Philosophical Music

March 13, 2009 6:51 AM

Help me find a recently released album that is philosophically "deep."

I am taking a philosophy class right now and need to find a music album for a culture critique project. I need something from the past two years that could be interpreted through philosophical models (e.g. Plato's Allegory of the Cave). Feel free to go outside the mainstream realm of music. Any ideas?

posted by sciencemandan to media & arts (17 comments total)

Stereolab's lyrics often explicitly engage with Marxist political philosophy, and their 'Taylorist' assembly-line approach to creating pop music could possibly be argued to be related to this as well. I haven't kept up with their latest recordings, but they have probably continued this in the last couple years.

DJ Spooky's writings link his sample-based work with all sorts of contemporary thought, such as Derrida and Foucault. He recently put out an edited volume, but you can also get a sense of his perspective by reading his dense liner notes.

Based on your example of Plato, I fear that your professor might not be into the contemporary thinkers DJ Spooky is riffing off of, but I think his take on the aesthetics of fragmentation through sampling are much more relevant than Plato (even if DJ Spooky's rhetoric is sometimes overheated).
posted by umbú at 7:21 AM on March 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

If you follow the DJ Spooky link, the video of him speaking at google headquarters is a good, accessible way to get a sense of his thinking.
posted by umbú at 7:26 AM on March 13

The publicity for the new Handsome Furs album talks a lot about panopticism. You can read about it here. I'm not sure how borne out it is in the lyrics though.
posted by Emilyisnow at 7:38 AM on March 13

Try Metallica's Death Magnetic. The book "Metallica and Philosophy" is older than it, but it might help. Specifically relating to the Allegory of the Cave, there's probably plenty of lyrics that could be used to talk about the perception of reality and the philosopher's place in society.
posted by andrewzipp at 7:48 AM on March 13

Stuart Davis' music is all about Zen, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, evolutionary frameworks, developmental psych, depth psych, transhumanism, Jung, Tantra, redemption, immolation, etc.
posted by goethean at 7:55 AM on March 13 [2 favorites has favorites]

how about john frusciante's new album "the empyrean"?
posted by fancyoats at 7:56 AM on March 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Just to clarify, I just used Plato as an example. More recent philosophers are definitely fair game.
posted by sciencemandan at 8:00 AM on March 13

Tim Fite (Folk-rapper-genre-bending-extraordinaire) has an album dedicated to consumerism, modern philosophy, etc.

Over the Counter Culture
posted by bradly at 8:44 AM on March 13

If it's a culture critique project, don't get stuck on trying to find something "deep" in a self-aware way, i.e., that is intentionally deep - you're looking for something that shows more about culture than may be immediately evident. I would start with music you are familiar with rather than searching for music that has lyrics referencing stuff - because you can find meaning or cultural significance in just about anything, if you look at it with a philosophical eye (just look at what Zizek does with movies), and it will be a better investigation if you seriously look into something you know/ care about than if you just choose some random song that mentions something that sounds philosophical from afar.

Sometimes you will have more to say if the song isn't even focused on a philosophical angle than if the singer is trying to sound deep... ie, "when i'm 64" interpreted as awareness of time/fear of death, or "girls just wanna have fun" interpreted as dialectical play between post-feminism and dismissive oppression... [though obviously you have to choose work that's more recent]. I don't know exactly what your assignment was, but i assume your professor is more interested in what you have to say than in collecting recent songs that already include philosophical references.
posted by mdn at 8:50 AM on March 13 [6 favorites has favorites]

Carey Mercer's projects Frog Eyes & Blackout Beach come to mind.

Also, his Swan Lake collaborator Dan Bejar, of Destroyer uses a lot of philosophical imagery.

I know I'm not giving you much to sink your teeth into here, but they might be worth a listen.
posted by activitystory at 8:55 AM on March 13

Browsing Last.fm's philosophical tag may lead you to some things. I'd recommend Tracy Chapman, personally, but I'm biased since I <3 her.
posted by metalheart at 9:25 AM on March 13

I've no idea if it lives up to the billing, but there's an electronic compilation called In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze (from the appropriately named label, Mille Plateaux, no less).
posted by juv3nal at 10:01 AM on March 13

Give The Shadow Ring's recent Life Review a listen. Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith's collaboration Lake also explores philosophical and political themes to a deeper degree than most musicians.
posted by RGD at 11:19 AM on March 13

And of course! Matmos' The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast.
posted by RGD at 11:20 AM on March 13

Nick Cave's Dig Lazarus Dig!!! seems ripe for this sort of analysis, especially We Call Upon the Author To Explain.
posted by kpmcguire at 12:38 PM on March 13

wow, you could really pick anything, couldn't you? but, might not be too hard to use a big hip hop record like T.I. Paper Trail (it is v good & has an interesting back story far as T.I.'s legal issues, dealing with fame, etc). or Kanye 808s and Heartbreaks far as relationships, loss, and.. well, again being famous, under the glare of the media all the time.

I might be tempted to do some feminist riff on PJ Harvey White Chalk which is an incredibly strange record that's fascinating & almost Victorian, sort of hard to like, definitely off in a world of its own.

Erykah Badu New Amerykah I'm sure something completely awesome could be written about this..
posted by citron at 6:10 PM on March 13

That Shadow Ring stuff's a good call.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:52 AM on March 14