VA - Media, Control, Illusion (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 X CDs)

MEDIA

VA - Media, Control, Illusion (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 X CDs)

Across the last seventy years, systems of mediated perception have become one of the defining forces shaping modern life. Television, advertising, political messaging, digital platforms, and algorithmic systems no longer simply describe the world, they increasingly influence how it is perceived, interpreted, and understood. This anthology follows the long conversation between artists and those systems, tracing the evolution of media from the broadcast era to the age of personalised information, and ultimately toward the recovery of independent perception.

CD1 explores the age of broadcast television, when the screen established itself as a powerful instrument of cultural authority. These songs recognise that news, advertising, and entertainment do more than communicate information. They organise attention, shape desire, and establish shared versions of reality. The artists understood that the screen was never a passive window on the world, but an active participant in constructing it.

CD2 moves into the digital environment, where perception becomes personalised. Identity is transformed into data, attention becomes a measurable commodity, and algorithms continuously adjust the information each individual receives. Surveillance, performance, and recommendation systems merge into an environment where reality is increasingly filtered through invisible computational processes. These songs capture the psychological consequences of living inside that feedback loop.

CD3 examines the deeper architecture through which collective belief is formed. Here the focus shifts beyond media itself to the institutions, political language, historical narratives, and emotional framing that manufacture consent and stabilise public understanding. These tracks expose the mechanisms through which perception is organised long before individual opinions are formed.

CD4 completes the journey by turning away from systems of control and toward cognitive independence. Rather than simply reacting against media, these songs explore the reconstruction of perception itself. They examine consciousness, agency, authenticity, and the deliberate rejection of inherited narratives, suggesting that clarity is achieved not by escaping the modern world, but by learning to recognise the structures through which it is presented.

These four stages form a single progression: broadcast conditioning, algorithmic modulation, institutional narrative, and perceptual recovery. Rather than offering a history of media alone, this collection documents an enduring artistic response to the forces that shape belief, identity, and reality itself. It is ultimately a record of how perception can be manipulated, how illusion can become normalised, and how clarity can be consciously reclaimed. (B)

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Track lists

CD1     THE SCREEN IS WATCHING YOU

01 Pink Floyd - Welcome to The Machine 7:32 1975

02 Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 3:01 1971

03 Vapors - News at Ten 3:22 1980

04 Tubes - TV is King 3:08 1979

05 Frank Zappa - I'm The Slime 2:34 1973

06 Genesis - Jesus He Knows Me 4:16 1991

07 Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star 3:29 1971

08 Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television, The Drug of The Nation 6:39 1992

09 Radiators From Space - Television Screen 1:52 1977

10 Midnight Oil - Read About It 3:52 1982

11 Kinks - Give The People What They Want 3:45 1981

12 Police - Too Much Information 3:42 1981

13 Dead Kennedys - M.T.V.  Get Off the Air 3:37 1985

14 Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Radio, Radio 3:06 1978

15 Roger Waters - Watching TV 6:07 1987

16 Smiths - Panic 2:21 1986

17 Laurie Anderson - O-Superman 8:23 1981

18 David Bowie - Big Brother 3:21 1974

19 SKYHOOKS - Horror Movie 3:47 1974

20 Alan Parsons Project - Eye in The Sky 3:57 1982

CD2     DIGITAL MIRRORS

01 Radiohead - Idioteque 5:09 2000

02 Nine Inch Nails - Survivalism 4:23 2007

03 David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans 4:22 1997

04 Daft Punk - Television rules the nation 4:46 2005

05 St. Vincent - Digital Witness 3:22 2014

06 Radiohead - Paranoid Android 6:23 1997

07 Everything Everything - Software Greatman 6:05 2013

08 Peter Gabriel - The Barry Williams Show 7:16 2002

09 Lcd Soundsystem - Us v Them 8:29 2007

10 Muse - Algorithm 4:05 2018

11 1975 - Love it If We Made It 4:12 2018

12 Everything Everything - Cough Cough 3:44 2013

13 UNKLE (with Thom Yorke) - Rabbit in Your Headlights 6:17 1998

14 Metric - Artificial Nocturne 5:42 2012

15 Carpenter Brut - Turbo Killer 3:29 2012

16 Steven Wilson - Personal Shopper 9:49 2021

17 Massive Attack - Inertia Creeps 5:29 1998

18 Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet 7:18 2007

19 Algorithm - Isometry 3:06 2013

20 Muse - The Globalist 10:07 2015

CD3     MANUFACTURED CONSENT

01 Doors - The Unknown Soldier 3:23 1968

02 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son 2:19 1969

03 Barry Mcguire - Eve of Destruction 3:35 1965

04 Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter 4:32 1969

05 Temptations - Temptations - Ball of Confusion 4:04 1970

06 Jam - News of the World 3:28 1978

07 Public Enemy - Don't Believe the Hype 5:19 1988

08 Talking Heads - Life During Wartime 3:41 1979

09 Pink Floyd - Another Brick in The Wall, Part 2 3:56 1979

10 English Beat - Whine & Grine, Stand Down Margaret 3:46 1980

11 Crass - Big A, Little A 6:13 1980

12 Fishbone - Party at Ground Zero 6:31 1985

13 Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Shipbuilding 4:53 1983

14 Kate Bush - Army Dreamers 2:54 1980

15 Peter Gabriel - Biko 6:54 1980

16 David Bowie - Five Years 4:43 1972

17 Ministry - TV II 3:04 1983

18 Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles 3:05 1979

19 Billy Bragg - Between The Wars 2:29 1985

20 Public Image Ltd - This is Not A Love Song 4:10 1983

CD4    WAKING UP

01 Talking Heads - Once in A Lifetime 4:19 1980

02 Peter Gabriel - Here Comes The Flood 5:55 1977

03 Depeche Mode - Everything Counts 3:59 1983

04 The The - This is The Day 3:58 1983

05 Talk Talk - Life's What You Make It 4:30 1985

06 Sound - Winning 4:18 1981

07 R.E.M. - World Leader Pretend 4:21 1988

08 Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning 4:16 1987

09 Public Image Ltd - Public Image 2:58 1978

10 Gang of Four - To Hell With Poverty 4:59 1980

11 Fall - Kicker Conspiracy 4:13 1983

12 Joy Division - Transmission 3:53 1979

13 Wire - Practice Makes Perfect 4:11 1978

14 Minutemen - This Ain’t No Picnic 1:57 1984

15 David Byrne - Glass, Concrete & Stone 4:15 1981

16 Throbbing Gristle - Discipline (Manchester) 8:05 1979

17 Pop Group - We Are All Prostitutes 3:13 1979

18 Cabaret Voltaire - Nag Nag Nag 4:39 1979

19 Public Image Ltd. - Poptones 7:46 1979

20 Bruce Cockburn - Lovers in A Dangerous Time 4:06 1979

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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