and Gen Y, to so much shock marketing that it just doesn’t work anymore.
Now, the band is embarrassed and their frontwoman has spent the last several days as a punchline. In this era where nothing is shocking. Where people have instant and easy access to suicide photos, videos of gristly murders, and ever more depraved forms of pornography, you’re kind of screwed taking that route. Maybe, just maybe, try writing some better tunes next time. I had never heard this band, nor had I heard of them until a couple of days ago. I suspect that was the case with a lot of people, and their fall back to irrelevance will likely be mercifully short.