Politics and Music

Everything is of its time.

There's simply no getting away from that.

We may no longer have protest singers but the music of today is still very much a product of our time.

Context matters, but it's not everything.

Just earlier today I heard Wham!'s Club Tropicana being played whilst out shopping.

As much as I dislike the calculated style of Wham! I found myself irresistibly singing along to it.

"Club Tropicana, the drinks are free..."

Politics and music don’t really mix very well as history has shown us time and time again.

I guess this is hardly surprising when you look at the average age of the typically radical musician. The older ones tend to know better than isolate half of their potential audience and tend to keep their views to themselves.

Growing up with the Beatles I was spared the political rhetoric that Lennon began to indulge in once he’d become infected by the dangerous, seemingly radical Ono malady.

His album Sometime in New York City particularly ruffled a few critical feathers (though no doubt it would be far better received today so much have things have seemingly changed).

Nevertheless I tended to side with my (possibly working class) hero.

At least I did until I grew up a little and began to form my own opinions.

By that time the seeming contradictions of Lennon singing ’Imagine no possessions’ whilst his viciously entrepreneurial champagne socialist wife was busy amassing a considerable fortune at his expense became less troublesome to me.

Lennon after all was still a young man himself and he was merely expressing an ideal - an ideal that was obviously beyond him also.

Imagine still remains a great song, and it still also remains an unobtainable ideal.

@uncledemp

I just don’t consider him or most musicians, actors, talk show hosts, and audio enthusiasts a reliable source of information to base my views upon.

Well said.

Here in the UK the early 80s were a time when quite a few UK artists got political (the Clash, the Specials, the Jam etc, and this seemed to culminate in the Live Aid fiasco of 1985.

After that, music became gradually less overtly politicised.

By then even the Red Wedge founder himself, Billy Bragg, realised the naivety of trying to mix it with the political big boys of the world.

@jssmith 

But my thoughts are that there are probably no lyricists, or other types of celebrities, with the brainpower of a Thomas Sowell or Jordan Peterson, so people should definitely look elsewhere for their inspirations, political or otherwise.

Well, I haven't found any.

But then I've only been listening for a few decades.

@hartf36 

I respectfully couldn't disagree with you more, but thanks for the GSH mention.

My friend Calvin introduced him to me during our student days and I never forgot.

However, I have to say, the world today is an entirely different place to what it was back then.

The information age has changed almost everything.

What was up is now down, what was right is now left, what could be said then, can't be now, there were 2 genders back then, now seemingly there's 30, rather strangely considering, race is a bigger issue than ever etc.

Division, division, division.

24 hour division seems to be the norm today.

Thankfully we have the likes of Petersen and Sowell keeping it real.