I'm one of the resident musicians (if not the only one) here at the DKos community, and one thing I take passion in is art in music. Music has been known to be a lot of things, but lately it's lost its substance, its message, its art.
I hide not the fact that I was born an MTV child. I grew up watching videos back in the day when they were hip, when they meant something, and when MTV really was about music television all the time. I've grown up from that period, and one commenter in the above Eminem post featured my sentiments exactly about my feelings of MTV today - they show music videos?
But, in light of the forgotten artform, I saw Eminem's Mosh video, and it is undoubtedly one of the best political statements and presentations I have seen all year, one that may tilt this election in our favor.
The video represents what powerful art can be when put into a solid message of some sort. Videos of the last few years completely lost their meaning. They became complete promotional videos more than a musical/artistic statement or story the artist was trying to convey. Back then, even if they shocked you, that was their original purpose. Marilyn Manson didn't just do videos to promote himself, he did some of them to shock people, and boy did he create a firestorm. Mosh is likely to do the same thing.
But the true genius is how Eminem, an artist I will admit I took for granted early on in his career, in this one video encapsulated all the fear and anxiety that hip-hop and the hardcore gangsta rap brought to the mainstream, took all that fear, projected it as a massive and possibly physical revolution, and showed what the true revolution was. It wasn't the violence that identified 90s hip-hop. It wasn't the old poppin' a cap, AK-47, barrel-one-barrel-two shit that some would expect. It was the ballot box. The true revolution, as shown, can be peaceful, and it is done by voting, and Eminem, using probably the harshest language toward the President than any artist I've heard to date, told it like it was, offered his case, audibly and visually, and told you how to make a change for your family and yourself.
Everyone needs to see this video, because it may be the one thing that can do what Kerry may not be able to do: get out the mainstream, youth, pop culture vote. In one five-minute presentation, Eminem produced, you could call, one of the most effective anti-Bush ads this season, without even a request from us, and it may be our October Surprise to drive Bush out of the White House, saving this country from four more wars and years of hell.
Eminem, my hat goes off to you!