video #29: Eminem - Mosh

Fuck this fucking song and this awful, ugly video.

You were upset in 2004. I was upset too. We all hoped that people in this country would come to their senses and do something about the fucking mess we'd gotten ourselves into. So did lots of musicians. They wrote lots of songs about it that year, even a lot of artists that you'd never expect to get "political" or whatever. But that was just fine, the more protest music, the better. Right? And of course, we all thought that somehow it was going to make a difference. You know, just like going out and voting was supposed to.

So a week before the election, Eminem comes out and releases an anti-Bush song and video. I don't doubt his good intentions, but what an awful mess this was. This gloomy, horribly depressing music was probably supposed to symbolise (inspire?) "marching" to the voting booths, or something like that. In hindsight it was more like a foreboding prelude to the next four years, the grim overture to the impending demise for both our basic belief in common sense in this country, and our believe that it would prevail if we simply participated in the system.

It was also the last time anyone would really believe that music, or any art, stood a chance of inspiring any social change in the 21st century. Getting people "fired up" to get out and vote was now all that we could hope to do anymore. "Revolution" was now viewed as a juvenile, naive idea worthy of mockery, and never mind actually protesting; asking even a single American to step outside of their comfortable, apathetic lifestyle for even just a moment was just too much to ask for. Just trying to get people under 40 into a voting booth was all we had finally settled for. Funny how in the end, these "Vote or Die" campaigns hardly lead to any increase in voter registration for their target demographic at all.

Awful-looking video, too. Almost makes me wonder if Em's a closet Republican and had the entire thing made just to discredit Bush critics. Of course, he followed this up with "Ass Like That" and "Fack," two devastating critiques of the war in Iraq that inspired a national dialogue over America's post-Cold War foreign policy, so maybe not.