Can pop music change politics?

[silenced]

An interesting article that argues pop music can't change politics, and looks silly trying.

http://www.reason.com/links/links042406.shtml

Ever since Plato mistakenly claimed that when the modes of music changed, the walls of cities shook (in reality, only hairstyles and jackets change—sometimes footwear), eggheads and dumbbells alike have overestimated the power of music—or popular culture in general—to effect social and political change.

So why do pop stars return again and again to the political, despite the risk of ridicule, misunderstanding, artistic failure, and ineffectuality? The answer may be found in that old joke about why dogs lick their balls: because they can. Alas, political pop is usually just as productive as the activity at the center of that joke.

Can you think of a song that changed your mind about any political issue?

[Professor Riffs]

Politics & art = oil & water if you ask me.

[Bellringer]

Being left of left in a world where the rich scratch each others backs, it's hard to find a song that's not preaching to the choir for me. You have people who care about humans and people who care more about money. (Is it more important to spend $$$spreading democracy in the Middle East or taking care of the people suffering here?). The average person who wants change is too busy working long days to commit to protest, so it's nice to hear musicians giving their point of view on political subjects.
Since the end of the 60's and early 70's demise of hope, we have had mostly underground punk and rap bands giving opinions on politics. The few "BIG" entertainers who care like Neil Young, Springsteen, and Bono are about the only hope we have in converting those who worship the dollar (aside from Bill Gates giving back to our country most rich prefer to keep their money in the family.)
So have I heard a song that has changed a viewpoint for me. No. But I hope some of our countries greedy folk will find a song that will remind them to be more humane. Though I think it's going to take more than a song!

[dolivas]

I think the author overreaches when he says popular culture can't change politics. Simply put every period of time reflects the prevalent culture or subculture brewing within. The 80s sheen and greed reflected by both the 80s teen pop and punk of the day. The 70s drug addled, over-the-top culture where more is more coinciding with the heyday or glam, disco, and AM-pop. Pop culture is in general just a reflection of society at large. In a way to be ignorant of that is to believe that when McDonald's, rock, and YouTube are introduced into China no amount of political/social change has occured because of it.

[Bellringer]

Off the top of my head,here are a couple songs that were nice reminders of problems in our world.
911 is a Joke - Public Enemy
Ohio - Neil Young
I know I'm drawing a blank on a number of artists efforts to open eyes. Help me out: Springstone, Rage a t machine, J Cash. Negativeland?

[johnS]

Rock stars. Is there anything they don't know?

[dolivas]

Not to leave the author of this tome completely off the hook on his popular music charge... there have been cases in recent history where "pop artists" clearly affected politics/policy. Case in point Fela Kuti who in Nigeria literally had the dictatorship hot on his heels during the 70s. He ran his own night club where every album he put out had some railing against the dictatorship at the time. He was in fact Nigeria's biggest pop artist next to the truly poppy Sunny Ade.

He suffered various legitimate death threats against him from the military side of the government to the point that when his famous compound (a large compound in Lagos he built to declare independence from Nigeria, and armed with armed bodyguards) was involved in a gunfight/standoff with the Nigerian military. It ended with the military raiding his compound, throwing his own mother out of a building which seriously injured her, and killing some of his friends.

To cut to the chase he ran for president of Nigeria, and nearly upset the Nigerian dictatorship which won on a rigged vote. I mean the author clearly doesn't have a grasp of history outside of "mainstream" pop culture he has some surface knowledge of. To add, Caetano Veloso and Tom Ze, or Bob Marley had some of the same experiences with their own governments in their own time. Nothing as clearly influential as Kuti of course. Hell, even in the not so recent history in the Civil War era one of the most famous pop songs reference John Brown (famous abolitionist) and was the rallying cry for the troops going into battle (it helped turn whites who were apathetic to the slaves case into singing compatriots trying to stomp out slavery for the good of mankind).

[Caturtle]

BOB FUCKING MARLEY is the quintessential Icon of a political consciousness expressed through songwriting!

