HEARD THE CLASH’S “Hitsville UK” on the Linda’s Tavern jukebox (now, alas, CD-based) the other day. The song, from the premier political-punk band’s 1980 Sandinista! magnum opus, was full of contradictions then and bears even more today.
First, it was a tribute to indie labels (and a scathing indictment of major-label marketing practices) that came out on a major. The song’s British 45 release acknowledged this with a sleeve depicting a score of minor-label logos in a “background” color shade; while the CBS Records logo on the record itself was in a brighter shade of the same color.
Second, the song’s title, lyrics, and booming-beat arrangement all invoked the Motown label (originally known as “Hitsville USA”) as an inspiration and a model for artist-centered, commerciality-be-damned music making.
Perhaps to a Brit, a Black-owned company making and selling Black music all on its own from outside the media capitals (albeit within the established music-biz infrastructure; its ’60s classics were distributed in Britain by EMI) could be seen as having blazed a trail leading to the initial punk/indie revolution, and from there perhaps toward the destruction of the major labels and their prepackaged pap. And, as historian Suzanne Smith has shown, many Black Americans saw similar hopes in the label’s original success.
But to some old R&B purists and modern-day indie idealogues, Motown was as ruthless and centralized as the majors. It was an assembly-line operation that produced one product (the “Motown Sound” hit single, an R&B subgenre engineered in every detail for white teenybopper consumption) in assorted models and upholstery schemes. Its stars had to fight for any degree of creative or career control (only Smokey and Stevie really succeeded).
When the Motown Sound had finally played itself out as a top-40 commodity, boss Barry Gordy shut down the factory and split Detroit for L.A., taking all his remaining stars out there with him. (Aretha Franklin, the one Detroit R&B legend who stayed, recorded for Atlantic.)
Still, “Hitsville UK” and its themes of empowerment and innocence regained struck a powerful point in 1980. Its (oversimplified?) depiction of art-loving, street-credible outfits like Factory and Rough Trade reclaiming music from the industry’s “mutants, freaks and musclemen” provided as much hope as a progressively-minded young adult could reasonably expect to have at that time of Reagan’s and Thatcher’s rise to power. Maybe we couldn’t stop the assaults on public education and the environment, the military buildups, or the revival of racism; but at least we could gain control of what was on our own turntables and in our own Walkmen.
Twenty years later, the song’s main message still reverberates. Music-making technology has become so democratized that almost anyone can put out a recording (and, if you look at the post-your-MP3 sites, it seems almost everyone has). Virtually every aspect of music production, performance, and marketing has been, or is being, demystified and popularized. The majors, meanwhile, are consolidating ever further, relying more heavily on rosters of ever blander and/or dumber superstar acts to justify their bloated organizations and their intellectual-property lawsuits.
If these dual trends continue, the whole Napster fracas may prove to have been the least of the majors’ problems.
The song’s proclamations might even come true: No slimy deals with smarmy eels, no consumer trials, no AOR, in the new Hitsville USA.
MONDAY: A pre-election rant of sorts.
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