In Popular Culture
Toshiko Akiyoshi, touched by the plight of the fishing village, wrote a jazz suite, "Minamata" that was to be the central piece of the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band's 1976 album on RCA, Insights . The piece was constructed in three parts, to musically reflect the tragedy - "Peaceful Village," "Prosperity & Consequence," and "Epilogue." Akiyoshi used Japanese vocalists to sing the Japanese lyrics of a tone poem that were part of the composition. The album won many awards in jazz circles, including Downbeat's best album award, largely on the strength of this piece, which brought some further attention on the tragedy. Insights (Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band)
The song "Kepone Factory" on Dead Kennedys' In God We Trust, Inc. makes reference to the disaster in its chorus.
The song "The Disease of the Dancing Cats" by the band Bush on "The Science of Things" album is in reference to the disaster.
Read more about this topic: Minamata Disease
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“What culture lacks is the taste for anonymous, innumerable germination. Culture is smitten with counting and measuring; it feels out of place and uncomfortable with the innumerable; its efforts tend, on the contrary, to limit the numbers in all domains; it tries to count on its fingers.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)