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Insane Clown Posse's song about 'Miracles' called worst song ever

3bodyproblem said:
I guess so. You'd have to live in a vacuum to not know somebody might take something you do or say the wrong way.

You use the biker bar example because you know exactly what to expect from your intended audience. That caveat can't be said about producing and selling music. To make the examples equivalent you'd have to produce a biker bar album and sell only to biker bars. Or a mental hospital album for sale only in mental hospitals.

Hard to prove any intention with an album, walking into a biker bar has intent written all over it.
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Absolutely, it's a gray area, but media figures can be aware of their effect.
Oprah would be a fool to think her effect was not large and clear. When she makes pronouncements, careers are made and ended. In her position, she cannot pretend she is unaware of likely effects.

And of course no one is responsible for every possible interpretation of their message, but to the extent that it's predictable, they are.

In this case, the members of ICP, knowing their fanbase, can reasonably expect it to be taken literally by a lot of juggalos, whether or not this song is meant as a parody of religious music or not (I'm personally on the fence, it's a Poe's law area, and while they are known for parody in the past, it was parody of darker themes. The more recent religious work seems to be their honest viewpoint from which they were playing with those darker themes.)

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric....-Clown-Posse/4B9BFF93E07AF51448256C690009ACF8
 
Cavemonster said:
Then you disagree with the law, and believe that Charles Manson should be out of prison. He never killed anyone, he just told people to.
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I see your point, but you cannot draw a parallel to Charles Manson in this context. The Manson family members are still responsible for their own actions, they are not victims. Manson didn't just tell his followers to kill people, he drew out the plans and conspired to make it happen. He drove the car on the night of the LaBianca murders.

There is a big difference between that and a musician putting a message in his songs, regardless of his intent. I look at it in the broader context that censorship erodes liberty.
 
Robo Sapien said:
I see your point, but you cannot draw a parallel to Charles Manson in this context. The Manson family members are still responsible for their own actions, they are not victims. Manson didn't just tell his followers to kill people, he drew out the plans and conspired to make it happen. He drove the car on the night of the LaBianca murders.

There is a big difference between that and a musician putting a message in his songs, regardless of his intent. I look at it in the broader context that censorship erodes liberty.
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I'll agree that nothing any musician has ever said has ever approached anything like the level of Charles Manson. And remember that we agree there is no reason to legally restrict musical expression.

But given that, certain musical or other artistic expression is worthy of harsh public criticism, of public judgement for an action with consequences. This isn't censorship, it's just more speech. I can state that I wish certain artists would choose self-censorship rather than knowingly contributing to unpleasant outcomes, but I don't think that should be in any way legally enforceable... up to a point.

When you talk about eroding liberty, you must remember that there are freedoms from and freedoms to[/B. But you're only using the word in the latter sense. In Rwanda, radio stations would announce where Tutsis were hiding and strongly suggest someone go there with weapons and do something about it. I believe some of this communication was even couched in the form of poetry or other artistic expression occaisionally.

This infringed on the Tutsi's freedom from attack, and there liberty to continue living their lives. Obviously that's a very extreme example, but in the US we very rightly limit the freedom to express yourself in a few occaisions where it conflicts strongly with other's freedom from. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. You can't go on television with a lie that damages someone's career and social life. These are reasonable limits because these behaviors infringe on important freedoms from.

If Manson had not driven the car, would that absolve him? What about mafia bosses who are never physically involved in crime in any way? What if Manson had made all his communications in musical form, but they had exactly the same content and result? He was a musician, it certainly isn't impossible.
 
Checkmite said:
If this song was supposed to be satire, the group failed fantastically.
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Really?

They have been in the news and SNL did a parody of them and you call that a failure?

Remind me to come back here for marketing advice. <-Sarcasm
 
Cavemonster said:
Absolutely, it's a gray area, but media figures can be aware of their effect.
Oprah would be a fool to think her effect was not large and clear. When she makes pronouncements, careers are made and ended. In her position, she cannot pretend she is unaware of likely effects.

And of course no one is responsible for every possible interpretation of their message, but to the extent that it's predictable, they are.

