Music Is Politics

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So, you're an up-and-coming music star, and you're probably thinking that all you really need to make it in the music industry is to be an exceptional singer/rapper, songwriter, and a very good, technically skilled musician, right?... WRONG! It's not that simple at all.

You see, the promotion of music is politics, and a lot more goes on behind the scenes. It's way more complicated than walking into the studio and recording a hit album. You (or more accurately the record company) have to worry about image, artistic directions, demographic considerations, marketing, censorship, courting radio and music networks through legal or, um...non-legal means, music critics' opinions, and paying close attention to trends. It's never just about music, for better or for worse. In the end, you could end up with disillusioned artists and fans.

In the end, artists have to be not just musicians, but also lawyers, accountants, and managers. If not, they're likely to get taken advantage of by Corrupt Corporate Executives who screw them out of royalties and rights to their music because they were ignorant to the business side of the industry, not to mention being stuck with a terrible, unfair contract that more or less makes them slaves to the label. Young, upcoming artists are more prone to becoming victims of these types of shady record deals. Rappers of the late 1980s and early 1990s were also victims of these deals, as were pop-punk and emo-pop acts from the early to mid-2000s and deathcore acts of the late 2000s and early 2010s. See analysis for more possible causes.

Compare Horrible Hollywood, The Wicked Stage, and Corrupting Pornography for other entertainment industries being depicted as evil and corrupting. See also New Media Are Evil, Old Media Are Evil, and The New Rock & Roll. Not to be confused with Protest Song, which is music about politics.

Related tropes and subtropes of this include:

