Do We Still Have Politics In Our Pop Music? (Jessie J, Lady Gage, Sex Pistols Feature)
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Written by Josh Adams
It doesn’t take a team of Musicologists and a supercomputer to come to the conclusion that politics is featuring less and less in our most popular music. Now more than anytime in our post-war history, the inclusion of economic and social issues as a staple of modern popular music is becoming increasingly non-existent – as a record buying public, we simply don’t seem to be that bothered about the ‘next revolution‘ or the overthrow of the ‘establishment‘.
There are probably quite a few explanations for this. Music is now more a part of our lives than any other time before, thanks to the digitalisation of sound we can now carry around our favourite artists, musicians and tracks in something barely more heavy than the album they used to feature in. Subsequently, the experience of listening to music has also changed, becoming less of an ‘event’ and more of a soundtrack to our lives. And like anything, even listening to The Sex Pistol‘s “God save the Queen, the fascist regime” or the like would be irritating enough for anyone if played repeatedly to and from work, everyday of the week – so therefore our content diversifies.
And in this climate pop prevails. Not exclusively the genre, but lyrics and themes often associated with it have become the norm. A sizeable amount of most of our play lists consists more of escapist melodies than political anthems. It’s safe to say even an avid teen punk fan in the 70s, were he or she to be the same age today would have a record collection that exceeded The Clash, The Ramones and The Stranglers – there might even be a Taylor Swift single on their iPod, you never know.
Being one of the many perfect family friendly pop stars in our mainstream, Jessie J is perhaps the antithesis to the idea of politics and disputes in music. She doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, denounces drugs and seems more likely to do a crooner album with a resurrected Frank Sinatra than perform anything that could possibly be conceived as a controversy.
But perhaps what we consider politics needs to change? After all, even if ‘Price Tag’ was vague and didn’t present a solution – it was still political by definition. Other singles like ‘Stand Up’ and ‘Who You Are’ discussed social issues, even if it was more about identity and image idealism than abolition of the monarchy.
Lady Gaga is a staunch advocate of LGBT rights, Adele has also commented on issues of image saying “I don’t have time to worry about something as petty as what I look like” amongst other things. Politics is still there, it may be watered down, it may be less divisive and the issues may have changed – but it’s not completely gone. Although, as the personality cult of our favourite artists grows, it seems political rhetoric in music will find itself increasingly more on the front page of a magazine than in our MP3s. The Question is, is this better for our political debate; and more
importantly - for some - is it better for our music?
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There are probably quite a few explanations for this. Music is now more a part of our lives than any other time before, thanks to the digitalisation of sound we can now carry around our favourite artists, musicians and tracks in something barely more heavy than the album they used to feature in. Subsequently, the experience of listening to music has also changed, becoming less of an ‘event’ and more of a soundtrack to our lives. And like anything, even listening to The Sex Pistol‘s “God save the Queen, the fascist regime” or the like would be irritating enough for anyone if played repeatedly to and from work, everyday of the week – so therefore our content diversifies.
