If you were to run your eyes over the lists of best-selling singles and most downloaded songs of the past few years, it would be hard to find many songs that directly mention the late-2000s recession, despite the massive impact it has had on much of the public. This is hardly surprising; political songs rarely chart highly, love is always going to be a more popular song theme than unemployment and one of music’s greatest assets is its capacity for escapism which is much needed by many at the moment.
You could say that there are subtle nods towards the situation, such as the appearance of slightly dystopian or politically charged videos from some of the most popular artists around, less songs dismissive of the poor compared to ten or fifteen years ago, less conspicuous consumerism and lower budget videos, but a lot of these trends can be explained by other influences. Lower budget videos are a direct result of the internet and how we watch videos now (I’ll let “Michael Destiny” explain this one). Continue reading