• Blame Game: Usually happens when an album fails or underperforms. But the ultimate issue is usually people blaming other people over things like missing money, music rights, and royalties, etc...
• Creative Differences: Disillusionment over industry politics eventually leads to this, and a band may also sometimes eat itself alive if the infighting turns into one or more parties engaging in shady backroom deals to shut other members out. Basically, if a band's inactivity can be blamed on legal battles between members, this is why.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Is an artist relentlessly churning out throwaway releases that no one asked for (particularly greatest hits albums, remix compilations, or Updated Rereleases with little to justify them), or delivering clearly half-assed albums with a few obvious singles and lots of blatant filler (especially cover songs and rerecorded B-sides or bonus tracks from older releases)? Odds are certain that they are either required to put out multiple albums per year or have a deal that they want to get out of and are spamming releases in an attempt to fulfill the conditions.
• Contractual Purity: An artist could be a slave to this thanks to this trope, especially if morality clauses are involved. Morality clauses themselves are not inherently bad, especially in band situations - if one member does something fucked up, habitually pisses people off and burns bridges, has out-of-control substance issues that they cannot or will not address, or generally is a major and consistent source of embarrassment and hardship for the band, a morality clause can often provide an easy way to fire them without having to deal with a bunch of legal wrangling (and potentially shutting them out of royalties if they did something truly awful that would give many listeners a valid reason to boycott the music for fear of their money going to that person). Bands and labels alike know that members who bring lots of bad press are not good for a band's immediate or long-term prospects as a business entity, and Overshadowed by Controversy is a dreaded status that can and will ruin a band or permanently cripple it.
• Development Hell: Darkly speaking, Creative Differences (and contract disputes) can eventually lead to this trope as a form of punishment if the label doesn't get what they want. Essentially, they can invoke this trope on an uncooperative artist's album till the contract expires, which could take years and make it impossible to jump labels. Tragically, this also often ends up making it nearly impossible for said artist to re-establish themselves in the mainstream. Ever wanted to know what happens to that artist who dropped that great album and then disappeared? ...Well, this is probably what happened to them.
  • If it wasn't the label, it very well could have been band politics; rampant infighting and a revolving door of personnel caused by general dysfunction and/or a few members being control freaks or complete assholes can cause the conception of a new album to drag on and on or just eventually hit an insurmountable brick wall. Is a band touring on the same album for far longer than they should with a new lineup on at least a yearly basis with only vague assurances that a new album is coming with no actual evidence? Again, this trope is probably why.
• Executive Meddling: Created a badass tracklist for your album? Plus, it has a recurring theme, concept, and message throughout? ...Too bad, because you're gonna do it all over again whether you like it or not. Sometimes you're forced to shoehorn in songs (or even another artist) that the label wants, thus derailing the theme and concept or style of your whole album. Discussed in the number 1 spot in this Cracked Article. Same deal for touring. Got an awesome lineup all planned out and locked in? Well, that's too bad, because someone else just bought on, someone else's management is cashing in a favor owed to them by your management and shoehorning in one of their acts, someone else's management is being unreasonable and making ridiculous demands, or your management and someone else's management have beef and are locked in a power struggle!
• Follow the Leader: When a hot new trend emerges, labels are going to want in on the action, and that usually means that they're going to snatch up as many acts within that trend that have any kind of meaningful buzz as possible. The contracts that those acts tend to be given are more often than not highly exploitative and designed to wring as much out of them as possible while still giving them just enough to keep them going.
• Hollywood Accounting: The music industry is almost as bad about "creative" accounting methods as Hollywood is. Labels and managers are notorious for trying to cheat artists out of their royalties. The label will end up with the lion's share of the profits, even on an album that sells a lot of copies. In extreme cases, artists end up deep in debt to the label, to the point of bankruptcy. Streaming revenues are even more opaque.
• Horrible Hollywood: The music industry equivalent thereof. An environment filled almost exclusively with ruthless, shallow, bitchy, exploitative people who are more focused on chasing fleeting trends than on meaningful creative endeavors and who are perfectly willing to stab others in the back to get what they want tends not to be a very pleasant place to spend time.
• Hostility on the Set: The bigger the act and the more money that is involved, the more likely it will be that few, if any members get along or like each other, up to the point where they will travel on different buses, sleep at different hotels, and occupy different dressing rooms, only seeing each other at rehearsals, live performances, and sometimes recording or press conferences (and even then, it's completely possible for everyone to write on their own and send files to the others and then track them at separate studios, or to just use session musicians to do the album). If things are really contentious, they may have zero direct correspondence, instead communicating entirely through their management and legal staff.
• Hotter and Sexier: Often enforced on female artists, mainly to acquire a male Periphery Demographic. But could also very well be voluntary thanks to Money, Dear Boy.
  • Sexy Packaging: Could also double as false advertising. Especially if the album has nothing to do with sexual themes or topics.
  • Can also be used as a form of Artist Revolt by a younger artist attempting to break free from the aforementioned Contractual Purity. Because honestly, you can only go so far making sugar pop songs and albums while in your early to mid-20s without looking ridiculous. Of course, opinions vary on whether or not hotter and sexier (or Darker and Edgier for that matter) is a good way to go about breaking free of contractual purity.
• I Coulda Been a Contender!: Happens a lot to naive or inexperienced new artists who quickly find themselves getting lots of attention and enjoying a day in the limelight, only to get chewed up and spit out by the business side of things. Did you see a new artist that got a lot of buzz tour relentlessly for a year or two until they suddenly imploded and either broke up or had a massive lineup change that destroyed their momentum? If you did, they probably got screwed by everyone on their team and either cut their losses or cracked under the pressure and ate each other alive.
• Jaded Washout: Anyone who has spent enough time in the music industry will tell you that this is a common phenomenon. Most, if not all of them were wide-eyed young idealists at one point who had some success, then either made a bad choice that they were led to believe was a good choice at the time or were just screwed over by someone who they trusted, and the experience changed them forever. They almost always become bitter cutthroats who are paranoid of getting screwed over again, so they instead opt to screw other people over before they can screw them, or just look out for themselves and lead newcomers to their likely doom as long as there's a tangible benefit to doing so.
• The Last DJ: In the literal sense if a DJ refuses to adhere to the playlist. Alternatively, it could happen to the artists themselves if they refuse to compromise.
• Lighter and Softer: Usually enforced on Rock & Roll, Heavy Metal, and Hip-Hop artists. But, just like Hotter and Sexier, this could also very well be voluntary.
• "The Music Industry Sucks" Song: A song in which the artist airs grievances against their record label, producers, managers, or the industry in general; usually as a result of executive meddling, getting financially ripped off, or some combination thereof.
• Radio Friendliness: If you wanna get played on the radio, your song better not be too dark, too controversial, too political (even if music is politics, that doesn't mean politics is music), too long (gotta fit those commercials in), or too niche.
• Record Producer: Specifically The Producer from Hell and The Acrimonious Producer.
• Revolving Door Band: Often a result of this trope, though not always.
• Screwed by the Network: If an exec doesn't like you, the label just doesn't think you're a priority, or just has disorganized management, good luck getting promoted or even having your album in stores. The latter was a much more serious problem when physical record stores were the only game in town. It's still depressingly common in the touring world; if someone doesn't like you or doesn't think you're worth prioritizing, good luck getting on quality tours. You're going to get nothing but B- and C-market tours with shitty routing, headliners who don't draw (or, worse, headlining runs when you don't draw), and buy-on slots for whatever bigger tours you do get offered (usually by over-the-hill headliners who haven't been relevant in a while and are using you to subsidize the tour so their pay doesn't get cut).
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: While payola is less of an issue than it used to be due to the declining importance of radio, sponsored tracks on streaming services have taken on a very similar role. Inverted in the case of things like tour and label buy-ons: tour buy-ons are often sold to up-and-coming artists as an investment for necessary exposure, but seldom work out that way, as buy-on bands always play at the bottom of the bill (meaning that the crowds will be sparse, especially if doors are regularly late), are often treated poorly by headliners, and are regularly looked down upon by their peers, and the "exposure" often leads to overexposure, as regularly buying on to bills will quickly cause audiences to grow tired of you and will give you a reputation for being "that band" that is on every tour, but has no fanbase and never gets bigger. If a headliner regularly solicits buy-ons, then they are almost certainly over the hill and their guarantees have gone down, and they use buy-ons to subsidize the tour. Label buy-ons, meanwhile, are strictly scams - no decent label is going to request money up front in order to get signed.
• Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: On one side, hedonistic, hard-partying, and occasionally debauched images are often played up for marketing purposes, especially with hard rock and hip-hop artists. On the other side, this is a huge source of "you should have been a fly on the wall" in the industry, especially for management - being a manager of an artist who lives life way too hard for their own good involves sweeping lots of ridiculous, dysfunctional, and often utterly fucked-up situations under the rug and coming up with plausible cover stories for when you have to cart them off to rehab or when the band desperately wants to fire someone but can't (or when they did something truly heinous that is going to get out one way or another), as well as figuring out how to explain this latest snafu to an executive who is already sick of their shit.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: It's distressingly common for albums to go unreleased, due to label shakeups, executives being unhappy with the finished product, or even labels going out of business completely. Sometimes, another label might step in and release it, but often the only way these albums see the light of day is through bootlegs.
• Troubled Production: Due to substance abuse, issues with producers, tensions among band members, and the pressure to produce a hit, as a band gets bigger, producing albums becomes much more difficult.

Fictional examples

Real Life Examples

• See examples here.