Musicians are one of the most powerful enemies of authoritarian regimes. Sometimes moreso than journalists, activists or rebels even.
Music inspires really intense emotion, that’s just kinda what it does, and that can create an extremely close bond between a fan and this musician they’ve never actually met. It’s an intense love and loyalty, not really matched by any other kind of artist imo.
Then the musician themselves is surprisingly hard to actually stop. For one thing, they have a nasty independent streak. They frequently became very accustomed to poverty and hardship in the early phase of their career. Now though, they’re rich, international and highly mobile, with enormous experience at travelling quickly and efficiently at a moments notice. They can write and make music from anywhere on Earth. They have literal armies of fans that would do almost anything for them.
Their message can spread far and quickly. They can write about anything, and the combination of melody and lyrics lets them communicate extremely complex, highly nuanced ideas in just the length of a single song. This emotional-intellectual combination almost lets them act as a society’s collective conscience of sorts, able to directly tackle complex moral issues that other formats often have to shy away from.
They can be shut down, silenced, censored, imprisoned, whatever. But doing so costs you an enormous amount of your political capital and public trust. They’re “just making music, man.” How do you argue with that, when everyone can just feel how true it is emotionally? Music has an underlying importance, a commonality that makes it so difficult to justify attacking it. It costs you dearly to go after these people, their fans are your people, and they trust the musician far more than they do you. Probably rightly so.
It’s kinda funny, but rock music might actually save the world. If you doubt me, try crossing Taylor Swift.
Musicians are one of the most powerful enemies of authoritarian regimes. Sometimes moreso than journalists, activists or rebels even.
Music inspires really intense emotion, that’s just kinda what it does, and that can create an extremely close bond between a fan and this musician they’ve never actually met. It’s an intense love and loyalty, not really matched by any other kind of artist imo.
Then the musician themselves is surprisingly hard to actually stop. For one thing, they have a nasty independent streak. They frequently became very accustomed to poverty and hardship in the early phase of their career. Now though, they’re rich, international and highly mobile, with enormous experience at travelling quickly and efficiently at a moments notice. They can write and make music from anywhere on Earth. They have literal armies of fans that would do almost anything for them.
Their message can spread far and quickly. They can write about anything, and the combination of melody and lyrics lets them communicate extremely complex, highly nuanced ideas in just the length of a single song. This emotional-intellectual combination almost lets them act as a society’s collective conscience of sorts, able to directly tackle complex moral issues that other formats often have to shy away from.
They can be shut down, silenced, censored, imprisoned, whatever. But doing so costs you an enormous amount of your political capital and public trust. They’re “just making music, man.” How do you argue with that, when everyone can just feel how true it is emotionally? Music has an underlying importance, a commonality that makes it so difficult to justify attacking it. It costs you dearly to go after these people, their fans are your people, and they trust the musician far more than they do you. Probably rightly so.
It’s kinda funny, but rock music might actually save the world. If you doubt me, try crossing Taylor Swift.