High Society

It seems as though many of the artists connected to ZE records felt ( or still feel) a connection to high society. This seperates many of them from their punk rock peers who were making music at the same time. While the idea of an in-crowd is something that is a big part of punk, as well as many other subcultures, the ZE records network seems to be made up of people who have a strong connection to the bourgeois intellectual class.


The following is the text from the wedding announcement of Cristina (Monet-Palaci) and Michael Zilkha:

"

Mrs. Robert E. Simon Jr. of New York and Glen Head, L.I. and Dr. Jacques Palaci of Paris have announced engagement of their daughter, Cristina Monet-Palaci, to Michael Zilkha, son of hte Lady Lever of London and Manchester, England, and Selim K. Zilkha of New York.

The wedding is planned for next spring.

The future bride is a lyricist and singer. She attended Harvard University. Her mother, Dorothy Monet, is a film writer and the author of "Squandering," which was published in 1972 by Holt Rinehart & Winston. Her father is a psychoanalyst in Paris. Her stepfather is founder and developer of Reston, Va., and former president of the Carnegie Hall Corporation.

Mr. Zilkha, president of Ze Records in New York, is an alumnus of Oxford University. His father is founder and former chairman of Mothercare, a retail chain of children's and mothers' apparel in England. His stepfather is Lord Lever."

While this text fails to mention that Cristina dropped out of Harvard, it lets us know that she comes from a familial background that involves people deeply imbeded in cultural criticism and psychoanalysis. Cristina's music reflects these intellectual traditions, but places them into the context of popular music production. Through her stepfather, she has a connection to industry, as well as architecture and design.

Zilkha has a strong connection to industry himself. He is the the son of an entrepreneur, and the stepson of Lord Lever, which connects him to industry and British nobility.

The backgrounds that Cristina and Zilkha come from indicate a strong connection to the elite intellectual and bourgeois classes. Zilkha is using the business skills that he got from his experience with family business and from his education to play a curatorial role. Cristina used her music as an outlet to address and criticize the capitalist society that she found herself immersed in.

The relationship to capitalism is key. Like many of their peers, Cristina and Zilkha did not disavow capitalism. Their approach to it was to criticize it from within.