It's an interesting idea, and one which, quite obviously, appeals to many of us. We all like to think that the musical movements we liked when we were spotty, argumentative youths had some impact upon the world at large, that our stand against 'the man' actually made a difference , that the bands whose LPs we played to death on our beat-up old record players were actually saying something important. But did they, did it and were they?
Take punk, for example. Despite my comments in the other thread, I do sometimes enjoy listening to and singing along with the Sex Pistols. They are funny, noisy and very entertaining. Their music wasn't particularly original, their lyrics were incoherent and consisted, to a large extent, of puerile attempts to shock with tasteless references to concentration camps and abortion, but they're just the thing to put on when you're feeling a bit fed up and need cheering up.
But did they change the world? Was the world, in 1982, say, much different from the one into which the Sex Pistols had burst five years earlier? Did the Sex Pistols bring down the government, put the conservative establishment in its place or energise a disgruntled British youth into an organised movement of protest, progress and reform?
Or did they just provide the soundtrack to a dreary era of industrial decline, community decay and apathy that culminated in 18 years of Conservative rule, call centres outsourced to India, Pop Idol and shell-suits? Did anything really change?
I've chosen the Sex Pistols as an example as they came up in the other thread, but the same could be said about hip-hop, thrash metal, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the blues, reggae, the hippy movement, acid house, David Hasselhoff... are any of these any more than mere entertainment? Or have they changed - can they change - the world in any kind of meaningful way?
Right, I'm off now to dig up my Megadeth t-shirt and persuade myself that the native Americans really are better off these days because Anthrax sang a song about them in 1987...
What do you reckon?