Music can do many things: motivate, stir our indignation, give us hope, instruct, encourage empathy. It really can be a force of change. I mean, think of the giant social movements over the past hundred years. They all had their soundtracks.
We’ve come to expect musicians to be passionate about important causes (social justice, political, humanitarian, etc.). But is there a point where artists can take their rants and rallying cries too far?
My friend Tracey sent me some screenshots of a text exchange she had recently. She’d been digging music by The Polish Ambassador and wrote to a couple friends saying she hoped he’d be performing at What The Festival.
Obviously for Tracey’s friend, The Polish Ambassador had stepped over that line.
It’s okay to have a cause, but don’t bludgeon your fanbase with it or you’ll risk turning them off to your music AND your message.
Can I get an amen?
How do you support a movement or cause as an artist without alienating your fans? Have you ever felt assaulted from the stage by a preachy artist? Let us know in the comments below.
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Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.