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MUSIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Music is more than a casual leisure, an art or the new way to increase the benefits of a company. It is all of that and even more. The music industry is a rich ecosystem in which everyone and everything has a specific place. From the composer to the listener, from art to science, get insights on each field of music, learning about human behavior or consciousness. A place is also given to ethical questions.
MUSICAL CULTURE IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS
Dmitry Shostakovich
Radiohead
Listen for instance to Shostakovich’s Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, or to pieces of music written by Prokofiev! Try YMusic, your free personal assistant (it includes musical criteria to select music) and, forgetting politics, enjoy some of the best pieces written by classical Russian composers.
MUSIC IN RUSSIA UNDER STALIN: THE CASE OF SHOSTAKOVICH
Music in support of the Soviet regime
Stalin, well known as a dictator, governed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1922 to 1952. Having theorized the concept of ‘Socialism in One Country’ in opposition to Trotsky, who was promoting the idea of a socialism disseminated through perpetual uprisings abroad, he collectivized the economy of his country, caused starvation that lasted two years in 1932 and 1933, and organized several brutal crackdowns during which numerous intellectual figures of the USSR, better known as members of the Intelligentsia, were most of the time endangered and often imprisoned or executed, without any legal judgment. A close friend of Mao Zedong of China and Kim II-sung of North Korea, Stalin was on the other hand an enemy of Hitler and National Socialism whose armies he defeated in Moscow and Stalingrad.
Stalin used art as he used anything else to support his regime, and his initial impulse in this field was to reject Western art, seen as an incarnation of the bourgeoisie. Music thus became an instrument of propaganda, applying the concept of ‘socialist realism’ to music: the first target of music composers should now be to glorify Stalin, the Soviet regime, and the proletariat.
Shostakovich’s ‘War Symphonies’
Desirous of establishing a climate favorable to proletarianism, Stalin founded the Union of Soviet Composers to rally a large number of composers to its cause. Amongst them, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and Shostakovich were prominent figures. However, they did not all respond to Stalin’s expectations in the same way. Prokofiev was the most crowd-pleasing and his behaviour was unnatural: he had lived abroad for 10 years, including in the United States and in France, but he had always seen himself as an ambassador for Russian culture overseas. Mainly centered on the musical art, he never had any problem in developing his artistic personality, even scoring movies, like he did for ‘Lieutenant Kijé’ in 1934. Khachaturian, who had joined the Communist Party, was nevertheless threatened on one occasion when his music was labelled as conformist, that is too similar to Western classical music.
Shostakovich was apparently the one who had the most to do to please the regime without renouncing his musical integrity. Sometimes he cooperated totally with the Soviet regime, sometimes he did not. That is why his family and him were(why he and his family were) sometimes endangered. Shostakovich wrote a lot of music, including nine symphonies, of which six are called ‘War Symphonies’. The ‘Symphony n°7’, named Leningrad, was written to encourage resistance to National Socialism and on that occasion, Shostakovich fully supported the Soviet Union, independently of the critics he had had to face before. In contrast, the ‘Symphony n° 9’, ordered by the regime to celebrate Stalin’s recent victory over Hitler, was condemned and judged weakweak) in fact, instead of writing a solemn piece, Shostakovich used instruments like the piccolo and tambourine, expressing himself in a way that was seen as childish.
Listen to music written by hip hop composers! Try YMusic, your free personal assistant (it includes musical criteria to select music) and discover the different tempos of hip hop varieties like West Coast or East Coast hip hop.
Hip hop topics from the 1980s to the 2010s
Music is a living object for reflection. Subjects like art are too. Yet when such themes are mixed with questions related to ethnic origins, they are not always easy topics. Concentrating on music, one main thing to underline is that hip hop quickly wanted to challenge traditional musical rules. In itself, it is an achievement: belonging to a community that is not well recognized and appreciated, rappers and MCs finally developed a system of value and appreciation, with the help of their musical talent. Fighting against society’s abandonment of certain types of people in a peaceful and artistic way, they reinvented a self for themselves.
Hip hop has its roots in the 1980s and in everyday life. Yet how can pioneers of the genre be related to commercial hip hop produced during the 2010s? There are similarities: in fact, cultural elements included in today’s hip hop, including sexism, were not invented in the boardroom of a musical label, such elements exist in daily life. However, some themes present in early hip hop disappeared during the mid 1990s with the massive commercialization of hip hop, like disinterested sense of service. Instead, common topics like parties, bragging, and self-sufficiency began to constitute the core value proposition of many hip hop songs.
Questions raised by African American scholars to current hip hop culture and rappers’ musical talents
In Universities like Brown or Cornell, African American scholars question hip hop: is the genre giving an image that is really representative of the African American community? Why should listeners praise musicians that devalue women’s image? Some even say that actual rap prevents political consciousness and that hip hop consumers’ profiles are now shaped by the market. They recognize the musical talent of rappers, but do not want to endorse their cultural message.
Yet let us notice that several rappers in the mainstream continued to write socially responsible hip hop and political hip hop songs. For instance, Tupac Shakur or 2Pac released ‘Changes’ in 1998. That title addresses issues like the poverty of urban African American communities, the difficulties of life in a cultural ghetto, or the war on drugs. Hip hop fans said that Tupac Shakur really wrote songs for the people, bearing social issues in mind.
