Why is political/issues-driven popular music so rare now (outside of Tom MacDonald-style grifter shit)? We live in such a politicized era and lots of popular artists put politics on social media but their songs are all still about generic love/sex/money/heartbreak topics. Who is speaking to the moment in their music?
>>127990575There are so many reasons for this phenomenon that someone could (and probably has or will) write an entire book on it. I'll just give a few brief reasons:>The extreme concentration of the music industry, creating a literal handful of labels who produce and market almost all popular music and operate on a profit-driven structure that generally ignores or actively avoids political songwriting.>The collapse of the American labor movement and the resultant plummeting class consciousness, leading to the death of folk/rock/punk/etc. as conscious vehicles of working class rebellion.>The end of the Cold War and the dominance of the "End of History" narrative, thus leading people to believe that significant political change is impossible.>The increasing dominance of extremely wealthy musicians on the most popular releases (this is strongly tied to reason #1) who have no sincere interest in or concern in social issues because they live in a rich, insular bubble with other celebrity narcissists.>The perfection of formulaic pop songs (again, strongly tied to reason #1), in which it was discovered that vapid songs about sex, partying, or breakups tend to chart much better than serious or heartfelt songs about humanity.And so on. I can elaborate on any of these points or give you even more more reasons if you're still curious.
music got whittled down to pop and pop rap. even in the 2000s when rock was still alive in the mainstream you got political albums like hail to the thief, american idiot, and year zero Pop musicians are cowards, rap sold out to go mainstream, no more public enemy, the 2010s were all around awful for music in my opinion
A lot of protest music was always liberal-leaning people (mostly because people on the right aren't as ideological or fixated with politics) and they usually have nothing to complain about when Democrats are in power, as they were during the Obama years.
>>127990575What would modern political music that isn't "grifter shit" look/sound like to you?
people moving away from didactic art is a positive thing
>>127990733But Republicans control the highest levels of every branch of government now.
>>127990753Music can reflect and speak to the times people live in without being didactic. If someone listened to today's popular music 200 years from now with no historical context, they would have literally zero idea how turbulent, polarized, and tense the global situation is right now. You can't say the same thing about the 60s or the 70s, because artists back then actually wrote (at least some of the time) about the real world and real humans.
>>127990733there we go. leftists had nothing to protest about in the 2010s, they assumed they won and would run the country for the next 40 years.
you want political music? bring back rock, death to poptimism
>>127990785directionbrain
>>127990787you shouldn't be throwing around words you don't understand
>>127990733Right leaning political music usually manifests as country songs like Okie From Muskogee and sometimes hardcore punk.
>>127990787I'll get right on that!
>>127990733>A lot of protest music was always liberal-leaning peopleThere was also the fact that they kicked men out of leftist politics since 2010 and unsurprisingly women can't really do protest songs without a dude writing them for them, plus it just became about sexual grievances instead of class warfare whatever.
>>127990819right wing music is black metal and neo folkwell at least the somewhat good right wing music, there were also secret right wingers peppered through out the punk and post punk movements , did you know iggy pop voted reagan mainstream right wing music is absolute garbaj, shit like tom mcdonals and shitty bro country
>>127990853>There was also the fact that they kicked men out of leftist politics since 2010 and unsurprisingly women can't really do protest songs without a dude writing them for them, plus it just became about sexual grievances instead of class warfare whatever.That was an effect rather than the cause. Unsurprisingly women aren't gonna do Woody Guthrie shit or sing about anything but sex topics.
The problem is poptmism, it favors white women pop sluts and black rappers.Black rappers are what marx would call lumpenproletariat, they lack a class counisuness, its why rap is so pro making money and capitalismUpperclass white women only care about feminism and idpol, just terrible people all around, they would never care about the lower class women, especially a lower class man the only people speaking from a universial class consciousness were the rockers and folkies
like, taylor swift would never make a song like this in a million years.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEq-r2agqc&list=RDVjEq-r2agqc&start_radio=1
>>127990932>Upperclass white women only care about feminism and idpol, just terrible people all around, they would never care about the lower class women, especially a lower class manthey're all AOC, every last one of them
>>127990575There are STILL people who will not follow Dylan thru various changes in his career. From political to rock and country rock to Christian and back to rock. Once you are political you are stuck there you can't change and keep your audience. Look at how fast that ginger folky retard that hit number one fell off. It's a bad move now that political people have become particularly insane in a way more dangerous than the hippie 60s.
>>127991360Even doe there used to be 5 politically motivated bombings a day in the US in the 70s
>>127991360Joan Baez also got pigeonholed as a protest singer so there was no way out of that.
>>127990575Cause people now don't have novel perspectivea to make interesting and thoughtful songs. They just know enough to repeat prefabricated talking points. This is true for "both sides" btw.
>>127990575because the messages are simple and poorly developed. Which is the best you can do in a 5 minutes song.>war is bad mmkeyy>corruption is bad mkhhkey>hunger is bad mhhkeyyyy>Planet earth is good mhhkeyOther "messages" are incredibly biased and dishonest. And they age badly like RATM with their vaccine shit. WIth time you understand that they didnt dislike censorship nor tiranny. Their political party should be doing the censoring and being tyrants because they are the good guys tm.At the end of the day, you can write war is bad and make a good song like knowing on heavens door, but the poetry is always more important than the message. The style is the substance in art, Not the stupid message.
