Sleeve Talk
Bryan Ferry recently got into a spot of bother for saying that he thought Nazi iconography was "really beautiful" and found himself having to deny that he was a closet goose-stepper. Quite ridiculous really, Bryan may be a bit of a Tory these days but I don't think any man who names his first son after Otis Redding could be considered a Nazi.
The thing is, he was right. On a purely aesthetic level the films of Leni Riefenstahl and the buildings of Albert Speer are beautiful, as are the posters, the rallies, and the suave uniforms — the Nazis were masters of staging and presentation, selling something terrible by making it look sexy.
The Skids flirted with similar controversy when their 1979 album "Days In Europa" appeared with a sleeve image of a noble, God-like athlete and an Aryan beauty that looked lifted straight from a poster for the notorious 1936 Berlin Olympics complete with very Germanic Gothic lettering (in fact it's a pastiche by illustrator Mick Brownfield.) I don't remember anyone seriously suggesting that the band were Nazis, they were just being very naive in their plundering of art history, but the sleeve (and song titles like "The Olympian" and "Dulce et Decorum Est (Pro Patria Mori)" which translates as "It is a sweet and glorious thing (to die for one's country)") did bring up the same unfortunate associations that Joy Division were also dogged with, and the late 1970s weren't a good time to be mucking about with fascist imagery when there were real neo-Nazis marching on the streets of England. So when the album was remixed a year later (the record company wanted to put a more commercial gloss on Bill Nelson's original production) it was issued in a completely different sleeve. Though the band put their foots in it again when their next album came with a bonus record called "Strength Through Joy." You think they'd have been studying their history books a bit closer by then.
But let's face it, a lot of post-punk did sound like fascist music. The thundering dynamics, martial drumming and violent guitars (not to mention the severe haircuts) of The Skids (and Joy Division, Killing Joke, Theatre of Hate) had all the aggressive Wagnerian Sturm und Drang of a stormtrooper blitzkrieg. With his hearty singing over their big, anthemic songs like "Working For The Yankee Dollar" lead singer Richard Jobson came across like a General leading troops into battle, and the slower "Animation" marches along like the Wehrmacht rolling over Poland. Still tremendous bloody records though, U2 stole a lot of their sound but they were such nice Catholic boys they made it sound wholesome.
Download: Working For The Yankee Dollar - The Skids (mp3)
Download: Animation - The Skids (mp3)
Buy: "Days In Europa" (album)
(I met Richard Jobson a couple of times, he was friends with a bloke I used to work for. Very nice chap I must say and surprisingly unpretentious, more interested in talking about football than art — or Hitler.)
7 Comments:
Great post! Very astute observations on a rather "swept-under-the-rug" aspect of punk history. Don't forget Siouxse Sioux's swastika armbands!
..or The Automatics "When The Tanks Roll Over Poland Again" with the most self-destructingest picture sleeve in history. Looked great in the shop, two minutes after putting it in your record case it was trashed. A message there, perhaps..
As I was reading this I was thinking 'Kirk Brandon', 'Theatre Of Hate' and 'Spear Of Destiny' (itself an object of Nazi myth). So glad that you mentioned them.
However, the 12" of 'Do You Believe In The Westworld?'still sends atavistic chills down my spine...
I am a doughnut
I always found Speer's architecture to be quite ugly - powerful maybe - but ugly. Do architects now (or then) consider Speer someone to be studied or copied?
Yes we do! Speer created a monumentality that seems to be still appropriate for some customers. These buildings represent power by changing the human measure to something else. Making everything bigger than necessary is still wanted by many customers to show power. Famous example for this is the Reichskanzlei where the ambassadors had to walk very long ways just to diminish them. Corporate leaders still often think the same. You thought something changed since then? Power still is Power, thankfully the direct results are different, nowadays people die not of gas but climate change. Most of the 'deciders' are the same or at least like-minded.
Please don't think I have any sympathy for the Nazis, but unlike BF I think I can say this without being slugged through the yellow press.
Of course Ferry was right ... the Nazis knew all about the aesthetic appeal of a good symbol and a smart uniform. Not to mention spin doctors. What do you expect of a party founded by a failed painter, an art collector and uniform fetishist (Goering) and a PR merchant (Goebbels) who makes Campbell and Mandelson look like awkward amateurs? They even had their tanks designed by Porsche ...
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