I'm often championing the relationship between arts and politics, as I like the music I listen to to be meaningful, and I think artists should be commenting on the world we live in. But of course there are lots of musicians who just shouldn't be political because they just say daft things, and they just end up as part of the morass of conformist irritating do-gooder liberal pop scene. I'm thinking here of Coldplay and U2 obviously.
A critique of this scene can be found epitomised in Oasis's Noel Gallagher, who isn't too political or sophisticated, but is scathing of conformist and do-gooding pop. There's a good profile on him on Spiked, which salutes him because 'in a world where rebellion has become just another gimmick, Gallagher’s antagonistic streak is refreshing'.
As you'll see in this article, Gallagher
- thinks Thom Yorke is po-faced and boring
- chastises 'arseholes' like Elton John and Robbie Williams for 'lock[ing] themselves off from humanity'
- thinks George Michael's attempts at social commentary are laughable
- criticises the British Labour Party for going into Iraq, but says 'I think the Labour Party’s crowning achievement is the death of politics. There’s nothing left to vote for.'
- criticises the miseralibilism of environmentalists: '‘Greens are fucking hippies with no place in the world'.
- says Live 8 was a naive waste of time.
