Helter Stupid 1989 (Seeland 024) CD OPTION MAGAZINE Summer, 1989 When Negativland realized they couldn't get the time or money for a proposed 17-city tour, they sent their record label SST a bogus press statement announcing that the shows were being canceled because one track called "Christianity is Stupid" on their LP Escape From Noise was involved in an ax murder and that federal authorities had asked them not to leave town. Sure enough, all kinds of media types, including some guy saying he was from Rolling Stone, descended upon the group to get more information. Even when it all got so ridiculous that the group stopped commenting on the reports, the news media continued to cover the story with all the Geraldo-like vigor you could want. The first half of this disc is created using tapes of the news reports and interviews about the story, mixed together with tapes of other rock = murder media cheese like Charles Manson interviews and local "action news" -like music. It's a brilliant and insightful piece of work whose uncomfortably honest look al contemporary news media and its tabloid excesses is certainly among the most powerful I've ever heard. For the remainder of the disc we are taken through the audio hell that is commercial radio by a character named Dick Vaughn. Negativland does it all with tapes and yes, it is very impressive. They are also more inventive, quick-witted, and funny than anyone else I can think of who works with tape editing. - Bryan Sale CMJ NEW MUSIC REPORT February 2, 1990 Emphasis Tracks: Flip a coin... Considering the difficulty a record with essentially two tracks can present in programming terms, Helter Stupid's initial impact on non-commecial radio is mind-boggling. The LP's quick-cut, sampling montages (a Negativland trademark) utilize'70s-era radio fodder to explore such topics as the furor over their "Christianity Is Stupid" track ("Helter Stupid") and radio programming ("The Perfect Cut"), and as a result the album provides scathing indictments of the media and social climate of the '80s, and an interesting starting point for the '90s. The irony found here is funny yet forboding, a point that hasn't been lost at College radio, where the album is at number one. Dick Vaughn - slut or prophet? Back to PRESS US Back to NMOL