Music and politics

I am no politcially correct person, but I agree with both sides a bit. I took a relative to a Barbara Streisand concert in 1994 (before she was way over the top politically - or so I thought) at a price of $300 a ticket. Then, in the middle of the show, she does a 30 minute video tribute to Bill Clinton. I paid to hear her SING - and yes, if she had political lyrics in her songs I should have been aware of that - but this was riduculous - espeically at the price of admission. Many of the artists I listen to have lyrics and songs that contain views I don't agree with - but I have that choice we are talking about to listen or not or to buy ot not.

That said, I'll tell you what REALLY makes me mad on a related topic. Back in 1988, I actually waited in line to get front row tickets for a then favorite atrist of mine. He was black - I am white and that has never entered the picture for me. Back then, I lived in Arizona and the then governor, Evan Mecham, had vetoed a bill to make Martin Luther King Day a paid holiday for state employees. Then, the day before this concert, this artist cancelled because he was protesting Evan Mecham's decision.

Needless to say, I never went to hear this artist again or even listened to his music again I was so pissed! WE, his fans, are the people who made him famous, who stood in line for his tickets, who respected his craft and bought his music. Why were WE the ones punished and to made pay the price for a governor's veto? BULLSHIT! He can go vote, he can use the money he got from our concert to stage his own protest or rally - fine. But this one had me seething that we, his loyal fans, paid for a politican's act.

Tvad, I respect your opinion and usually agree with most of what you have posted here on Agon. I STAUNCHLY defend our First Amendment rights, no problem with that. But the issue I see here is difference between artists playing their ususal repertoire - political lyrics and all - versus taking advantage of a paying audience and, in essence, doing the old "bait & switch" and digressing off into using the stage as a political soapbox to further their own personal agenda.

I am sure most of the audience already knows the artist's political views - so why do they need to hijack the concert? If you hire me to fix your plumbing or represent you in court, you don't want to hear (nor have you paid to hear) me go off on my own political agenda. Yes, you may listen to me and decide to engage me, but that is YOUR option and decision. I would venture to guess that the majority of the paying public, and that would include many of the fans that are politically aligned with any group or musician, would prefer to hear the songs and music they paid to hear rather than a sermon they didn't. Just my $.02

How and the hell did you last few posters devolve into thinking we want censorship? Unbelievable how off base some of you get. Last I checked, the government wasn't telling me what CDs to buy, who to listen to or who's concerts to attend. Serves me right for trying to have a logical dialogue in this place. Stupid me, and to think, all this time I could have been listening to all those artist you think I want censored. FMPND out.

Ah yes Onhhwy61, you really are something. You have NO idea who you are talking to or what you are saying. You can try that sensationalist, race-bating crap all you want with someone else but it isn't gonna fly with me. I lived, ate, cried and breathed music as a former professional musician with my bandmates who were my best friends and like family - three of whom were Hispanic, one of whom was Albanian and two of whom were black and we saw it all in the 60s and 70s.

The "black" man that you childishly, naively and erroneously insinuate inconvenienced me by acting upon his principles also chose to ply his craft for me and all his other disgusting white fans (as YOU would characterize them) who made him a multi-millionaire. We had NO problem with him acting upon his principles - but suppose in your all-knowing wisdom you can explain to me how cancelling a concert for all of his loyal fans, who did NOT necessarily vote for the bill the artist protested or did nothing other than happen to live in a state where ONE governor did something the artist didn't like, was the "right" thing to do to those fans? With that logic, I am sure you are the type of person that would punish an innocent son if the other son lied to you and then somehow justify it. And don't give me some lame excuse that he brought the issue to our attention that way. An artist that popular, unlike you or me, has plenty of clout and a massive public platform available with the media and his attendant publicity to get his point across in ways other than cancelling a concert.

Get over yourself. If this artist were white, would you have made the same unsubstantiated comment? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, IMHO, ANY artist, white, black or otherwise that takes our his/her private feelings over a public act to the sole detriment of his/her loyal fans is a hypocrite in my book and always will be.