In this case, the members of ICP, knowing their fanbase, can reasonably expect it to be taken literally by a lot of juggalos, whether or not this song is meant as a parody of religious music or not (I'm personally on the fence, it's a Poe's law area, and while they are known for parody in the past, it was parody of darker themes. The more recent religious work seems to be their honest viewpoint from which they were playing with those darker themes.)

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric....-Clown-Posse/4B9BFF93E07AF51448256C690009ACF8
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Tough call, it's a difference between art and I don't know, the news. I don't think people tune in to ICP every day to get their daily dose of what's happening.

As for the religious aspect I'm not sure what to think. You really need to separate the character from the actor with these two.
 
ICP is brilliant. They wrote a song that grabbed the attention of a lot of people who had never heard of ICP. Good job in that respect.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Tough call, it's a difference between art and I don't know, the news. I don't think people tune in to ICP every day to get their daily dose of what's happening.
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True, but in the shades of difference between the news and a casual fan of a random band, I'd say that Juggalos seem to be at least past the half way point in deriving values from the music and culture surrounding it.

I don't think this is any kind of huge travesty, just a fairly irresponsible communication. Oprah, in comparison, has done an actually remarkable amount of damage with her influence and truly deserves the Pigasus award her show just got.

ICP's actions are more simply regrettable.

3bodyproblem said:
As for the religious aspect I'm not sure what to think. You really need to separate the character from the actor with these two.
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I'm not sure what to think either, but I'm not sure intent really matters as much as perception. I've heard it said that O'reilly and Limbaugh don't believe the filth they're spewing, but that doesn't make it any less damaging.
 
Cavemonster said:
I'll agree that nothing any musician has ever said has ever approached anything like the level of Charles Manson. And remember that we agree there is no reason to legally restrict musical expression.
But given that, certain musical or other artistic expression is worthy of harsh public criticism, of public judgement for an action with consequences. This isn't censorship, it's just more speech. I can state that I wish certain artists would choose self-censorship rather than knowingly contributing to unpleasant outcomes, but I don't think that should be in any way legally enforceable... up to a point.
When you talk about eroding liberty, you must remember that there are freedoms from and freedoms to. But you're only using the word in the latter sense. In Rwanda, radio stations would announce where Tutsis were hiding and strongly suggest someone go there with weapons and do something about it. I believe some of this communication was even couched in the form of poetry or other artistic expression occaisionally.
This infringed on the Tutsi's freedom from attack, and there liberty to continue living their lives. Obviously that's a very extreme example, but in the US we very rightly limit the freedom to express yourself in a few occaisions where it conflicts strongly with other's freedom from. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. You can't go on television with a lie that damages someone's career and social life. These are reasonable limits because these behaviors infringe on important freedoms from.
If Manson had not driven the car, would that absolve him? What about mafia bosses who are never physically involved in crime in any way? What if Manson had made all his communications in musical form, but they had exactly the same content and result? He was a musician, it certainly isn't impossible.
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I think we're on mutual ground here then, but the to/from distinction was never unclear to me. The entirety of my point was that we cannot enact laws to protect people from everything that endangers them, doing so would put us in a police state.

On Manson and Mafia bosses, the tricky part is distinguishing between conspiracy and artistic expression. Do we leave that up to the law? Even without a specific legislation, there is an ethical line that the public won't tolerate people crossing. Had Charlie Manson put his evil into music and reached out to a large audience, I think he'd have been subject to vigilante "justice" long before ever seeing a courtroom.

I disagree with your Tutsi example, though. No government can grant "freedom from attack", only the freedom to defend, which our Constitution grants us (currently undermined by unconstitutional gun laws).
 
Cavemonster said:
I don't think this is any kind of huge travesty, just a fairly irresponsible communication. Oprah, in comparison, has done an actually remarkable amount of damage with her influence and truly deserves the Pigasus award her show just got.

ICP's actions are more simply regrettable.
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Agreed to the extreme. I wouldn't dare assert that Oprah be censored, but it should be mandated that she disclaim, and not in fine print either, that the content of her show is for entertainment purposes only, and that none of the pseudotechnologies presented therein have any proven efficacy or legitimacy. Unless, of course, she brings forth something that IS proven.

The same goes for John Edward and the like, anyone who would purvey any form of pseudoscience.
 
