CAT FLAP

“Call the police, there’s a madman around” sang Neil Tennant and Pet Shop Boys, nearly thirty(!) years ago.

Well, look how far we’ve come, because Pussy Riot, that reknown, Russian feminist-punk trio, have gotten themselves banged up over there for singing bad things about the Russian Orthodox church and Vladimir Putin in a gig outside a Moscow cathedral back in March. Western news outlets report that Maria, Nadezhda, and the girls (rock groups always go by their first names – John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mick and the boys, Stevie, Michael, Kanye etc) received a two-year sentence for taking shots at both their leader and their religion. There’s no quicker way to gain notoriety than having a dig at either of those entities, as bands from The Sex Pistols to The Dixie Chicks will attest.

Reaction across the West has seen the predictable cast of characters weigh-in in support of Pussy Riot, including Madonna (that name sounds familiar…), Sir Paul McCartney (ooh, didn’t he look old at the Olympics?), and Pete Townsend (don’t know how he looked, NBC cut him out of the Olympics altogether).

Also making statements in support of the band have been the State Department and the British Foreign Office, who tragically have less heft and influence than anyone in the previous paragraph. It all shows how far we’ve come. In the 70s, The Sex Pistols couldn’t take a breath without offending someone in authority on both sides of the Atlantic, and yet now those very same establishments embrace free speech, and more importantly the power of punk to unite a nation…….

Or perhaps they just don’t like Putin, who, to be fair, could just be thirty-five years behind the musical curve. He doesn’t like Pussy Riot’s music, their anti-establishment attitude, their clothes (the Riot’s costumes in what video I’ve seen seem to more resemble home-made superhero costumes rather than the ripped t-shirt look so beloved by the genre), and the effect they’re having on the kids. To Johnny Rotten (or John Lydon, as he is now), that all sounds vaguely familiar.

But it is Putin, it is Russia, and it is ultimately, a chance for the West to throw their hands up in the air.

So the million dollar question – are Pussy Riot any good? Well, Yekaterina and her crew are fresh-faced and attractive, and at least at trial were t-shirted and jeaned like anyone else in the music industry. Then again, punk stopped looking like punk a long time ago, so to say these three could pass for Bananarama isn’t really a criticism. I found one song on I-Tunes – it’s okay for what it is; linked below is their latest, Putin Lights Up the Fires, which for some reason I thought was originally written by Billy Joel.

Ultimately, I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is about. If Putin wasn’t involved and I suspect if Pussy Riot were called, I don’t know, The Flames, there wouldn’t be a story here. People get jailed for stuff in Russia all the time – it’s only now a story because it’s some singers? That’s what it takes to get the State Department involved?

Anyway, popular music lost the power to shock and provocate a long time ago (somebody call and let Bono know). If anything, singing bad stuff about the establishment is oh-so-twenty-years-ago.

Call the police, and let them go home.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-release-new-single-video