Our People’s Voice? Populism and Popular Music

This article explores the relationship between music and populism. It is commonly assumed that popular music in particular is intrinsically populist. There is, though, no necessary link between the two, and this article examines how and when music becomes implicated in the populist politics of the right and the left. It does this by focusing on the rhetoric of song lyrics, on the stylistic forms of music’s political communication and on the organisational resources that music and musicians bring to populism. The article ends by considering the tensions between music as commercial product and music as political expression, and how this affects its relationship with populism. It uses the example of the English protest song as its main case study