Cavemonster said:
I'm not sure what to think either, but I'm not sure intent really matters as much as perception. I've heard it said that O'reilly and Limbaugh don't believe the filth they're spewing, but that doesn't make it any less damaging.
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Well I don't know about Limbaugh, but I don't think Bill O'reilly is the product of a mating between a two headed man and a fortune teller Esmarelda Zella ;)

If you look at the lyrics over the years:

Everybody tripped and called me the clown devil boy
Child of the witch heffer...whatever
Tied me up, burned me and threw stones
Had a few scrapes and cuts, smokey nuts
After that they started bowing and ****
Praying at me, you know how them primitives get
I said, "Get off my dick, I ain't a savior,
I'm what you call a juggalo and all I want is my flavor
Four simple things in this bitch, before I die...

The religious aspect was always there. I think this is a culmination of years of effort.

It's brilliant.
 
sadhatter said:
And as an addendum, listening to one icp song and going " this isn't satire" is equivalent to expecting to be able to tell "blazing saddles " is satire from the " the sherif is a N!" scene alone. Or from the " sing an N work song!" bit, soley. ( before the song the actually sing)

In all seriousness, any satire when chunked up small enough can seen legitimate, especially for those who are not familiar with the source.
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It may be equivalent, but it's more than fair. Unless the album this song is from is supposed to be a coherent whole (like "Tommy", or "The Wall", for example), then the people doing the "chunking up" are the band. They made an individual song, and released an individual music video for it. I would say it's their fault, yeah.

And if all their "real fans" get it and the people that don't are just those non-fan outsiders, then the band shouldn't be complaining anyway.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Really?

They have been in the news and SNL did a parody of them and you call that a failure?

Remind me to come back here for marketing advice. <-Sarcasm
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Yes. If SNL makes a parody of your attempt at satire, that means your attempt failed.

Even failures can make money, of course.
 
Checkmite said:
Yes. If SNL makes a parody of your attempt at satire, that means your attempt failed.

Even failures can make money, of course.
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Normally I'd agree with this, but it's not like ICP has ever or will ever seek or find mainstream acceptance, and certainly were never going to be taken seriously by them anyway. It's given the boys a lot of publicity, and since they weren't going to win anyone over any other way this has probably made at least a few curious folks check out their old music (every story about the song mentions their violent and offensive previous lyrics).

If nothing else it made me break out my Big Money Hustlas DVD for the first time in years, so even those of us who were once fans and have moved on (and are totally embarrassed by this song) are at least thinking about them for the first time in a long time.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Well I don't know about Limbaugh, but I don't think Bill O'reilly is the product of a mating between a two headed man and a fortune teller Esmarelda Zella ;)

If you look at the lyrics over the years:

Everybody tripped and called me the clown devil boy
Child of the witch heffer...whatever
Tied me up, burned me and threw stones
Had a few scrapes and cuts, smokey nuts
After that they started bowing and ****
Praying at me, you know how them primitives get
I said, "Get off my dick, I ain't a savior,
I'm what you call a juggalo and all I want is my flavor
Four simple things in this bitch, before I die...

The religious aspect was always there. I think this is a culmination of years of effort.

It's brilliant.
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Same song, several verses down:
I fought in the Civil War, Yankees army
I walked across enemy lines with a mack-10
[Shaggy2Dope]
Man, they didn't even have that **** back then
[Violent J]
How you just gonna come in my **** and **** it up?
[Shaggy2Dope]
Well at least make this **** sound real, man, damn!
[Violent J]
I walked across enemy lines with a...lantern



Taking ICP seriously on....anything is the hilarious.
 
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joobz said:
Same song, several verses down:
I fought in the Civil War, Yankees army
I walked across enemy lines with a mack-10
[Shaggy2Dope]
Man, they didn't even have that **** back then
[Violent J]
How you just gonna come in my **** and **** it up?
[Shaggy2Dope]
Well at least make this **** sound real, man, damn!
[Violent J]
I walked across enemy lines with a...lantern



Taking ICP seriously on....anything is the hilarious.
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Least of all their fans. If I see a guy walking around with a 3L Red Pop in his butt cheeks I might consider ICP has a little too much influence. Until then, **** 'em All. :D
 
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