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.
1 comment:
A reasonably good post. Please be careful when directly quoting (i.e. the Band Aid quip) to clearly identify your source within the post.
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