“Separate the art from the artist” is a phrase we know and… question. Fans and critics alike foster opinions on how top musicians should use their fame. Should musicians stick to singing and songwriting, or do they have an inherent duty to promote social and political beliefs on their platform?
Is All Art Inherently Political
Music, just like any form of creative expression, comes from some source of inspiration and is a unique product of its creator. We are products of our environments, but we also can change our environments — in essence, what the purpose of art is. With so many genres of music having meaningful lyrics to accompany the instrumentals, and so many genres being products of culture and the greater population, it’s difficult not to see political undertones in every musician.
Punk, folk, rock, hip hop… the list of genres rooted in culture and politics is endless. Even if the current or popular artists don’t cover political topics in their songs, they still owe their success to their forefathers, and we owe it to the forefathers to analyze their music in the context from which it came from.
Do Outspoken Musicians Deserve More Support?
The Coachella 2025 lineup was truly stacked. Despite the awesome live performances that festival-goers were fortunate to see, one ordering on the lineup caused a bit of uproar: Green Day, a band who many agree saw their peak in the aughts, headlined over Charli XCX each Saturday.
With politics becoming more and more polarizing, the knowledge of who supports what is now one of the foreboding questions music fans have when an artist is on the come up. Finding out an artist believes in good is one thing, but watching them preach the beliefs you share to their millions of fans is an even more rewarding experience.
Green Day has famously stayed on the right side of history throughout their career. This shouldn’t come as a surprise from a punk rock band, though, since the genre is rooted in anti-establishment and rejection of political idealism. With their famous American Idiot track being a rebuke of George W. Bush’s activity with Iraq, it came as no surprise that 21 years later the group used this song to voice their opinions on the current United States president:
“I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda.”
Billie Joe Armstrong
Whether you agree with Green Day or not, the online discourse about what politically uninvolved performers deserve is interesting to consider. Should artists now be required to have a second line on their resume labeled “activism” to get booked as frontliners, or even listen to their music at all? While this might sound like an easy question to answer, the true challenge comes to light when questionable singers make music that is just too good.
Is Political Involvement Personal?
It’s hard to argue that politics haven’t become personal in the past decade, at least in the United States where the polarization of democrats and republicans stretches farther than ever and the civil rights of humans are constantly being challenged. At the very least it’s important to vote, but that message isn’t so easy to get to people who are uninformed or politically checked out. Patriots whose beliefs are a defining part of their identity urge their peers to post online and attend protests, but the diehard ones don’t stop there.
Severing friendships with politically uninvolved people has become the norm for many teenagers and young adults online. These people have started looking to their favorite celebrities — often musicians — to speak up as well. Where people draw the line for support of their #1 artists who are or aren’t politically involved is not a new phenomenon, but one that has definitely seen uptake with the advent of the internet and parasocial relationships.
Normal people like you and me don’t have to consider the future of our careers if we show our support for political concerns, but celebrities do. Career artists want a certain amount of success, and their actions are affected by their care for the type of supporters that surround them versus the political message they want to send to the world. Nothing on Earth exists in a vacuum.
Do you separate the art from the artist? Let us know on Instagram and tag @VALLEYmag!
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