{"id":88508,"date":"2017-03-13T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=88508"},"modified":"2017-03-12T12:24:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T12:24:58","slug":"music-and-politics-how-much-will-it-matter-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/03\/music-and-politics-how-much-will-it-matter-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Music and Politics: How Much Will It Matter Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

10 Mar 2017 – <\/em>Back when I was in college, rock and roll historian Barry Drake came and gave a lecture titled \u201c60\u2019s Rock\u201d, When the Music Mattered\u201d.\u00a0 It was a fabulous presentation about a fantastically eventful decade.\u00a0 He dissertated that it wasn\u2019t fair to say that the music of the 60\u2019s was necessarily better than that of any other decade in rock history.\u00a0 It was just that the music mattered more to people during that period.\u00a0\u00a0 And who could argue with such a thesis?\u00a0 At least here in the United States, these were years of great unrest on a societal and political level.\u00a0\u00a0 Whether it was the civil rights movement, the assassination of our greatest leaders, or the Vietnam War and its protests, these events were accompanied by and often directly interwoven with the music of the time.\u00a0\u00a0 And heck, the decade gave us\u00a0\u202athe Beatles<\/a>\u00a0and Motown, and birthed the sounds we currently consider \u201cclassic rock\u201d, as well as other innovations. \u00a0Enough said, right?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019ve often considered whether another period of societal\/political turmoil could spawn a new sort of renaissance in popular music.\u00a0 Could now be the time?\u00a0 Let\u2019s come back to that question.<\/p>\n

The past year has been a wild ride, with regard to American politics.\u00a0\u00a0 One of the most important things that happened with Donald Trump\u2019s historic election was the magnification of how our information is disseminated.\u00a0 I\u2019ve observed similarities in the way people process music and politics.\u00a0 Both are delivered via a variety of media, and this is reflected in the wide array of political views we have in this country, as well as musical tastes.\u00a0 One could make parallels between the corporate mainstream media of politics (major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and major networks like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox) and corporate mainstream radio and video (IHeartMedia-owned Top 40 stations, MTV and other television). \u00a0Similar parallels can be noted between independent news media and independent music media.\u00a0 Of course, the paradigm is ever-shifting and becoming more complex, and as the number of internet radio stations and streaming services increase, the news-delivering websites and blogs which offer alternative viewpoints to the mainstream also increase in number and influence.<\/p>\n

So what is my point? \u00a0 Enthusiasm and activism might not be enough. \u00a0 The problem with corporate media is it tends to perpetuate groupthink and partisan-based hero worship, and to the exclusion of alternative viewpoints. \u00a0For example, who can forget the Washington Post\u2019s infamous and later-retracted \u201cfake news\u201d story, where they unfairly smeared several reputable independent and alternative news outlets, and lumped them in with less reputable ones? \u00a0And yet many continue to read the Post without a cynical eye, and regard the mainstream press as sacrosanct. \u00a0I see this as a hindrance to true activism. \u00a0And this is not to say that corporate mainstream media is consistently wrong, but perhaps it is fair to say that over-reliance on it\u00a0does not foster original thought. \u00a0So the parallel in music would be, while it may be fairly innocuous to accept mainstream sources as one\u2019s primary listening point, it is less likely to foster originality and creativity. \u00a0I submit that it is the alternative sources of music that seep the best ideas into the creative psyche of artists. \u00a0To use a historical example, at\u00a0a time when skiffle was the mainstream sound in England,\u00a0\u202athe Beatles<\/a>\u00a0and their peers in their port hometown Liverpool were buying less-heard American records arriving straight off the boat.\u00a0\u00a0\u202aThe Beatles<\/a>, in a sense, were catalysts of an alternative American invasion of Britain, before they in turn \u201cinvaded\u201d us in the early 60\u2019s.\u00a0\u00a0\u202aJohn Lennon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u202aPaul McCartney<\/a>\u00a0would prove to have incredible ears for learning songs, and sensational voices with which to sing them, so it is no coincidence their band would quickly become one of the world\u2019s best at recreating the American rock and roll sound.\u00a0 Which, even here, at least in the few years preceding Beatlemania, was not really the \u201cmainstream\u201d yet. \u00a0And they took that non-mainstream sound and made it even more alternative and original.<\/p>\n

And so, with the question as to whether music and politics will flourish together again, the answer depends. \u00a0Politics do seem to matter again, given the current climate of activism, protests, etc. \u00a0But will people fall into the pattern of needing corporate mainstream media to tell them what to be outraged about? \u00a0Or will there be more original thought placed into where we focus our energy? \u00a0Who will have the best \u201cears\u201d for news, and best \u201cvoices\u201d for change, so to speak? \u00a0The protests I\u2019m most encouraged about are those that are addressing systemic problems, like interventionist war and pipeline spills\u2026problems that existed long before Donald Trump and that are generally ignored by corporate mainstream media. \u00a0Here in Lancaster, PA, we have our own miniature version of the Standing Rock protest, with an indefinite encampment set up to block the Atlantic Sunrise proposed pipeline. \u00a0 I know of local musicians who have offered to perform there. \u00a0 I can\u2019t make any predictions on where their music will go, but whatever influences they bring, I hope they somehow make an impact, as much as the protesters hope to make an impact on preservation of clean water and sacred land in this region. \u00a0 Will the original thoughts of protesters nationwide, and the imagination of the musicians that support these causes make an impact nationally? \u00a0 I look forward to finding out.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/a><\/p>\n

Daniel Martin<\/em> is\u00a0a rock historian, musician, and writer from Lancaster, PA.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 counterpunch.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I was in college, rock and roll historian Barry Drake came and gave a lecture titled \u201c60\u2019s Rock\u201d, When the Music Mattered\u201d. At least here in the United States, these were years of great unrest on a societal and political level. Whether it was the civil rights movement, the assassination of our greatest leaders, or the Vietnam War and its protests, these events were accompanied by and often directly interwoven with the music of the time. And heck, the decade gave us \u202athe Beatles and Motown, and birthed the sounds we currently consider \u201cclassic rock\u201d, as well as other innovations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}