Now what about the musical talent of rappers? Rappers are said to be doing hip hop when they do more than rhyme words and create rhyme patterns. As always, it is a question of personal taste; however, there is no shortage of successful titles written by hip hop composers for themselves: Nelly, Destiny’s Child (a formation Beyoncé is in), Eminem, Jay-Z, Shaggy, Dr. Dre, Gza or Gorillaz are some of them. And some rappers, like RedOne, wrote for well-known pop stars.
IS HIP HOP MUSIC RELATED TO ANY FORM OF SOCIAL CHANGE?
Independently of any music style, discover which sounds may raise the awareness of your mind. Try the YMusic search engine, your free personal assistant (it includes musical criteria to select music) and know more about music.
Conflict-protesting musicians
Protest songs may come from any country during a conflict that is reported at the global level, American and English musicians not being outdone when it comes to criticizing political actions. Festivals like Woodstock were places to welcome them during the Vietnam War, for instance, and singers became leaders of the anti-war movement from that time. What was their impact? Even if that impact is not quantifiable in a strict way, it may be considered as certain that besides other leaders, artists contributed to save(to the saving of) lives, resources, and money.
During the Apartheid in South Africa, a dictatorship based on racial discrimination that existed from 1948 to 1994, songs written by Johnny Clegg contributed to increasing global awareness about the fate of Nelson Mandela and various political detainees. Johnny Clegg’s music blends Zulu and European sounds in Afro Pop music, a genre that had emerged during 1960s and that was already sensitive to themes like equality between ethnicities and freedom.
The singer, who is also an anthropologist, has written compositions within the framework of two inter-racial formations of which the best known is Savuka. Even if Johnny Clegg refused to present himself as an activist because he did never join(he never joined) any political party, his work is significant in the long fight against dictatorship. Called ‘The White Zulu’, he also expressed himself on migrant workers in his country and other causes related to justice.
What are the motivations that induce artists to interfere with politics? They often seek justice, and freedom of speech helps them to express their views during a conflict, views that are generally shared by a not insignificant proportion of citizens represented by what can be called the global left, whose actions are justified by the fact that a lot of people generally love peace and do not have any desire to see their relatives going to war or their incomes reduced due to a wartime context.
Censorship in the framework of racial discrimination
Musicians do not have any political power; however, they can have a certain influence on their audiences, whether they are small or big. Besides war, other causes do not fail to interest musicians, poverty being one of them. In 1973, Bob Marley, touring in Haiti, composed ‘Get up stand up’ after seeing the precarious living conditions of the general population. Poverty being a global issue, the song was understood and welcomed by many people around the world.
Sometimes, local artists write in local languages to express themselves on local concerns. In South Africa, after the Apartheid, local black South African artists that are black artists could finally begin to give concerts in public venues, whereas before they were prosecuted by the police, especially when they were trying to reunite a mixed audience, without engaging in racial discrimination.
Music in South Africa during the Apartheid
Independently of any music style, discover which sounds may raise the awareness of your mind. Try the YMusic search engine, your free personal assistant (it includes musical criteria to select music) and know more about music.
Contemporary protest music from 1960s to 2000s
Animals and nature
A lot of protest songs were written during the Vietnam War. From the 1990s, various musicians, being sensitive to problems related to ecology and climate, talked about these issues. For instance, Michael Jackson composed ‘Earth Song’ in 1995. That blues and gospel ballad aims to increase the awareness of humanity of disasters caused by irrational human acts like war and environmental devastation that is harmful for animals as well as vegetation. For that song, Michael Jackson was congratulated by several green organizations.
‘When you gonna learn?’, composed by Jamiroquai in 1993, is another example of a climate change song. The musician underlines the dangers of apathy in the face of environmental issues, going on to explore how our children will deal with issues they did not create. The video of that song was censored because it contained images of whaling and experiments on animals. Let us also mention ‘Idioteque’ by Radiohead, in which their fans saw evocations of natural disasters.
Education and politics
There is of course nothing wrong when musicians make political statements not because it is trendy, but because they really support a cause. Musicians’ engagement for social change is not new. During the 1960s, artists like Bob Dylan or Joan Baez supported the American civil rights movement, against racial discrimination. For example, Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ quickly became representative of the civil rights period, being seen as an anthem.
In 1979, rock band Pink Floyd published a protest song against harsh schooling, especially in the United Kingdom: ‘Another Brick in the Wall’. The video of the song presents a child bullied by a schoolmaster and a whole classroom is visually pictured as a shapeless mass, the individual faces of the children disappearing: Pink Floyd’s song is denouncing thought control. In their country, Pink Floyd’s song was a hit, but in South Africa, it was banned by the apartheid government. It is not surprising: the Apartheid, active from 1948 to 1994, had legislative authority to separate black and white communities in their country, and schools were important relay points to ensure better dissemination of its racial policy. The system had an interest in controlling minds, and it banned numerous works of art and literature and even clothing trends. Let us notice that Pink Floyd’s co-founder, Roger Waters, continued to spead his protest message around the world and, in 2006, for instance, he went to Bethlehem to tag a separation barrier erected by Israel to protect the town against Palestinian terrorism, Israelis say, while Palestinians call it a means of racial segregation.
Let us also mention the work of U2, notably ‘Sunday bloody Sunday’, talking about acts of violence in Dublin, a town that was devastated by the military forces during the Irish War of Independence during the 1920s. U2 claimed to be not into politics, but into the politics of people, raising questions about human madness.
Contemporary protest music from 1960s to 2000s