Originally posted by Caledonia:[..]
I can remember keyboard player, Rick Wakeman panning the likes of U2 and one of my other loves, Simple Minds down the years (who have also mixed politics with their music and took some heated criticism for it at times, particularly in the mid to late 1980's with their own Amnesty International involvement and campaigning to free Nelson Mandela and put a stop to apartheid), and I just remember thinking to myself... he's a bit of a plonker.
As Adam says in R&H about music and politics not mixing... "I think that's kinda bullshit.".
The best music for me is music with blood in it. Definitely one of the reasons I adore U2. Imho it's that blood, their hunger and their anger that keep pushing the band to keep doing what they're doing all these years later.
Some of the best songs ever written imho are protest songs... Summertime Blues, or Sun City.
Sure there's a place for music without politics, nothing wrong with that, the world would be a dull place otherwise. But equally there is also a place for music and politics to mix, and they absolutely should do.
Long live The Big Music!
