I've become weary of musical artists who try to be political. I suppose this is largely due to my lack of interest in politics and my feeling that overly literal political messages take much of the fun away from a good song. But there is more than aesthetic sentiment behind my statement. Let me specify: I'm mainly reacting to what "trying to be political" often means in today's music scene.
There is a trend these days, largely a result of the particularly inflammatory decisions of the president and his administration surrounding the nation's international actions, in which genuine political concerns are being overshadowed and contaminated by artists, rock stars, and celebrities who feel the need to define their image by extraordinarily zealous political feelings. Simply put, when it comes to politics, many people have a tendency to get very, very angry about things they have no control over and say very, very irrational things about the people who do have control over them. In the popular music world, these irrational, pseudo-political rants are most visibly delivered by liberal artists that are against the war in Iraq and condemn those who got our country involved in it. As for mainstream conservative artists, I'm not sure if there are any.
One prime example of this problem comes from pioneering punk outfit Green Day. How does it help anyone, or any cause, for Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of the band, to hop onstage wearing a mask of George W. Bush emblazoned by a Sharpie with the word "IDIOT." OK, the guy knows how to write a catchy punk guitar riff and masquerade as a cosmetically enhanced legitimate rock star, but I think anyone who thinks that a man can become the president of the United States while being an idiot is, well, an idiot. You can say just about anything else about him - that he's a fraud, that he's careless, that he's the devil (as some very clever T-shirts would suggest) - but you cannot call the president an idiot, without revealing yourself as someone who has essentially thoughtless opinions. I'm not even going to support the notion that if you couldn't do better, don't criticize, but the fact stands that calling our president an idiot, a murderer, a self-righteous church-goer - whatever - achieves nothing positive. All it does is make Green Day look like a group of guys that care about something passionately, but not passionately enough to say anything constructive about it. If they knew enough about the situation at all, one would assume that they would be able to formulate a more pensive slogan than "I don't want to be an American idiot."
2008 Woodie Awards
