'Musicians - Stop being self-elected martyrs on stage & get back to rock n'roll'
The answer is: No they shouldn't, for one main reason - it's boring. It's the opposite of rock n' roll. It's painfully pompous. It's as tedious and predictable as a beauty queen going on about world peace, and has about as much depth.
I love music, but musicians can be docile morons. Many will say whatever it takes to make everyone love them. For every superbrain like David Bowie, there's an absolute thick wielding a mic.
I respect them creatively more than any other artists, yet the uninformed, performative blather they've the hubris to come out with is mortifying. It's generally student politics stuff, safely in line with establishment consensus, yet held up as being punk and brave.
So it's also hypocritical, as well as pretentious, self-promoting and publicity-seeking. Sincere activists are admirable, no matter if you agree with their cause or not, but bandwagon-jumpers do campaigns more harm than good.
Take the Glastonbury fiasco over last weekend, when there was a queue of bands and singers trampling over one another to take to the stage and bash Israel. It's the easiest thing in the world to do, at the present political moment. And it guarantees attention.
One of those subject to a police hate speech probe is punk duo Bob Vylan, who chanted: 'Death to the IDF.' Up to last week you would have said: 'Bob Who?' So, job done.
The hate speech laws in Britain are wrong, in my view; censoring and heavy-handed. Yet those who sacrificed free speech to support them are now the same ones complaining about them, seemingly only realising such laws are for all. Hate that.
Belfast rap trio Kneecap have morphed into performance artists with a gift for publicity. They think they're subversive, mocking Maggie Thatcher, who was last British PM back in 1990 and is dead 13 years.
At the recent gig in Dublin's Fairview, Mo Chara told the crowd; 'F**k Kemi Badenoch.' Few in the Republic could tell you who Badenoch is.
But where's the fun in any of it? As a music fan, I'd prefer if musicians left politics aside at live gigs and instead delivered tear-the-roof-off shows worthy of Sly and the Family Stone.
And the argument that 'musicians wouldn't have to speak if politicians did their job right' is whiny, entitled, self-martyrdom. Do you actually think you've the power to change anything?
Thankfully, all the smart, genuine artists know this. They put any social commentary in the songs - which is from the heart and has far greater effect.
Ireland's live music queen Roisin Murphy is one of the most clear-minded on the issue, posting during the week about it: 'Division is running through its veins. Ego and self-hood is destroying the music scene. No fun, no unity, creativity last. It's empty.'
Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson pinpointed Glastonbury as one of the hotspots for such preening indulgence. He previously labelled the festival 'the most bourgeois thing on the planet' and said he'd refuse a spot on the line-up, as he didn't want to play 'in front of Gwyneth Paltrow and a perfume-infused yurt'.
Noel Gallagher deserves the last word. The Oasis singer said Glastonbury had become 'preachy and virtue-signally'.
'I don't like it in music. Little f**king idiots waving flags around and taking to the stage saying: 'Hey guys, isn't war terrible, yeah? Let's all boo war.' And all that. It's like: look. Play your f**king tunes and get off.'
The Irish Mirror's Crime Writers Michael O'Toole and Paul Healy are writing a new weekly newsletter called Crime Ireland. Click here to sign up and get it delivered to your inbox every week
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