Stumbling upon Liabach in 2010, as an Australian, it is difficult to be affected by it as strongly as the Slovian public was (and is).
I understand why it is controversial, but i fail to be shocked by it...
What i did gain from listening to, looking at, reading about Liabach was an insight into an unusual method of political comment (this method could also be applied to areas outside of politics).
The music/art of Liabach sits somewhere between irony, negation, and compliance. At first i couldn't work out if i was meant to laugh, dance or take the message seriously. I then discovered that Liabach's aim wasn't any of these things, it was simply to present what was already going on. The songs are a combination of popular culture, military reference, and socialist ideology. They caused controversy by bringing the fears and beliefs of the Slovenian public into mass culture. This was achieved by adopting the beliefs of a particular system (such as totalitarian regime) to the extreame. So they follow the rules so strictly than it becomes almost ridiculous, they "take the system more seriously than it takes itself"
why would you want to be shocked by it? the work is certainly not about shock - though it is shocking in terms of the outcomes it generates
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