What do pop stars know about the world?

From the BBC Website

By Brendan O'Neill
Deputy Editor of Spiked Online - June 30 2005

"Pop and rock stars are nowadays as influential in government circles as they are among their teenage fans. Is this necessarily a good thing?

There has always been a little bit of politics - as Ben Elton might say - in pop and rock music.

Ever since a wild-haired Bob Dylan sang The Times They Are A-Changin' in 1963 - in which he warned senators and congressmen that 'There's a battle outside and it's raging' - popular singers have ventured, with varying degrees of success, into the world of political protest and dissent.

Some 40 years later, the times really have a-changed. Politically inclined pop stars no longer strum their frustrations in catchy three-minute tunes; they have become global statesmen instead. They no longer only play political songs but have become real political players.

Take Live 8, the global gig being organised by former Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof and one-time Ultravox frontman Midge Ure, due to take place in London, Berlin, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Paris, Philadelphia and Rome on 2 July.

In the run-up to the concert pop stars have been everywhere, proffering their views on what the powerful G8 nations should do to tackle poverty and pestilence in Africa.

But what do pop stars really know about the world? And why should the views of these well-heeled singers of throwaway songs be taken more seriously than anybody else's - which they are, everywhere from Whitehall to the White House? ....."

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