Will Pop Music Get Canceled Next?
Joe Rogan had to go and open up his big, Spotify-fed mouth.
The podcast giant blasted his critics within the music platform eager to cancel him for sharing the “wrong” thoughts. Rogan responded, in part, by questioning why the woke staffers weren’t offended by the hateful lyrics peddled on the platform.
“If you have a problem with people saying terrible s—t and you work for Spotify, maybe you should listen to some of the lyrics,” Rogan stated. “Because some of the lyrics and some of the f—king music that you guys play over and over and over again makes my shit pale in comparison.”
Rogan has a point, but he may have inadvertently steered Cancel Culture in a new direction as 2020 draws to a close.
Popular music.
Yes, Cancel Culture dipped a toe in the musical waters prior to Black Live Matters’ ascendance. Woke warriors tried to cancel “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” for the past two years with little luck. Chances are John Legend’s woke reboot, replete with organic lyrics like, “it’s your body and your choice,” won’t last a fraction as long as the Frank Loesser original.
Still, it hinted at a new front in the woke mob’s assault on American culture.
Grammy winners Lance and April Ledbetter may have started the ball rolling with little prompting from the usual suspects.
The music producers behind the new box set, “The Harry Smith B-Sides,” nixed a trio of songs they deemed problematic tied to the famed experimental filmmaker.
The LA Times shares the story, including the modern context that made the cancellation possible.
It made sense from a business perspective: A single out-of-context tweet expressing outrage at the offending songs might light a fire they couldn’t control.
As Dan Rather might say … “courage.”
Pop music is a target rich environment for Cancel Culture. Scolds can scour through the 1960s to find ditties that capture dating mores now deemed archaic. Others can point to a musician’s private life as all the reason necessary to cancel him or her.
Some music lovers feel genuinely conflicted about Michael Jackson’s musical legacy given the serial allegations lobbed against him during his life.
Should Cancel Culture feast on pop music next expect the usual array of inconsistencies and hypocrisies. The few openly right-leaning singers may be the first ones attacked to make sure they don’t use their clout for GOP-friendly causes.
Other attacks could come at random, but chances are the songs in question may be linked to beloved institutions or holidays. Cancel Culture loves to break down American institutions, be it statues of the Founding Fathers or attacks on the nuclear family structure.
Either way, musicians should start speaking up, and soon, a la Nick Cave or they’ll be the ones having to craft social media apologies for singing the wrong lyrics at the wrong time.
Photo by Dark Rider on Unsplash
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