Thematic Collection 2: Intentions

The intentions of an artist's work is a hard thing to know. With some, it seems as though they have no purpose behind their music; the music is just a means towards popularity and achieving celebrity status. With others, their intentions in writing and performing their music seems very clear. But even in these instances, it is incredibly hard to examine the validity of one's intentions. This is because their actions, lyrics, and opinions are mediated and influenced through so many levels of our society. Regardless of whether or not we receive or interpret an artists message correctly, wouldn't you still say their is more value in this than listening to artists who seem to have no purpose, no intentions? Discussion on Joan Baez started me thinking about what other musicians seem to have really influenced society in an intentional way. What other artists are there who have given the perception, however true it may be, that their music comes secondary to another goal? That their music serves as a means towards social commentary or any sort of passion of theirs.



Bob Dylan. It's hard to start off a discussion about social commentary in music without giving a ton of credit to Bob Dylan. When he came on the scene in the 1960's he revolutionized everything about the music industry. Rock n' roll music will never be the same. He went against all the rules of popular music such as when he came out with the 6 minute long "Like A Rolling Stone," changing the standard for song length. More importantly however, he really started the art of writing lyrics which push the envelope. After Dylan, social commentary became more of a fixture in the song writing of all popular music to come.

Marvin Gaye. Yep, believe it or not, this man was passionate. His songs clearly had a theme and passion for love and sex. But his songs, especially from the 1970 album "Whats Going On" commented  on all sorts of social issues. While I can only speculate, I don't think it's too far out there to say that Gaye wrote his music out of a passion for teaching love in all its forms. This theme was present in all that he wrote, even those songs without words.

Rage Against the Machine is a band which seems to have a pretty clear message. It serves as a pretty good contrast in approach to Marvin, but none the less, they had a pretty clear message against political power and social inequality. Rage was the ultimate proponent of a truly equal society and there music and context definitely got that point across. Though they received a lot of criticism for commentaries, I still appreciate the way that the intentions behind their music seemed very forefront.