Negativland – Helter Stupid

Question to all owners: Does your copy reall doesnt have "T L-33118" on the side a? are there any other differences to version: https://www.discogs.com/release/6128260-Negativland-Helter-Stupid
???

love this record. endlessly entertaining to my ears. dig it!

Haven't listened to this one yet, but I overall recommend Negativland for those who haven't heard of them. Personally, I think "Escape From Noise" is a classic, and should be listened to before this one, as the subject matter on this deals with the problems arising from "Noise".

Negativland is from the Contra Costa Co. area of the San Francisco Bay area, and if you have not ever lived in that area you will not realize that a lot of the sound clips included on here are from KPIX and other local TV stations, including one for the regular "afternoon movie" featured in the late 70's/early 80's (the voice that repeats "vampires, werewolves..."). Also featured on the cover is former KPIX news anchor Dave McElhatton (RIP 8/2010), and I have no idea how they got away with that...McElatthon's voice also is featured prominently on this recording (first side of the LP or first track of the CD). Negativland apparently released a fake press release to the media stating that their song "Christianity Is Stupid" played a part in a 16-year-old boy killing his parents with an axe (in Minnesota, or something) and the bay area media were ALL over that without bothering to check whether it was true or not, and the first two tracks on the CD (or side one of the LP) are dedicated to the media circus that this generated. And the rest, well, more of their odd sound collages feature snippets of commercials and who knows what. "Escape From Noise" and "Helter Stupid" are probably Negativland at the best period in their career.

Helter Stupid pay homage to the always omnipresent satanic paranoia in western culture and the way media exploits it, exagerates and fuel this feeling. Its one of the funniest, sarcastic, and smart made pieces of modern music around, off course out of any kind of musical pretention or intellectual labeling.
Negativland did this album just after being labeled as been responsible of the brutal crime some adolescent did to his parents supposedly after hearing the song "Christianity is stupid". this work is sort of their reply to the media.
It uses recorded TV announcements, 70s music loops and excerpts from interviews to create a twisted piece of joke about the serious and solemn moral tone media and mainstream use in order to mess with artistical creation and intolerant prejudice. a creation that surely confronts their moral parameters with the principle of doubt and thats why they try deny it and mess with it.
Helter Stupid is not a political work after all, nor a declaration of war against media and alienation but a demonstration of the "smart" use of speech and information.
In other words a spoonful of their own medicine.
It is not the best "industrial" music record around but surely can be postulated as one of the funniest ever made in the genre.