Music has long been a major part of public spheres, from old ceremonies to modern day live shows such as concerts and music festivals. Music has the ability to bring people together and form communities based around it. Additionally it can express many social and political messages. Music in public spheres can be used in different forms of activism such as protests and political rallies. With that being said its clear to see that music carries the ability to not only form communities but also unite people together and contain powerful messages in its lyrics that heavily resonate with the crowd also known as the public. As most popular songs are pretty light on the lyric aspect meaning that the contents of the songs are not usually for making a statement but a form of self-expression or entertainment. However there are exceptions to that as there are plenty of artists that use their platform to make statements that are very well known in the music industry. For example, let’s look at Anderson Paak’s song called Lockdown from 2020.(linked below) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgItkJCm09c
The song was released as a response to the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality that were happening across the United States. Additionally, the song title references the recent Covid-19 Pandemic which resulted in the country being in isolation which is also referenced later on in the song. With the use of this song Paak expresses his feelings and views on the current situation of the country in an interview with American songwriter Paak States. “You’re supposed to have a feeling when you see someone get killed in broad daylight in the streets for no reason, and it’s happening all the time. So, when artists speak on it and make these songs, it causes a reaction, and people look at it and feel something. You shouldn’t be silent to this. You shouldn’t be cool with seeing somebody die in the streets, then have such an opinion about looting.”(Benitez-Eves, 2020) I believe this is a great example of art being used as an addition to the public sphere. As music is a part of public sphere it creates more discussion and debates on the topics that certain songs were written about. With this being said it is arguable that the public sphere concept has certain flaws as one of them could be that Habermas stated that he doesn’t consider artistic expression to be associated with the public sphere. As he considered the public sphere proceedings to be mostly based on text and face to face communication however this makes it clear that communicating thoughts and opinions transcends regular conversations or debates.