Admittedly, we’ve been pretty hooked on Kanye’s Twitter rants over the past few weeks, but it seems that whilst everyone and anyone is entitled to opinion, people get a bit pissy when it’s the major music stars who cite their own views. Amy Kean, self confessed secret pop-lover (and all-round fairly-important-person in the media world) tells us her thoughts!

When politics goes POP: why we’d rather be led by psychos than Britney, Kanye and Jade

I don’t think I’d ever describe Britney Spears as ‘polemical’. Aside from some drugs-driven CRAY almost a decade ago (I’m not judging) she’s never been one to actively and aggressively divide opinion. And why the hell would she when she’s got Vegas tickets to sell?

But this was the word used when Spears posted a series of almost laughably (maybe that was the intention) staged shots with Hillary Clinton – announcing the presidential hopeful an inspiration, next to the hashtag #ImWithHer. Good on you, Britney! Using your public platform to influence America’s youth and support strong women. Although of course Britney was only ‘With Her‘ for about ten minutes before editing the post and removing the hashtag (and I’ve got screengrabs because I’m a sneaky little social media stalker):

Now you see it; now you don't! Britney removes #ImWithHer
Now you see it; now you don’t! Britney removes #ImWithHer

Why? Well, people lost their shit, obviously. Britney was voicing an opinion. She was picking a lane, believing in something, trying to hand out advice to a generation that’s so drastically misunderstood and over-generalised that we hang our hats on the term Millenials like it makes us some savvy trendspotter granted access into Club Cool. In reality, it does the opposite.

“Don’t do this, Britney!” people cried (commented), “I’ll never forgive you for this”, they spat (commented) and “stay away from politics” because, as one of her fans argued, it’s too ‘polemical’. There were positive comments of course, but no one ever edited a social post because loads of people said nice things about it.

So why do we all get so upset when pop royalty crosses the line and starts talking about real, important life? Like, the Government and education and war and shit?

The answer: we’re jealous. And naïve.

If you’ve in any way spoken about Kanye West in the last 3 weeks then you’re a bonafide sucker, because you’ve fallen headfirst into his media trap. You’ve been strung up, feet-first like a gullible bear in West’s cultural woods. Ouch.

But it’s brilliant, of course.

Because what Kanye West does so very well is understand what gets people going, what riles them and sparks vocal outrage. His ingenious rants are the result of a calculated PR campaign. Let’s get this straight: he’s the most talked about man in the world right now, Tidal (the only place you can access his album in full) became the number one app in the United States and he’s just launched the latest instalment of his partnership with sports-monsters, Adidas.

But everyone’s laughing. Why? Because Kanye this week had the audacity to suggest that textbooks are too expensive. I mean, this was in and amongst a variety of other hyperbolic tweets and… um… ‘performances’ that have kept us entertained. Like the way he announced his actual album.

So as Kanye made the case on social media for cheaper textbooks, the Twitterati responded with smug shit like the below:

Eek. This is awkward but… I’m not entirely sure it’s the same thing? What you’re comparing here Jon is what should be considered a basic human right, versus the way that a man makes money, within the context of a long-established billion-pound industry that has always charged rich people lots of money for luxuries they want. I don’t think it’s the same, Jon. I really don’t. You can’t can’t even compare these two things, Jon. It’s like me giving Fearne Cotton shit for presenting Children in Need but then also taking home a decent wage at the end of the month via other projects. THE CHILDREN ARE IN NEED, FEARNE. GIVE THAT MONEY BACK.

Jon! You’re getting confused.

But everyone’s laughing because isn’t it silly that a rap star should have opinions! Saying things in silly ways that aren’t clever soundbites. It’s easy to disagree with him and laugh because if we agreed with him then this would all be true and sad and he’s rich so Sssshhhhhh. Even though we let Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have opinions and they’re pretty fucking loaded too, FYI, they just voice their opinions in a more media-trained way. And this of course is against a backdrop of the US presidential race where millions of people are pledging their support for anti-abortion, anti-gun control, anti-immigration psychotic Republicans who take photos of their rifles on Instagram, promising to make America great again. And Kanye’s the silly one.

