Blog #2

                In our society today, politics play a particularly large role in the everyday life. Since so many new things related to politics happen every day, everyone follows political news. Many political ideas/issues have come up within the past few years. Everyone is interested. Even if you’re talking about the first African American president, the continuing war in Iraq, or the controversy about the death penalty. Politics grab the attention of people in not only our society, but societies all over the world.

An even bigger part of life in our society is music. Music brings people together, and influences lives. People can connect through music, or relate to artists through their music. Since emotions can so easily be conveyed through music, people correlate because of the music they listen to. Music not only influences who you relate to, but how you feel and even, sometimes, what you do. Music is extremely persuasive, and therefore can easily be tied into politics to make people of the world view things how artists want them to. It’s not all about persuasion though; sometimes artists just want to share their thoughts and feelings with the world.

Together, politics and pop music could take over the media in itself. Not many songs directly focused on politics are well written or catchy, but some artists pull the two ideas together very nicely to create something people will agree with. In 2003 The Black Eyes Peas wrote a song called, “Where is the love?” about the events on 9/11 and the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. In part of the song they say, “Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism, but we still got terrorists here livin' … But if you only have love for your own race, then you only leave space to discriminate, and to discriminate only generates hate”. The group wrote the song to show people that to live in a world of peace, without terrorist attacks, and hatred, you need to spread love. The song quickly became popular after it was released, and impacted the lives of people closely related to these things. So, obviously society agreed with these political ideas, or they would not have listened to it so much.

Some political propaganda is even displayed through music. In Russia, a man named Alexander Yelin wrote a song about Vladimir Putin. Yelin originally wrote the song because of a bet with his friends; however the song is widely known in Russia, and even sung at Putin’s political rallies. The song amplifies Putin’s masculinity, and makes him interesting to the young people of Russia.

Though popular music and politics seem very different, they can be one in the same. Many artists use politics as a template for their music, or use it to display their views of politics and authority in their lives and the world. Music can help persuade people’s political beliefs, while their political beliefs can influence what type of music they listen to. There is no doubt that politics can be related to pop music.