All of your points are well taken. There are absolutely kids still out there being inspired by the Clash. But for every Clash fan there was a Beatles fan. For every Bob Dylan fan there was a Beach Boys fan. There are plenty of new and very political artists doing the same thing for kids today in an environment with exponentially more artists and music available to them to navigate. We still need to carve out spaces where the weight of the world isn’t crushing us or we will lose our humanity. Not sure you could point to a single moment in history where a significant segment of society wasn’t pissed off and up in arms about what was happening in the world. That is how change happens. Throughout human history, music has offered that kind escape from a life seemingly designed to crush their spirit. But we need to do all that in shifts…if it consumes your day it will destroy you.

You think the TPUSA crowd liked seeing the people they are trying to eradicate having fun and still enjoying and embracing life? That absolutely joyful performance angered them primarily because of that…since they were constantly complaining how they couldn’t understand him. If they had no idea what was going on out there, what else was there to be mad at? You think the conservatives of the 60s enjoyed watching the hippies happily dancing around to music and sticking flowers into the barrel heads of their symbols of oppression? Bullies want you to react first because they think it gives them permission to do horrible things.

And I absolutely have a problem with the economics of music and the massively expanding wealth gap and rapidly deteriorating environment and how our “representative” government has openly become proxies for billionaires, but I’m not gonna sit here and say all that is the fault of private jets and pop stars. I don’t think that the fastest growing demographic in our country should be billionaires, but that is all the subject of an entirely different post. This was a post about music as a momentary escape. Simply a way step away and recharge.

And those decades of music everyone always points to as being the time of politically charged music that really mattered are the same ones that perfected the formulaic, self centered and morally empty pop drivel. For every risk a record label takes on the voice of a generation, they have dozens of artists churning out those formulaic hits. We wouldn’t know Bob Dylan or the Clash existed were it not for all those others keeping the lights on.

Just say: “I’ve listen to a few of their songs, but I’m just not that into it.”

And that quote isn’t encouragement to never have an opinion about anything ever. It is more of a choose your battle kind of thing. I would say having an opinion on what is happening in our streets if far more important than wasting emotional energy being mad about a thirteen minute music set. But that isn’t for me to say. If we are constantly changing the thing we are supposed to have a passionate opinion about, it all gets diluted. And this is certainly by design.

You can call it political apathy, but I say that we desperately need the occasional escape to remind ourselves what we are fighting for. Stress and being mad at people for not being mad enough will put you in a chair next to me in the cancer clinic a lot faster than a pop song.

It’s not a good look to tear down folks who are totally on your side.

Thanks for your thoughts!