Head Wide Open Records is proud to present Rock Against Freedom: A Tribute To Dictators, the only compilation album ever to feature tracks from both Cabaret Voltaire and The Lox featuring Lil Kim & DMX. The best artists from every relevant musical genre - hardcore punk, industrial, arena rock and Bad Boy-era hip hop - have come together to celebrate that much-maligned symbol of the twentieth century, the dictator. Who can deny that the resplendent Shah of Iran, who once had his air force scatter 17,432 roses (each representing a day of his life) over Tehran on his forty-eighth birthday, was the political equivalent of Freddy Mercury? Or that 50 Cent, valuing nothing but personal loyalty and gold, is the kind of man typically running Liberia? As of late, the non-free world has been devastated by the deaths of veteran tyrants Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet, as well as the debilitation of the seemingly immortal Fidel Castro. Even Muammar al-Qaddafi, undisputed leader of Libya and supervillain mastermind, has been pacified by the lure of Western reconciliation. With the rise of the terrorist as the new public enemy #1, the classic authoritarian dictator has been brushed to the side. While Kim Jong-il continues to hold the fort for the beleaguered forces of international socialism, even his semi-successful nuclear tests seem more a desperate cry for attention than anything else.
Whither Peronism, Nasserism, Titoism, Ceauşism, militant anti-communism and absolute monarchy? In the heady days of the Cold War, both left and right had friendly tyrants to make excuses and bullets for. On the communist side: the more-Marxist-than-thou Enver Hoxha, self-proclaimed "Genius of the Carpathians" Nicolae Ceauşescu, the slippery Ho Chi Minh, original North Korean bad-boy Kim Il-sung and the only man ever to hold the south Slavs together, Tito. On the right-is-right side: anti-communist watchdog Augusto Pinochet, Paraguayan Nazi patron Alfredo Stroessner, Chinese nationalist holdout Chiang Kai-shek, the ever-luxuriant Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Samuel Doe, Reagan's Liberian shoe-shine boy. Now there's an ideological battle royale! And, of course, we had a rogue's gallery of the simply batshit crazy: jovial cannibal Idi Amin, self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa Jean-Bédel Bokassa, voodoo kingpin François "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Pol Pot, the only socialist to make Stalin seem kindly by comparison. America had their boys, the Soviets had their boys and even France managed to keep a few African despots in their stable. Plus you had your miscellaneous rump-fascists in Iberia, wily Arab autocrats and a few lone wolfs here and there to spice up the dish.
Now? Hugo Chavez talks a big talk in South America, but his bravado has been lacking in corresponding action. Africa is still full of two-bit tyrants, but none with the colour of the resplendent god-chiefs of yesteryear. The regime in Myanmar is tough but colourless, Syria can barely bring itself to domineer Lebanon anymore and Belarus's Lukashenko is a two-bit Russian stooge. Of course there's the Great and Little Satan-baiter in Iran, but Ahmadinejad's nuclear saber-rattling and apocalyptic fanaticism don't change his status as a plebean stooge of the Ayatollahs. A dictator should be humble before no one, least of all God and his moth-ridden (quoth the Shah) so-called representatives on earth. Say what you will about the fascists and Stalinists of yore, but at least they put on some kick-ass parades. The Taliban and their jihadist ilk would ban parades, and even the wholesome music featured on this compilation. Their rhetoric is repetitive, their agenda is unoriginal and their methodology is hopelessly nihilistic even by other terrorists' standards. Mussolini and Stalin may not have agreed on much, but they could agree that religion should leave the dictating to the dictators. On that nostalgic note, here's an album to remind us of the way things were:
Full Tracklisting:
1. "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" by Gang of Four
2. "Idi Amin" by K9's
3. "Money, Power, Respect" by The Lox featuring Lil Kim & DMX
4. "Der Mussolini" by D.A.F.
5. "Funkahdafi" by Front 242
6. "Blues for Ceauşescu" by Fatima Mansions
7. "Mao Tse Tsung" by MDC
8. "Shah Shah A-Go-Go" by The Stranglers
9. "Il Duce (Fascismo Vincere Mix)" by Big Black
10. "One Vision" by Queen
11. "Godlike" by KMFDM - 6:30
12. "We Don't Need Freedom" by Saccharine Trust
13. "Master Race Rock" by The Dictators
14. "Fidel Castro" by La Floripondio
15. "Follow the Leaders (Original Mix)" by Killing Joke
16. "Il Duce" by Adam and the Ants
17. They Walked in Line" by Joy Division
18. "Lenin" by Moskwa TV
19. "Do the Mussolini (Headkick)" by Cabaret Voltaire
20. "Chairman Mao" by Robert Wyatt
DOWNLOAD HERE
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Rock Against Freedom: A Tribute To Dictators
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Reigning Men
On another occasion, a student complained that I “discriminated” against her because she did not offer sexual favors. When the department ombudswoman—a sensible lady of impeccable radical credentials—investigated, it emerged that the complainant resented not being invited to join my seminar: she assumed that women who took part must be getting (and offering) favorable treatment. I explained that it was because they were smarter. The young woman was flabbergasted: the only form of discrimination she could imagine was sexual. It had never occurred to her that I might just be an elitist.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
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