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. With In The New York Times Magazine: To The Fallen Records
BATTLE CRIES:
How one veteran tries to use entertainment to to convey the war experience
If you’ve seen the polls tracking American interest in the war in Iraq, you already know: If the war were a TV show, it would be cancelled.
The war, of course, is not a form of entertainment. And the apparent loss of interest is a source of frustration to current and former military personnel. One man has found a way to convert that frustration into something positive — a form of entertainment: In 2006 he founded To the Fallen Records, which has since released three compilations of songs made mostly by current military personnel or recent veterans.
Read the column in the April 6, 2008, issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
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Reader Comments
It is unfortunate that war is indeed a form of entertainment, no less so because the interest has waned (which in itself is a double-edged sword). Unfortunately Heracletus was on to something and it is a sign of our times perhaps that everything has to find a marketing application to justify its existence: even the songs made by veterans and military personnel.
“… only 6 percent of Americans named the situation in Iraq as the news story they were following most closely; by comparison, 12 percent named the death of Heath Ledger.”
And that is why we get links from the article to Heath Ledger and Britney Spears but not to the Fallen Recors label???
You need to write to the New York Times about that, Jens. My site, the one you’re leaving a comment on, the one that I control, DOES link to To The Fallen Records. See above.
I don’t know what the Times site links to or why or how they make those decisions, you’ll have to query them about that. I don’t control what they do over there.
It is a shame that even when it comes to war, people need to be advertised and marketed to in order to have any interest. I do think that what the To The Fallen Records is doing is a good thing because they are building awareness and creating an interest involving the Iraq War. Being able to create an awareness about politics in a country were no one really cares i believe is a good idea.