Morris Dickstein predicted that after\nthe 2008 recession Americans would \u201cdemand lighter fare as people look to escape\ntheir troubles.\u201d I think her prediction was flawed because the problem wasn\u2019t\nthat Americans demanded a lighter fare, rather it was the artists who were\nafraid to create more radical music. This isn\u2019t a remark on their character,\nrather a critique of the system of music production and consumption that\ndominates popular culture. Big record labels do not want their artists\nproducing music that would alienate a fanbase because that would lead to a\ndecrease in profit. I would argue that Dickstein\u2019s prediction was rudimentary,\nand it did not take the free-market\u2019s effect on music and popular culture into consideration.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But to Dickstein\u2019s credit, she\u2019s\nnot entirely wrong about the dominance of lighter-fare music. Based off of the\nmusic that tops the charts, I would argue that the majority of artists prioritize\ncreating lighter-fare music over music that emphasizes social, economic and\npolitical issues. Yet, there are also artists who recognize people\u2019s desire for\nmusic that has political implications: Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Janelle Mon\u00e1e,\nSolange, Anderson Paak, and more. Music has historically been used as a form of\nresistance for the African American community and to say that American\u2019s, as a\nblanket statement, would prefer a lighter fare after the 2008 recession ignores\nthe racial division in popular culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That being said, I would argue that\nmany artists still aren\u2019t as radical as people portray them to be. For example,\nit\u2019s pretty ridiculous that Kacey Musgrave\u2019s song \u201cFollow your arrow\u201d created\nso much controversy. The song was banned from playing on the radio stations and\nwas censored in the 2013 CMA awards. In the song, Musgrave\u2019s makes direct references\nto LGBT culture and marijuana with, \u201ckiss lots of girls if that\u2019s something you\u2019re\ninto\u201d and \u201croll up a joint, or don\u2019t,\u201d and apparently that\u2019s just too much to\nhandle.[1]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the suppression of music that\u2019s viewed as controversial in popular culture is prominent across the globe. Mashrou Leila, an indie-rock band from Lebanon, has been creating controversies from 2008 up to the present. The band\u2019s lyrics are overwhelmingly and unapologetically about the dynamic between homosexuality, politics, and religion. Mashrou Leila* is an excellent example of how artists can create radical music that doesn\u2019t adhere to the norm, or the \u201clighter fare\u201d that Dickstein argues people desire. But at the end of the day, as Dickstein states, \u201cas our troubles worsen, as stress morphs into anxiety and depression, we may desperately need the mixture of the real and the fantastic, the sober and the silly, that only the arts can bring us.\u201d[2]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n *My favorite band on Earth and I recommend listening to the songs \u201cCavalry<\/a>\u201d and \u201cShim El Yasmine<\/a>\u201d (read the translation for the lyrics). [1]<\/a> https:\/\/countryrebel.com\/blogs\/videos\/this-country-song-was-banned-from-radio-play-but-now-the-lyrics-are-everywhere\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/la-oe-dickstein1-2009apr01-story.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Morris Dickstein predicted that after the 2008 recession Americans would \u201cdemand lighter fare as people look to escape their troubles.\u201d I think her prediction was flawed because the problem wasn\u2019t that Americans demanded a lighter fare, rather it was the artists who were afraid to create more radical music. This isn\u2019t a remark on their … Continue reading “Capitalism & the music industry”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extra","tag-fall-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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