>>127990886>Unsurprisingly women aren't gonna do Woody Guthrie shit or sing about anything but sex topicsI'm laughing at the thought of some freight train-riding hobo version of Sabrina Carpenter singing "ALL YOU INCELS BOUND TO LOSE">>127990932>Black rappers are what marx would call lumpenproletariat, they lack a class counisuness, its why rap is so pro making money and capitalismHonestly they follow more of a Nietzsche/Ayn Rand philosophy. That's what "street code" is
>>127991390We're getting close to that level of political violence again
Bob's early music wasn't issues-driven. Current affairs were the canvas, like the threat of nuclear war, or the civil rights movement, but what he used to paint upon that canvas was far more eternal than the vapid attempted inheritors of his legacy. It's why he's still relevant today and not wing-cucked hucksters like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.
>>127990640Unironically this
>>127990575partisan stuff never really got played over mass airwaves in early 60's either. only non-partisan stuff like 'eve of destruction' did.
>>127994979Sad that eve of destruction is almost as relevant today as back then. We have to farm 60 year old songs to speak for today. Just sad
>>127993287>and not wing-cucked hucksters like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthriealso Billy Bragg and Bruce Cockburn
>>127993022>WIth time you understand that they didnt dislike censorship nor tiranny. Their political party should be doing the censoring and being tyrants because they are the good guys tm.That was outed with the War on Terror. Democrats didn't oppose invading Iraq, they opposed invading Iraq when they weren't the ones in charge of it.
>>127994979>>127993287The Weavers/Seger got banned from the radio for a decade back then.
>>127990575music you hear on the radio is written by committee and the artists rarely deliver albums, but instead deliver 30 tracks and the label chooses what is on the album. there are no "artists" ,just singers and bands.
>>127995015I actually made this thread because I was listening to For What It's Worth and thought "wow this is more relevant to our times than anything released today."
>>127993022>war is bad mmkeyyWAR IS COOL AS FUCK AND ONLY GAY LIBS DON'T LOVE WAR AND KILLING!!!!
>>127990575Bob Dylan got disillusioned by faggy leftism quickly.
>>127990819Right-wing music is outright banned in many regions. Mr. Bond is still in prison in Austria, for example. Moonman songs are mostly illegal under UK laws and those of other nations.
>>127995414so right wing really just means racist now?
>>127990744Something which directly addressed actual issues in a coherent and enduring manner, and not just 'Let's Go Brandon'-style transient partisan hackery that has no meaning a few years later. It can actually be didactic and blunt as long as it sounds interesting. For example, Diamanda Galas's Law of the Plague (about AIDS in the 80's) would be incredibly didactic and almost silly if it were boiled down to a single 'plot,' but it has theatricality and references to literature and other works which give it some 'bones.' It isn't trapped in a specific epoch or political setting. Someone could easily do a Law of the Plague-style album for the Gaza war or something. Bring in some mythological imagery from Greek and Arab history, etc.
>>127995422Honest, non-grifter right-wing music in the west would probably have to be somewhat racist if it intended to describe culture and society in modern right-wing terms. Pulling punches and backing away from controversy is what results in dull propaganda or bad political music. And that's true across regions, since the right-wing is supposed to be nativist. An honest right-wing musician from Ghana would need to complain about the invasion of Nigerian illegals and criminals, etc.
>>127995468/mupol/ would completely chimp out if somebody made an album about gaza lol
>>127990575Well it isn't unless you belong to a specific demographic of Albion's Seed like me then you get deplatformed.
good political music as anon said always keeps everything relatively vague eg. "Fly Like An Eagle" could easily be about Trump coming to feed the average guy who was left to rot by Obama era leftists even though Steve Miller is a known libshit who would probably hate that idea
>>127995972>Wow, us straight white men are so brutally oppressed save us Orange Emperor!
>>127995972how's the average guy doing right now?
>>127996033this but unironically
>>127996033you will never be a real woman. you will always be a deformed, mutilated freak of a man, a festering wound where your manhood once was.
>>127993022Christgau always did dislike folk for that reason.
i've been wondering about the same thing. people seem really passive these days. my country is almost in recession but no one is protesting like they used to before. also if you do, angry right wing people start hate campaigns against you in social media. we need young people with punk attitude again but maybe they are just too tired and scared
>>127990853this is just lazy hate speech against women
>>127990575i recently listened to that bob dylan album. single most jewish thing i've ever heard. If given the options between Klezmer, The Times they are A-Changing by Bob Dylan, or a rabbi shouting "i'm fucking jewish" into a microphone for 45 minutes, i would still tell you that the Bob Dylan album is the most jewish thing. it's just that jewish
>>127996326explain what this means
>>127990640a conscious mutant? can we be friends?
>>127996330jews = thoughtful intellectuals
>>127996290You didn't say they were wrong though...
>>127996109nta but seems pretty good, browns, trannys, and feminazis are being removed from premises and Taylor Suck is finally finished and washed up
>>127990640>The collapse of the American labor movement and the resultant plummeting class consciousness, leading to the death of folk/rock/punk/etc. as conscious vehicles of working class rebellion.Rofl
>>127996459is having cheaper gas really worth the cost of depriving half the American people (ie. everyone who isn't a white Christian hetereosexual male) of basic human rights and dignity?
Why did Trump call neo Nazis very fine people?
>>127996751Yes that's right
