In western liberal democracies, it has become something of a journalistic cliché to characterise the relationship between popular music and politics as an often difficult and unhappy one. To be sure, there are many sound reasons as to why recording artists may be sufficiently convinced that politics and music simply don’t mix.
With the recording industry in a seemingly terminal downward spiral of decreasing sales, many artists may be increasingly reluctant to take the commercial risks that are often associated with on-record politicisation. Put another way, appropriating some form of politics can carry with it the potential to alienate certain sections of existing artist fan bases or even prospective fans. This is to say nothing of the unease that many artists may feel about being perceived as preachy or obtuse if they decide to express themselves politically. Thus, for some of the most successful artists of the early 21st century, politics only features as an aside to their recorded output in various forms of activism.
Scores of today’s most successful artists are more than willing to put in a live performance or public appearance for live earth, live aid, trade justice or anti-racist campaign events (delete as appropriate), even when these issues are rarely if ever the subject matter or inspiration for their recorded material. Likewise, this activism often concerns relatively ‘safe’ uncontroversial issues. Many contemporary artists have at least nominally supported campaigns to stop the spread of aids in Africa – a worthy cause that few would disagree with on principle.
This hesitant relationship between popular music and political expression contrasts with those 20th century artists that were perhaps more willing to directly address matters of social and political significance in their music. Kanye West’s records seem downright apolitical up against the likes of Public Enemy or N.W.A, whilst Coldplay certainly aren’t in any danger of releasing anything with the sort of political import of say, Dylan’s Masters of War. And yet, although the protest song may be on its last legs, a less visceral form of politics centred on the individual and identity seems to have taken its place. Jay-Z, like many of his peers, provides an interesting example.
Until recently, the superstar rapper was reluctant to ‘do politics’ directly, yet the lyrical messages throughout much of his back-catalogue are dedicated to his experiences making ends meet as a socially disadvantaged, young, black American. Many of his records are also closely wedded to the most traditional of American political ideals – that when sufficiently endowed with the necessary talents and work-ethic, the individual can overcome adversity to achieve almost limitless prosperity and success. In short, much of Jay-Z’s recorded output is loaded with the identity politics of American capitalist individualism.
As a rule of thumb, contemporary hip-hop artists have approached politics far more intelligently than the torrent of ‘landfill indie’ bands that currently populate the UK charts. The Enemy’s new album Music for the People highlights the poor state of mainstream guitar music, both in general and where meaningful political expression is concerned. The album is replete with the most hackneyed references to the 2003 Iraq war and post-Thatcher Britain. Lines like, ‘this is the 51st state/oil drums/but were still paying at the pump', are some of the more cringeworthy that the album has to offer, and, when taken together, must rank as one of the most tame and wrong-headed objections to the Iraq war that has ever been mustered. In some bizarre fit of Daily Mail-esque logic, the band have obviously sought to concern themselves with the way in which the war failed to yield reductions in the price of petrol, thereby somewhat overlooking the death of over 90,000 Iraqi civilians and 179 British service personnel.
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