Nick Cave published the latest issue of The Red Hand Files, a monthly series which features the legend answering a question from a fan.
The April issue focuses on current modern rock music. As always, Cave is on point with his thought provoking reply which addresses the "ailing" safe and tired state of modern rock, plus tackles sanctimonious moralism prevalent in music today.
Read Cave's full posting here.
Some highlights:
"It has become afflicted with a kind of tiredness and confusion and faint-heartedness, and no longer has the stamina to fight the great battles that rock music has always fought. It seems to me there is little new or authentic, as it becomes safer, more nostalgic, more cautious and more corporate."
"Go to your record collection and mind-erase those who have led questionable lives and see how much of it remains. It is the artist who steps beyond the accepted social boundaries who will bring back ideas that shed new light on what it means to be alive."
"Art must be wrestled from the hands of the pious, in whatever form they may come – and they are always coming, knives out, intent on murdering creativity. At this depressing time in rock ‘n’ roll though, perhaps they can serve a purpose, perhaps rock music needs to die for a while, so that something powerful and subversive and truly monumental can rise up out of it."
Subscribe to The Red Hand Files here.
Published April 15th, 2019