Can popular music be a genuine force for political change?

In today’s music industry we tend to find many artists who like to take a political edge in their own music and style trying to influence their fans on a range of issues. For example more recently hip hop artists have been trying to raise awareness of the dangers of gun crime. I think that’s all music generally does – raises awareness of important issues. Just because an artist chooses to feature particular opinions in their music does'nt mean that things will necessary change at all. It just means there is more chance that something changing as awareness has been raised. Such events like Live Aid are a good example of where music could be seen as trying to influence political change. However again I think that events like this are just raising awareness and are just another way for artists to publicize their music. So generally I don't really believe that popular music could be seen as a genuine force for political change but I do however believe that it is ultimately very successful in raising awareness of such political issues.

Are youth sub cultures genuine signs of revolt or simply the manifestation of style?

‘Youth subcultures are youth-based subcultures with distinct styles, behaviors and interests.’(www.wikipedia.com) We can recognize these diferent subcultures usually by their sense of style or clothing and sometimes even the music which they listen to can be a common factor of these subcultures. As Dick Hebdige suggests youth is a painful transistional period so therefore this could be a factor which suggests that youth sub cultures could be seen as a sign of revolt. ‘Most youth subculture groups can be associated with a specific music genre, and in some instances music has been the defining characteristic of the group, such as: ravers, metalheads, hip hoppers, goths and punk rockers.’(www.wikipedia.com) I believe that youth sub cultures have a lot to do with style – it’s the style of particular individual which defines a person into a particular sub culture. People use their style to fit into a particular group, for example goths all dress in black and dress in a way that is indiviual to them.