I'm with Bellringer on the "preaching to the choir" theory - Music (and all art forms) to me is just one continuous dialogue between everyone who is keen enough to join it. One is either in agreement or in opposition to one movement or another. (Metallica played fast because they felt like everyone else was playing so slow.) But we are either agreeing or disagreeing, we are already in the "know".

What isn't political? Flicking a light switch on or off is a political action! Everything you choose to do is dictated by a political decision. Politics are everything, but it's easier to be oppressed when you live with the mindset that you must actively try to be "political", that you have to attend some "rally" to be "radical" or to "speak your voice." The first place to start would by analyzing your own actions, and the motivations inherently in them.

So yeah, I get a choking sensation in my throat when I hear about Madonna preaching the Kaballa; a rather esoteric subject that she obviously posesses very little true knowledge thereof, otherwise she wouldn't be preaching. I enjoy tool's esoteric jabs because they are tongue in cheek and quite honestly - erudite, sharp, and twisted with humour. (see song: The Grudge off of laterialus) Tool knows how to tell us without telling us, which is how this kind of consciousness is passed down.

Emerson puts it best:

"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another."

I interpret this to mean: Strap on your guitar and join the conversation or suffer the shame of having it served (what you already know) to you instead.

This philosophy won't stop lemmings from comping Randy Rhodes solos, however. There will always be parrots, and they are as necessary as the prophets.

Caturtles

[Caturtle]

Fela Kuti died of AIDS, it doesn't get more political than that.

Or does it?

Originally Posted by dolivas

Not to leave the author of this tome completely off the hook on his popular music charge... there have been cases in recent history where "pop artists" clearly affected politics/policy. Case in point Fela Kuti who in Nigeria literally had the dictatorship hot on his heels during the 70s. He ran his own night club where every album he put out had some railing against the dictatorship at the time. He was in fact Nigeria's biggest pop artist next to the truly poppy Sunny Ade.

He suffered various legitimate death threats against him from the military side of the government to the point that when his famous compound (a large compound in Lagos he built to declare independence from Nigeria, and armed with armed bodyguards) was involved in a gunfight/standoff with the Nigerian military. It ended with the military raiding his compound, throwing his own mother out of a building which seriously injured her, and killing some of his friends.

To cut to the chase he ran for president of Nigeria, and nearly upset the Nigerian dictatorship which won on a rigged vote. I mean the author clearly doesn't have a grasp of history outside of "mainstream" pop culture he has some surface knowledge of. To add, Caetano Veloso and Tom Ze, or Bob Marley had some of the same experiences with their own governments in their own time. Nothing as clearly influential as Kuti of course. Hell, even in the not so recent history in the Civil War era one of the most famous pop songs reference John Brown (famous abolitionist) and was the rallying cry for the troops going into battle (it helped turn whites who were apathetic to the slaves case into singing compatriots trying to stomp out slavery for the good of mankind).

[schoolbat]

Good points about pop music being a force (or at least a rallying point) against dictatorships.

But I think the author was limiting his commentary to popular music and politics in the US and Canada. And here, I think he has a point. With rare exceptions, popular musicians -- and celebs in general -- simply lack credibility to be pontificating on issues of public policy in a free society. A big part of the problem is that, by the time they're popular enough to think they can "make a difference" by "speaking out," it's too late: they're already pampered millionaires who live that insular, fantasy existence of celebrity.

John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, etc. as "working class heroes?" Yeah, right. Did these pampered millionaire rock stars redistribute their wealth to the downtrodden proletariat? Nope, they hoovered up the disposable income of the downtrodden proletariat, then they sat around in their gazillion dollar Manhattan penthouses and preached lefty egalitarianism. When such people start spewing preachy BS, it's just annoying.

John Lennon was particularly hypocritical in this regard--Why was he living in New York? Because he was a tax exile who fled England to escape the punitive tax levels, i.e., to keep his gazillions of dollars for himself. And yet:

... Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people, sharing all the world. . . .

Do as I say, not as I do, eh Johnny?