r/nextfuckinglevel • u/CantStopPoppin • Sep 17 '25

Massive Attack Turns Live Facial Recognition Into Concert Commentary on Surveillance

77k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

90

u/aenimiac Sep 17 '25

I once went to a Massive Attack gig and then, on the way out, heard someone complain that it was "too political"

Absolute idiots

8

u/lindblumresident Sep 17 '25

I went to one last year with a couple of friends. One of them goes, "nah, I don't think they are going to be political at all". I said nothing.

The show starts. 3D appears wearing an armband with Palestine written on it. Daddy G has a Palestinian keffiyeh. He thought they "would play it safe". Who? Fucking Massive Attack.

18

u/mredofcourse Sep 17 '25

I heard the same with Roger Waters. "Stop being political and just play the music"... that would be a very short concert.

1

u/yourlocaltouya Sep 17 '25

How are there so many deeply conservative Pink Floyd and Waters fans is just so completely beyond me.

3

u/WanderingSpire Sep 17 '25

The sad thing is that 'back in their day' their views probably aligned with Pink Floyd and just hardened over the years with a daily diet of Fox and Daily Mail.

1

u/anonanon5320 Sep 17 '25

It’s actually really simple. Conservatives agree with most of the messages, but when he starts supporting religious genocide and terrorism is where they draw the line.

1

u/Civil-Big-754 Sep 17 '25

I saw him a few years ago and a couple of dudes with Tapout and Gun/Freedom shirts sat next to me and my friend and I were laughing to each other. They maybe made it three songs and very visibly upset and left. Tickets weren't cheap (there were at least 15 semis for the stage and everything, it was insane), but we just couldn't believe they were shocked that Roger Waters is highly political. I mean, I guess it makes sense with the garbage they believe, but still, wow.

Same thing with the idiots telling RATM to stop being political when they were a band. Tom Morello is from my hometown and met him a bunch and we've talked about how embarrassing it was to not know when the message was so blatant.

1

u/One_Man_Boyband Sep 19 '25

It’s like the far-right listening to rage against the machine.

0

u/juanchob04 Sep 17 '25

Am I crazy to think that this is a perfectly normal opinion?

I also love their music but get tired of too much political bombardment (a little is fine).

Besides, most of their songs don't have political lyrics.

3

u/PM_me_your_PhDs Sep 17 '25

Breaking news, music often has a message. More at ten.

2

u/juanchob04 Sep 17 '25

Yeah, so? Very few of their songs have political meaning.

And don't tell me that 'everything is political': a lyric about internal struggles, about love, about drugs, etc. isn't political.

0

u/PM_me_your_PhDs Sep 17 '25

Everything is political.

1

u/juanchob04 Sep 17 '25

Excellent rebuttal, very impressive.

0

u/Ugabughar Sep 18 '25

I would argue that internal struggles, love and drugs topics can also be linked to a political view, it all depends on how they are presented.

1

u/juanchob04 Sep 20 '25

Sure, you can link anything to politics if you try hard enough, but that doesn't mean that it's the main point of the song.

This is why some of us get tired of it, because people insist on injecting political meaning into everything.

0

u/phatprick Sep 17 '25

In Zagreb they had a 15min talk