Radiohead is releasing its album as a pay-what-you-want venture, Bruce Springsteen is being called unpatriotic and Wu-Tang Clan obtained the rights to sample the Beatles in its new album. The argument of whether Wu-Tang is the first to sample the monolithic rock band followed. They are not - Beastie Boys and Jay-Z both have.
Every artist faces, on a daily basis, the idea of identity controlling who they are. This is a sentiment most college students can relate to, as the game is played in both social and professional settings. For example, Radiohead, at this point in its career, is almost expected to use its non-label status to do something such as releasing an essentially free album.
On the other hand, Springsteen is supposed to be the backbone of the American working class. He is the most patriotic man on this planet, not because he actually is but because he wears jeans and a white T-shirt and sings, "You work nine to five and somehow you survive until tonight." Wu-Tang Clan has always been heralded for being at the forefront of rap, and being the first to sample the most important rock band in history would certainly keep it there.
But ...
Radiohead might stand to profit heavily from its interesting move because its fans are extremely loyal. Not to mention to obtain a "discbox," fans must pay 40 pounds (or roughly $81). Springsteen protests the war because he is extremely American to the core.
He cannot imagine the people who idolize him going to war - because those are the people who are dying in the desert halfway across the world. Wu-Tang Clan is merely another group in a genre in which the smallest advancement - such as sampling a new artist - is seen as a monumental movement. They are mere ideas, and the realities of all of them are far removed from these ideas.
On a college campus, these three groups are seen in multiplicitous numbers across the Quad, hanging around the Union, sipping coffee in Middleton Library.
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