So it seems that unless you‘re Billy Bragg, or at a push Kendrick Lamar, POP STARS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE AN OPINION. You have one, maybe two talents and you leave it at that, OK? Even Beyonce faced a certain backlash after her latest release Formation, complete with politically-charged video and Superbowl performance. It was too much politics, so we instead decided to focus on what she wore (a Michael Jackson-esque jacket) and the fact that she nearly fell over.

beyonce superbowl 2016 trip

So why wouldn’t we want pop stars to represent us in Government? Well if we look at the facts… musicians are likely to be more emotionally intelligent (although I’d probably exclude Liam Gallagher and a few members of So Solid Crew), the best ones know how to get the attention of the masses, and they’re more likely to have a more diverse set of backgrounds than the Bullingdon boys’ club that spews out a large percentage of our Tory leaders. But even in the UK we don’t like it when ‘dumb’ stars get all democratic on our asses.

When Jade Thirlwall, exceptional member of exceptional pop band Little Mix expressed her sadness at the Government’s decision to bomb Syria, she faced an almighty barrage of patronising responses, including ‘leave politics to the grown-ups’ and ‘I’d like to hear Harry Styles’ views on qualitative easing, next’. Even Labour MP Jamie Reed waded in.

I’m not sure whether it’s because she’s young, a girl, from Newcastle, sings songs or all of the above, but she was very quickly shouted down for expressing a political opinion. The good thing is, she refused to take it back.

Little Mix are, in reality, a WIN for modern feminism. Real feminism that just wants women and young girls to be confident and equal, treated well not badly. The single Salute was an absolute banger, attempting to enlist an army of young independent lady badasses (ladasses?) inspiring them to be strong and not rely on the validation of men. Their latest album, Weird, is a pure celebration of what it means to be young, eccentric and unapologetically barmy – because as the Mad Hatter reminded us, all the best people are. My young nieces are part of the Little Mix army, and if these are the voices of the next generation, then I couldn’t be prouder or more excited about what’s coming next. Jade Thirlwall for Prime Minister!

This is why politicians are out of touch. Jamie Reed is an adorable attention seeker who publicly published his resignation letter a mere minute after Jeremy Corbyn won the Labour leadership election last year, and – despite still being a member of the Labour party – moans, pretty much daily, about its weak leadership, like a toddler that wants to go to the toilet but no one will listen. Call me fussy, but I’d prefer my politicians to be a bit more humble, loyal and driven by the greater good rather than self-promotion but hey that’s just me… I’m also a Little Mix fan, so what do I know? Jamie? Jade could teach you a thing or two about being a grown-up. Have a word with Jon about sorting your priorities out.

But whilst politicians claim to have our best interests at heart – because they’ve been trained to do so – pop stars are a little more self-obsessed. They tell us to save elephants whilst wearing pink wigs and humming a catchy tune. Perhaps this is the problem – as a population we want our leaders to take things seriously, make it their day job, provide rousing stage-managed speeches about what’s best for us and our country, whether they mean it or not. But pop stars just have an opinion or a feeling, they’re not quite sure how to articulate it, and that’s not enough for us.

Maybe we need them to stay at the bottom of the intellectual ladder. If we can’t feel prettier, more talented, or richer than these musical demi-gods, then maybe we can feel like we’re smarter – it’s long been a popular pastime to ridicule the rich and famous for barely knowing the day of the week it is, let alone the name of the person running the country. And if pop stars aren’t the vacuous, self-obsessed plastics we want to think they are then how on earth can we feel good about ourselves? So let psychos doing the psychoing and run our countries, while pop stars do the popping and entertain. So Britney Spears, PLEASE, stick to smiling and give your vote to someone with less stage presence?