Music, Style & Culture
| Print : Web : Radio : Mobile

Panic On The Streets Of… Where?

Jamie Milton takes a look at the "lack of politicised music."

Posted 17th January 2012, 12:58pm in Blogs by Jamie Milton
Jamie Milton

Jamie Milton

Writer

Panic On The Streets Of… Where? Photo Credit: Emma Swann

It could be said that the world has rarely been as politically-charged as it is today. Across the Middle East, calls for the overthrowing of established, authoritarian regimes spread like wildfire in early 2011, with Western governments not knowing where to stand or where to look for the best part of the last 12 months. In the States, the Occupy Movement, representing the 99%, highlights the gross divide of wealth in some of the world’s richest countries. And back in the UK, few can forget the London riots, not least the grisly debate that took place between clueless Politicians and, based on David Starkey, even more clueless intellectuals.

Yet what’s occurring on the streets has not been reflected in recording studios. For whatever reason, few people can list the names of current angst-ridden politically-inclined bands on a single hand. With so many causes, so many huge issues to write about, why is it that modern day acts are seemingly coy on voicing themselves?

It seemed sensible to ask two acts who have voiced themselves in recent years; splitting opinion in the process, but that was always going to happen. Speaking to both The Chapman Family’s Kingsley Chapman and Enter Shiraki’s Rou Reynolds helps shed light on just how big a balancing act each band has to face, if they’re to spell out their political views through songwriting.

Chapman is fantastically outspoken on the subject: “There's nothing worse than musicians pretending to be something that they're not...” Indeed, it’s difficult for a listener when encountering musicians who they find it hard to sympathise with, or even believe: “Why should I listen to the singers of U2 and Coldplay in relation to starvation and poverty when I know that one is a leather trouser wearing tax dodger who buys seats on planes for his own hats and the other is married to a Hollywood A-lister and writes shit on his hands? I realise they have a heart and soul and they've done an awful lot for charity over the years but it's still difficult to stomach when your own personal bank balance hasn't been out of the red for five years.” Then there are more well-established acts who can alienate their fanbase when repeatedly speaking out over certain issues (think Thom Yorke on climate change, attending the Copenhagen G20 conference). The sincerity might be there, but often fans won’t raise an ear for the cause, let alone a dime.

Besides, as Chapman further explains: “Nine times out of ten 'political music' is complete cliched rubbish. The other terrible thing about it is that it ages the instant you write it unlike other songs about easily identifiable and supposedly timeless subjects like love. Political music has an importance but it also has a sell by date.” You could retort that political music has a nostalgic value, for when future generations want to be educated about a certain time, place, world and social situation.

I ask whether listeners can be put-off by musicians who seem intent on forcing their views on the listener. For instance, there’s no escaping the sheer angst of The Chapman Family’s music, nor is there room to look away when playing Enter Shikari’s new record, ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’. But Shikari’s Rou Reynolds raises a fine point: “Mainstream radio plays a plethora of artists that push their views, whether it's the glorification of violence or the encouragement of greed... If someone has a problem with us singing about peace, love, equality and the positive evolution of our species then they are obviously very morally deranged individuals. If that's the case they can carry on listening to their artists talking about 'hot girls on the dancefloor' or 'bitches, money and guns'.”

A vast amount of the record-buying public steer well clear of politicised music, but perhaps that’s more to do with their lack of interest in politics in the first place. Sure, tons of grown adults file e-petitions, having a view when it comes to almost every moral issue. But youngsters just want to grow up, kick a ball around or meet up with friends. Besides, when Politics isn’t even taught in-depth at secondary education in most schools (bar the occasional Citizenship lesson), where can a political cause stem from in young people?

But back to our initial point, why is it that popular bands avoid issues that are so prominent in the news? “Where is a contemporary version of The Smiths?”, you might hear someone say. Chapman suggests that it’s simply not sought after, therefore bands don’t strive to preach about it: “People use music as escapism - something to take their mind from difficult and distressing real world issues.” You could link this to so many popular genres today: If Dubstep wore a Labour Party badge, people would turn up their noses. If Rihanna or Beyonce started highlighting how inefficient American Congress is, they’d be met with a confused, blank stare.

But if we can hear the class outcry during the Thatcher years with The Smiths, where lies today’s split in political views? In a couple of decades, when people look to these years as a difficult time, dominated by uncertainty and sacrifice (from the 99%), who in music will be able to give listeners a realistic, fascinating insight into what this period was like? Reynolds points out: “We can clearly see our society is systematically fucked! At its core, its roots.” He goes on to list that we’re experiencing an unemployment crisis, a health crisis, an economic crisis, a “‘you name it’ crisis”.

2011 was a year in which everyone had something to say and you can bet on this continuing as we encounter a U.S. election, rising tensions towards Iran’s nuclear stance and an increasingly unstable Coalition government in the UK that looks like faltering every time someone sneezes within a 1 mile radius. But music, on the large part, is failing to testify or account for it all. Chapman concludes on a quite prominent note: “I want to hear about people's lives and what's happening in the world. I want to hear the sounds of anger and disgust. I want someone to document these times that we're living in before it's too late.”
Click like to get the latest music news, hottest tracks and more via Facebook.

Comments