Music & Politics

First of all I won't be giving my own political views in this post, this is a music blog and not a place to put them.

We've just had the general election and what we've learned is that Massive Attack have voted for the Green Party, Holly Valance for Reform and Bob Geldof for Conservative. Of course many musicians have voted for Labour and Liberal Democrats which is what is generally expected of famous musicians in general.

Whilst Massive Attack have always been political and have supported Labour in the past, voting for the Greens this time won't have come as a surprise to many. Back when Holly Valance was a pop singer or on Neighbours I think few would have predicted she would be voting for what is basically the new UKIP in 2 decades time. Bob Geldof may be a surprise given his spoken out against the conservative party in the past.

However, I would say few if any of the fans of these musicians will be influenced by their voting intentions, if anything because most fans will be over a certain age. Even Holly Valance is over 40 now and her fans from her pop days won't be much younger.

What is more likely is that if a fan disagrees with how the musicians they like vote that they will consider whether they should continue to listen to their music anymore. Look at the backlash there's been towards Morrissey in recent years because of his views. Personally I only really care about the music, but at the same time I do understand.

When I first got into rave music I was too young to go to raves. The DJs were just names on tapes, I never knew anything about them really. What I did know aside from the music was that it was peace, love and unity. That's what the MCs would say, it was all one big family.

As a teenager listening to the tapes, I couldn't wait to get out to the raves myself and be part of this family. In my mind there were 10,000 like minded people dotted around the country who would all come together to dance the night away at The Sanctuary.

Once I got to a rave reality started to hit. Thinks I quickly learned were a sizeable number of people were raving for the drugs rather than the music, many had the attitude that you're either happy hardcore or drum & bass but can't like both (I like both), the Birkenhead crew you'd hear the MCs shout out to had a lot of people who went to raves just to fight and/or rob people, once you'd reached the last set of the night most people had gone home and that Bletchley train station after a rave really wasn't a great place to be with many grouchy people coming down from the drugs they'd taken.

I've also since met several people who had been to raves who weren't really into the scene at all. They'd go just to give it a try, or they were dragged along by their friends.

There would however be some internet forums where people would discuss all things rave. Some still exist now. In fact what I'm about to say applies to just about every common interest forum I've been to. What you get is lots of arguments which in turn get followed by insults to each other.

Specifically on the rave forums though, as time went on people got older, stopped going to raves with many not really liking the newer music. Then the off topic boards would get more popular which highlighted many differences of opinion. There was one happy hardcore forum that in the end had barely anyone posting about music and in the off topic board it was dominated by one particular member preaching about the BNP and making racist posts. We're talking about a forum that existed because of a scene that was supposed to all be about peace, love and unity.

As much as we may want music to unite us, the reality is that a music fan is just a normal human being at the end of the day, some will be people you'll like and some you won't.

I remember reading about the rise and fall of Guru Josh in the early 90s. The reason why he was nowhere to be seen after being big in 1990 was because he was found to be a supporter of the conservative party. This was a big no-no in the rave scene because it was the conservatives who wanted to stop the raves from happening.

It would however be naive to think that none of the 10,000 people raving in a field in 1989 would vote conservative. It's rumoured that one of those ravers from the acid house days was future Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

Whilst I do know more now about those rave DJs I listened to as a teenager, I still don't know how any of them voted at the election. Some may have tweeted it, but to be honest I don't really care who they voted for. 

Going back to the 3 musicians I mentioned at the start of this post. Massive Attack are unlikely to harm their record sales by voting Green because it's in line with what we already know about them. Holly Valance has received a lot of backlash for her views but I gather she has no desire to sell any more records. Bob Geldof has received a lot of backlash for lots of things so has nothing to lose really plus he'll still be rich if he never sells another record again.

There are other musicians though who rely on record sales to keep a roof over their heads. If they support a party that goes against what their fanbase expect, do you really think they'd be vocal about it?