Do Politics Belong in Music?

As I'm sure most people do, I have very mixed views about this particular topic. On one hand, yes, politics do belong in music, especially when it comes to the likes of punk/punk rock, a genre that essentially started (in England anyway) because people were pissed off with how the government was treating them and their country. So in that case, is punk really punk if they're not singing about, talking about, or getting angry about the political state of the world? Billie Joe Armstrong, for example, has devoted a huge part of his career as a punk rock musician to encourage his younger fans to vote and to stand up to the bullshit the American government gets away with. The same goes for The Sex Pistols; a massive handful of their music and live performances were massively focused on abolishing the monarchy and expressing anger towards the government at the time.

On the other hand, we have the pop girlies. I know a lot of people may disagree on this, but I want to know what the obsession is with 'stans' on Twitter threatening, canceling, and harassing all of these mainly young female pop artists to talk about politics. Whilst I completely understand they want people to use their platforms to spread awareness about current political issues, which can be done by retweeting or sharing official information, by the way, these pop girls do not need to write lengthy threads or validate you by sharing their political opinions online. The likes of Taylor Swift can share one post about a major issue and give it so much more attention; I don't understand why that isn't enough for some people. Not every celebrity is going to be clued up enough to talk about politics. Would you rather have a real official political opinion by somebody who has done thorough research, can share relevant resources, etc., or a pop girl who has been forced and bullied by her fans to talk about something she isn't 100% sure about out of fear of being canceled?

However, believe it or not, people can have mixed views on a topic like I said at the start of this post. My final views on whether or not politics belong in music are; I think artists, or anyone with a large platform, should, if they are able and have done enough research, talk about political issues either through social media or at live shows. I think there are positives to this because it may influence younger fans to realize how important politics are and how decisions made by governments affect everyone. It raises awareness and gives extremely important issues, genocides, wars, and elections the publicity that they need, because let's face it, you're not going to find out the truth from official news sources. The negatives of politics being in music, in my opinion, are pretty straightforward: nobody should be forced to talk about something they don't want to talk about either out of lack of knowledge or because they simply just don't want to. Also, just because an artist has spoken up about one political issue doesn't mean they have to speak up about every political issue.

If you have any opinions you'd like to share on this topic, please feel free to leave a comment, anonymous or not, or message me on any of the social media pages linked throughout my site. It will be interesting to make a part 2 to this article about your opinions