'Whip It'

Devolution vs devotion

Mistress taught you to read between the lines so why don't you?

Goddess Joanna from Latin Beauties makes her slave kiss her whip.

BDSM music is boring. Endless listicles where the only variation is the track order [with a few exceptions here and there]. Obviously topping the charts is Enigma. Why? Beats me. Another inescapable 'classic' if you will is Devo's Whip It. Perhaps because it has the word whip in the title.

The Financial Times hosts an irregular column about the 'Life of a song'. Personal favourite. Last November they discussed Whip It (€). Ten years before the track was released - in 1970 - the Ohio National Guard opened fire on students protesting against the Vietnam war in what is called Kent State massacre.

At the time Gerald Casale was a student at Ohio State. He not only witnessed the shootings but also was friends with two of the four slain students. Together with Mark Mothersbaugh he formed the band Devo, which is short for devolution. The artists argued humanity was no longer moving forward but regressing.

After a decade of fiery [pointless?] rebellion the band turned a corner. In 1980 they released Freedom of Choice. Girl You Want, taken from the album bombed but a local radio station picked up another track: Whip It. Intended as a satire on American life, think whip it good, the track took on a life of it's own. DJ's everywhere assumed it had something to do with soda-masochism and the band let them. A year later Devo released a video to accompany the track where a man whips the clothes of a woman's back in front of an audience. Once again the deeper meaning was lost to many.

Whip It influenced others. Musicians like Moby, Pearl Jam and Nirvana - just to name a few -  recorded their own versions. All you need to remember is that the song is about more important stuff than kink.

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Face the music

And now for our encore: today's blog song. Surprise, it's Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue. Remember asking her how she coped with the 2011 London riots. Thirty years before, in 1981, there were also riots across Britain. That April, after years of simmering hostility between police and residents, Brixton exploded in riots. From Wikipedia: 'They were caused by tension between black people and the police, especially perceived racist discrimination against black people through increased use of stop-and-search, and were also fueled by inner city deprivation.'

The Specials sung about it in their 1981 recording Ghost Town. A year later Eddy Grant recorded Electric Avenue in looking back on the riots. And yes Electric Avenue is an actual street in London.

Specials - Ghost town [Click here to listen.] [I hope]

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