On October 16th, 2008, politics and music are going to come together. Why? For the democratic party and Senator Obama. Both Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen are going to be playing together at a benefit concert for presidential hopeful - Barack Obama.
While you may have recently gone to a Springsteen or Billy Joel concert yourself, more than likely you didn't end up paying the prices that this concert will command. Tickets for this concert are actually selling for $500 as a minimum, going all the way up to $10,000 for some of the best tickets.
Now, one may wonder...should music and politics really be brought together in this manner?
My answer is YES! Whether you agree with Barack Obama or not, as you look through the past years of music in America, you'll find that music and politics cannot be separated. Sure, people have paid the price for getting political with their careers, and even with their lives as musicians, but this has never stopped them.
Music includes so many other parts of every day life that it's easy to see why musicians enjoy bringing politics into their music.
However, the problem comes when music is merely used as a political drawing point, instead of music taking politics and really having something intelligent to say about it.
Sure, no doubt this concert will be a blast. However, will the music say anything new? Will Springsteen and Joel introduce new music with a political spin, showing their political beliefs? Well, I think Aerosmith said it best...."Dream On!"
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1 comments:
I think that this a great post and a good angle to look at this election from. Springsteen and Joel are not the only ones to throw their support behind one of the candidates. Gretchen Wilson and the music mafia have shown their support for McCain as well as a well known reggaeton artist. I just hope that even though your readership may like these artists music that they don't vote for either candidate based on which musician supports which candidate but that they vote because of their beliefs on the issues.
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