My newest mixtape is entitled “The Labour & The Shame”; for me it was a way to process the feelings I have about working in the videogame industry. Side ‘L’ imagines the PoV of labourers: It’s full of reminders to protect yourself whilst creating art for money (and reminders about why we sought out creative work in the first place). Side ‘S’ imagines, often from a first person PoV, the class of executives & boss guys from whom we need protection… you know the ones.
Running all through this mixtape are tracks from Gentle Giant’s “The Power & The Glory”, which is a concept album about how power reveals things. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately! In the ‘seeking power’ stage, the antihero of this record cloaks themself in altruism (paying lip service to whatever ideals their community wants them to have); but later, in the ‘having power’ stage, the actions they take begin revealing that special sort of villainy that we can locate within executives or politicians etc.
Would you bite the hand that feeds you, knowing what it costs?