Week 7: Can popular music be a genuine force for political change?

In one respect popular music can cause political change but on the other hand it has been argued that the change it creates is so minute that it doesn’t make any real difference.

One example of political change in 1994 was when trance/electronic music led to the introduction of special legal provisions in relation to raves. Although there were changes in the law because of this genre of music it didn’t really make any difference, as it didn’t stop raves happening. 

If popular music ever does create any kind of political change more often than not it is only a small, temporary fix e.g. Band Aid – its very name concedes the limitations of the project given the scale of the problem. It is unrealistic to think that one song could end world poverty, however it does raise awareness, which is a big step in helping, but this does not necessitate change. All in all I would say that music shouldn’t be considered a force for political change as it quite rare for a song to cause any kind of political conflict and there have been many songs that have failed in their efforts for political change.

Week 5 - Can Popular music ever really be unplugged?

One of the main problems with this argument is that the second you use any kind of technology, it becomes much harder to define music as being unplugged.

When considering whether or not music can actually be unplugged you have to take into consideration whether or not this means the exclusion of technology as there is a vast difference between this and the use of electricity. If it doesn’t then we could argue that music that involves the use of classical, acoustic instruments or a live performance with no microphones could really be considered unplugged. However if we look at any form of instrument as being a technology then it becomes harder to put this music in the unplugged category. There will however always be the exceptions for example an opera singer (without a microphone) or a gospel choir singing in a church. This really would be unplugged as the music they produce is solely vocal and could not be considered technological, instrumental or electronic.