Rock Star Blather

"We will teach our twisted speech to the young believers." - The Clash

Gore talks until he's green. Bono ponies up about third world debt. Bruce Springsteen sings war protest songs. Ted Nugent stumps for gun owner's rights. Rosie O Donnell complains about undercooked chicken or whatever the hell she complains about.

Leads to a good question from a comment to my last post. I paraphrase, but something along the lines of: "Should rock stars and celebrities use their fame to promote causes they feel are important, or should they just shut the hell up?"

Musicians have long been a part of protest culture. And I'm not just talking about the sixties. Many folk songs were written by populist rebel types as a way to get the word out on beefs against the people in power. Many old songs were "masked", allegories that told stories that were essentially political protest songs. Mostly about the rich man keeping the poor man/black man/certain type of religious man down. So music itself has always been a statement. Of course the statement may be stupid...

And so can Rock Stars and celebrities. But we all have opinions. What's wrong with the A listers airing their opionions, too? God knows my opinions are pretty fucking useless, but I'm spewing them here. So why not them?

Well, for one thing, their opinions are going to be heard by millions of people (whereas my blog reaches tens of people), so they better choose them carefully. When I was 22, I was of the strong (and I thought well reasoned) opinion that anyone who didn't get rip roaring drunk and stoned every night was a tool. Now if I was a rock star and said that, say in an interview with on E!, I'd be beaten by a bunch of justifiably worried parents. (Wait, they do say that...and when the parents come to beat them, the dads get crushed by security and the moms end up boning the rock star.)

The company line from the celebs and their backers is that with all this exposure, they can bring attention to certain opinions or issues that the mainstream media or our society as a whole would rather avoid.

But the flipside of the "educating the masses" concept is that many of these celebrities are so annoying that seeing them talking about anything is enough to drive someone to the opposite camp. When Alec Baldwin said he was going to move out of the country if Bush got elected I was like, "please do." And I'm no fan of Bush. (Well at least not the President).

These celebs need to think (and be honest) about the purpose of their statements. Is it really to effect change, or is it to draw even more attention to themselves? Because they need to know that there's a good chance that just by speaking on an issue they'll piss enough people off to vote against that issue. So they're actually acheiving the opposite result.

I agree that it depends on the issue, the celebrity and the manner of the delivery. Hey, if someone is asked a question in an interview about their opinion, then what's wrong with answering? But making speeches and backing candidates, then they need to be careful about their own credibility and whether they're helping or hurting their own cause.

A line here or there, a throwaway joke in a concert about sticking it to the man, is fun and all part of music. Once they start on a big speech though, they lose me. They may have the right to have an opinion, but I could care less about theirs. Unless it's funny. Or really stupid. Then I'm into it.

So the ultimate answer to the question is yes, they should shut up. But they also should stop doing seventeen year old girls and they should stop ingesting copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. But that's not happening. Like they're going to listen to you? No. So you're gonna be forced to listen to them. Have another beer.

Have to carry the Patriots/Ecuador blog for one more week.

Mick Underground. Delivering you pointless drivel since 2007.