Case Study 1: On the Left-Right Dichotomy and Its Musical Manifestations

The “death of ideologies”, and the perception of the left-right distinction as something obsolete, have been a dominant discourse in the last few decades, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Within popular music, the ideological status of politically-committed songs and songwriters also seems to have become less relevant than it used to be, occasionally disappearing in a melting pot of neutrality, disengagement and—most of all—program-based (as opposed to ideology-based) politics. This case study intends to present ideological commitment as a vivid process within/through the various phenomena related to popular music (individual acts, entire genres, etc.) as a still very lively one, particularly when it comes to the infamous left/right distinction. Indeed, despite a visible crisis at the level of “political action”, ideologies (even in their clearest connotations) have never been “dead” as cultural models, and their vitality has been constantly tangible throughout the whole of popular music history, last decades included.