並列摘要
When New Taiwanese Songs first appeared in the late 1980s and were regarded as the pioneer of Taiwan underground music, the progressive politics of Taiwan underground music were basically limited to the resistance to the authoritarian KMT regime. And in the 1990s, while representative democracy was established and political liberation was relatively attained, the growing commercialism replaced the authoritarian government to become the new dominant power. A new generation of pop music critics redefined the significance of underground music by the artists’ autonomy in relation to the hegemony of mainstream music industry. The reason for resisting the mechanism of mainstream industry, they claimed, was to ensure underground music’s enlightening effects. Their elaboration of the enlightening effects at issue basically followed the model set up by critics of the preceding generation. If New Taiwanese Songs were celebrated for declaring opposition to political authorities and revealing social realities, Taiwan underground music of the 90s was expected to wage war against mainstream music industry and to represent social realities with relation to the dominance of economic power. Appearing in 1990, L.T.K. Commune (Loh Tsui Kweh Commune, Cho Shui Hsi Kung She, 濁水溪公社) has been considered unique but controversial. On the one hand, the band’s works show rebellious disdain for authorities and represent lower-class life as “social realities.” On the other hand, the rhetoric the band adopts is so acerbic and parodic that it seems to make fun of people of the lower class. Besides, the band’s live performances are full with offensive actions. The vulgar language it uses to address sex-related subjects worries many critics, for they find some of the band’s performances quite chauvinistic. These polemic characters polarize the criticism of the band’s works. Some critics consider the band’s practices subversive while others regard the band’s works as apolitical postmodernist play of discursive codes without real intention to defy dominant powers. In this thesis, I would argue L.T.K. Commune’s music practices are political and even subversive for they pose challenges to three discursive forces that shaped local life in the 90s—-consumerism, the ethnic-oriented post-martial-law nationalism and the anti-sex campaigns. By responding to these social changes, L.T.K. Commune also poses challenges to some ideological assumptions adopted by Taiwan underground music critics, who unconsciously internalize influences from the three discursive powers mentioned above. However, since L.T.K. Commune’s practices do suffer from gender insensitivity, the band’s gender ideology would also be identified, problematized and criticized.