While reading chapter 7, I could help but think about the implications of teaching the "political" message of popular music to our students. Is this something that can really be discussed in the classroom, a supposedly neutral space? While Negus argues that we really shouldn't be looking for the meaning behind any song due to the different ways it was meant to be interpreted, I think that many of my students might struggle with this concept. And while I got to thinking about how I could expand their knowledge, I can say that I'm a little disappointed with the lack of political music that seems to be out there today. The references in the book Negus talks about are songs from extreme cases like Nazi Germany and the Vietnam War. Negus says, "power always arises out of and is exercised through particular struggles and relationships. State attempts to erect cultural boundaries have always been challenged and are becoming ever more difficult to maintain as satellites and computer networks are able to beam images and information rapidly across frontiers without the intervention of border guards and customs officers" (201). While I completely agree with the fact that it is going to be harder today to control music than it was in 1933, I think that in comparison to how politically charged our culture is currently given the circumstances surrounding our last president as well as our new president, shouldn't there be more political messages out there in songs.... ESPECIALLY since it is so hard to control?
The thing I came to realize is that Top 40 hits really can't be political in context. As we realized in chapter three, artists are being sold as an image, and the commercial side of music is well aware of this. Who wants to risk not selling records or worse, be banned (although any exposure is good exposure, right?), by trying to make a statement. What's unfortunate is that popular music is decided by advertisers, marketers, and those with "power." As Negus says, "it is this potential of music that is so often neglected when it is treated simply in terms of aesthetics, commodity form or practical utility and not in terms of its knowledge-producing, transformative and communicative potentials" (222). This statement really stuck out to me in the reading in terms of how this can be applied to the classroom. If we ultimately want our students to grow up to be informed, engaged, critically-aware, educated citizens who are able to question authority and the system, (or in the words of Jack Black, "stick it to the man"), isn't it strange that the people they look up to (oftentimes musicians), aren't really making a stand and doing the same thing? ESPECIALLY when they have the most access to the populace and the greatest ability to be heard and believed? Perhaps it's time to start questioning this, and whether or not the government/commercialized parts of media are directly impacting what we are able to listen to, or if it is a conscious decision on the part of artists and musicians alike.
The one band (hate them or love them), that recently is Green Day. The release of their album " American Idiot" in 2004 sang the progression of a fictional anti-hero, the "Jesus of Suburbia", and his journey through the rise and fall of the American Dream. Their song "Holiday", was supposed to be a commentary on Iraq, according to Rolling Stone Magazine. With lyrics like: "Hear the drum pounding out of time/ Another protester has crossed the line/ To find the money's on the other side/ Can I get another Amen?/There's a flag wrapped around a score of men/ A gag, a plastic bag on a monument/I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies/This is the dawning of the rest of our lives/On holiday", it's fairly obvious what their political agenda is here. Their newest album, "Breakdown", has a similar message in the song "21st Century Breakdown". They even go so far as to make a not-so subtle hint towards their political lyrics:
Born into Nixon, I was raised in hell.
A welfare child where the teamsters dwell.
The last one born, the first one to run.
My town was blind from the refinery sun [...]
I Praise Liberty
The freedom to obey
It's the song that strangles me
Well, don't cross the line
Dream America, dream.
I can't even sleep.
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