Negativland, Culture Jamming, and the Art of Making Something New

Negativland is a name I haven't heard in about 30 years. They were comparatively famous in the 90s, I guess, due to using the U2 samples.

I love the track from Escape From Noise (1987) that predicts our current housing crisis and criticizes the hypocrisy of anti-development mindsets and Prop 13 and all of that by comparing it to the way people talk about firearms prohibitions.

“When no more can be sold, you can see that the majority of adults will be virtually prohibited from ever owning one” — “so if you've always admired parts of Piedmont or Orinda…” — “well you could buy one, if you could convince someone to sell you his, and if you're willing to pay his price” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vPCIWbCOyY

(I will be at this irl btw)

I love Negativland. Very interesting use of samples. Their album with Chumbawumba is really cool

I once changed a person's mind on flock cameras by showing them the More Data music video.

I played Negativland on my radio show which was played on pirate radio in LA through Killradio.org

I remixed them, music, and dense political talks for a one hour show.

playing tomorrow at the Internet Archive in San Francisco!

I have Negativland in my music collection. If you can, treat yourself to Escape from Noise and The Playboy Channel from the 1987 album Escape from Noise. Unforgettable.

Evolution Control Committee had some wild stuff too in a similar vein. Totally not on Spotify, sooooo many copyright issues.

a good album— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarhythm_Nation

I accidentally got New Coke, I poured it down the drain.

Gimme the Mermaid is a work of art.

Damn, makes me want to jump on a plane to SFO tomorrow morning...

This guy was an internet friend of mine, claimed to be mentored by one of the Negativland guys, and definitely carries the flame with his weekly(-ish) releases. They used to play hella late night Thursdays on KPFA, not sure if that's still going. Give it a listen!

https://nationalcynical.bandcamp.com/