Popular music has the ability to cause political change as Shuker describes, 'conscience rock' has the ‘potential for popular music to raise consciousness and money'. This however relies upon the context in which it is staged. For example, in 1984 Sir Bob Geldof and a collaboration of artists know as Band Aid released ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?’ into the Christmas charts and raised £8 million for famine relief. Shortly after USA for Africa followed with ‘We Are The World’, raising a subsequent $50 million for the same cause. John Street notes in Frith that: 'music has symbolic force'. However in 1987 Red Wedge, a group supporting the Labour Party was ultimately unsuccessful and Labour ended up losing the general elections. This could be down to the fact that Band Aid was a coming together for a world cause, where as Red Wedge was solely for political benefit. Music will not always guarantee political change, but it always has the capability to.
A decent post. I think that you are right to examine the emotive nature of he imagery that accompanied Band Aid alongside the more pragmatic decisions of an electorate at the ballot box in the case of Red Wedge.
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