"Using music to promote hate seems to be the bastardisation of music to me"
About this Quote
Calling it a "bastardisation" is a deliberately ugly word for an ugly act. Chris Lowe isn’t politely disagreeing with political messaging in art; he’s drawing a line around what music is supposed to do in public life, then showing how easily that ideal can be hijacked. The phrasing matters: "Using music" suggests music is a tool, something you can deploy. Lowe’s pushback is that music shouldn’t be reduced to a delivery system for poison.
There’s also a quiet admission embedded in the complaint: music is powerful enough to be worth weaponizing. Hate movements don’t just want arguments; they want atmosphere. A chant with a beat travels farther than a pamphlet. Music bypasses the deliberative brain and goes straight for belonging, adrenaline, and identity. That’s why the idea feels like desecration to Lowe - it abuses the very intimacy that makes songs stick.
The intent reads less like sanctimony and more like an artist defending the social contract between performer and listener: you can make sad music, angry music, even confrontational music, but hate is different because it demands an enemy and recruits a crowd. Coming from a pop musician, it’s also a subtle critique of the culture industry’s neutrality pose. If music can sell anything, it can also sell ideology. Lowe’s line insists that not all uses are equal, and that artists are allowed - maybe obligated - to treat some appropriations as contamination rather than "expression."
There’s also a quiet admission embedded in the complaint: music is powerful enough to be worth weaponizing. Hate movements don’t just want arguments; they want atmosphere. A chant with a beat travels farther than a pamphlet. Music bypasses the deliberative brain and goes straight for belonging, adrenaline, and identity. That’s why the idea feels like desecration to Lowe - it abuses the very intimacy that makes songs stick.
The intent reads less like sanctimony and more like an artist defending the social contract between performer and listener: you can make sad music, angry music, even confrontational music, but hate is different because it demands an enemy and recruits a crowd. Coming from a pop musician, it’s also a subtle critique of the culture industry’s neutrality pose. If music can sell anything, it can also sell ideology. Lowe’s line insists that not all uses are equal, and that artists are allowed - maybe obligated - to treat some appropriations as contamination rather than "expression."
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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