Draisey-Collishaw, R. orcid.org/0000-0002-3187-7564 and Pegley, K. (2023) “Disinclined to politicize”? Music and Canadian politics 2.0. Music & Politics, 17 (2). ISSN 1938-7687
Abstract
Musicians, scholars, and even reference materials are surprisingly united in the contention that music and politics occupy separate spheres in Canada. However, we suggest that denying the intersection of music and politics in Canada potentially blinds us to the complex ways in which artists, mediators, and audiences—that is, produsers—participate in projects that are undeniably ideological. Indeed, we suggest that appreciating the entwined relationship of music, politics, people, and contexts for circulation is particularly important at a moment when the participatory culture that prevails on social media platforms is increasingly normalised and the authority of established knowledge sources breaks down in the face of “controlless” circulations of content that radically challenge our capacities to communicate across partisan lines. Our analysis takes the form of three case studies: Tony Turner’s “Harperman” (2015), Adrian Sutherland’s “Politician Man” (2019), and Brock Tyler’s “Speaking Moistly” (2020). Our analysis interprets each example according to musical form, lyrics, creator intentions, and genre affiliations but, critically, also addresses how contexts for circulation, curation by produsers, and the affect of musicking illuminates kaleidoscopic meanings that accrue through the complex interactions of music and politics—meanings, notably, that cannot be discerned through a focus on the musical object or political landscape alone.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Canada, political song; meme song; protest song; Web 2.0, social media; produsage; Stephen Harper; Justin Trudeau; Tony Turner; Adrian Sutherland; Brock Tyler; Federal Election 2015; Federal Election 2019; Covid-19 Pandemic |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Music (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Oct 2023 13:37 |
Last Modified: | 25 Oct 2023 13:37 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | University of Michigan Library |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3998/mp.4571 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:204608 |