Music on Politics

By: Carlos Carrión Betancourt

Data: 19-08-2017

In our article, we reviewed that from ancient ages the politics and music have been interleaved.
It is not necessarily a bad thing, personally I think it depends on the specific purpose. But the
music has been used for everything in politics. For example, march music for fascist regimes,
protest music against fascist regimes, protest songs, or anthems who sound really good, but
when you translate the lyrics they speak all about kill the enemy and pride for a determined
country or culture.

Music is a great way to create a bond between people and make them act as one. It is also
the unofficial voice of resistance. An intriguing case study is provided by Peter Wicke, who
argues that rock musicians in East Germany were the catalysts for collapse of the East
German regime. He states that government's repression of rock turned it into a resistance,
which was more or less impossible to control.

Sometimes, the music can break down barriers and bring us the opinion of the artist toward
a specific political point of view. For example, in Latin America the group Calle 13 in the latest
representative of protest music, they don’t sing just against a specific regime. They sing
against poverty, corruption, lack of education or health systems, other times they sing in favor
of the Palestine state, for example. The lyrics of this group are amazing, completely original.
On the other hand, we have artist that don’t sing protest music but are in favor or against to
a determined specific politic. The most highlight event about this was the last presidential
campaign in the USA. I remembered most of the artist were against the use of their material
in the Trump’s presidential campaign. Names like Adele, or Aerosmith didn’t like the idea
their music was used in the campaign of this personality. But this time the effect didn't
persuade the public, and against all the probabilities Trump won the election. I personally
think that in this case the fact almost all these artists were against Trump was
counterproductive, because ordinary people saw these artists like snobs against someone
who says, “speaks by the people”.

In my country, the rallies are always accompanied by a musical show, for example they
present a Salsa group or in general a tropical band to soften the presentation. I can say in
general the people is concern more in the show than the political presentation.

In conclusion, as I said, it is not a dreadful thing the singers and artist are involved in politics,
as long as they do it from their souls, and not just pursuing gain money or publicity for their
image. I said it, because it can happen the contrary they want. For example, if the politician
is corrupt, the artist can end involved with a social scandal, it can be worse for the musicians
because they live from their reputation too.