News — Everything is political these days. That seems to be the consensus in 2025, but pop culture has always been steeped in politics.
Music is no different. It’s rhetorically organized sound, made to influence the way listeners think about a musical artist, their sound, and popularity.
Its message is intentionally persuasive and certain rhetorical strategies are used to make a song as impactful and influential as possible.
In times of heightened political moments, music is a ready vehicle to influence the masses. However, something has changed in just how effective music is at spreading messages, whether we realize it or not, and this is due to new technology impacting the reach and influence of musicians.
Technology has changed the functions and potential for rhetoric online, and musicians understand the rhetorical power they must reflect and affect cultures through music and inspire their listeners to embrace messages.
Music is not simply on Spotify or Apple Music. Musicians often use their art and platforms to connect with audiences. Social media, YouTube, and streaming sites alter the way musicians impact audiences and the power of music to connect and affect people in multiple ways.
As technology evolves it change how we experience and perceive media. Music is plugged into headphones and streaming on Spotify playlists, uploaded in music videos on YouTube, and shuffled through social media feeds by algorithms.
Here are five reasons you should start listening closer to that rhythmic sound playing through your Air Pods and blaring from your devices:
- Spotify Has Changed the Game
Spotify not only tracks your musical tastes so you can reflect…and sometimes judge yourself…for them later in Spotify Wrapped at the end of each year, but the music streaming app also recommends and exposes listeners to artists they have never considered. The app allows users to join and create playlists, follow favorite artists, and watch videos of those artists talking about users’ favorite songs. Spotify allow users to view lyrics as a song plays, find concerts near them, and listen to curated playlists made based on the musical preferences of the user that are “uniquely yours.” Apple Music does something similar, but has less functionality in the way it recommends and moves listeners towards certain music based on algorithms. In this way, Spotify has altered the way listeners engage with and experience music online and through their phones.
- Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence Are Molding Realities
Whether its playlists based on how often users are listening to certain songs or simply functioning as a way for listeners to access their favorite music, algorithms are hard at work tracking, learning, and curating what users engage with online. AI’s joining the game by providing suggestions and quicker ways to find that song you think you heard that sounds like that other song you think you know. Algorithms and AI are shaping the way we experience music. Most the ways people experience music these days involves an algorithm or AI. Like Muse states in “Algorithm,” “we are caged in simulations, algorithms evolve.” Whether this is as detrimental to humanity as the band assumes is up for discussion, but one way or another, algorithms and AI learn our musical tastes and alter how we perceive them.
- Social Media and Parasocial Relationships Add Even More Influence
While fans have always felt a sense of belonging tied to their favorite musicians and songs, social media creates a parasocial relationship that blurs the lines of public and private life for fans and musical artists. Parasocial relationships are designed to make fans believe they have intimate access to the lives of their favorite artists if they follow them on certain social media platforms or subscribe to certain sites that provide “exclusive” access to the world of the artists. Swifties aren’t the only fans able to feel like they know their favorite musician like the back of their hands and musicians are more aware than ever how their fans feel through comment sections, DMs, and online interactions that create a false sense of a real, sustainable and intimate relationship between the two. These parasocial relationships influence how connected and persuaded fans are to messages in music.
- Controversy Sells
In the 21st Century, controversy sells better than sex. Do you like an artist because they are edgy or said something controversial? Like a favorite musician because he/she is loud, unapologetic or just says it how it is? That’s the name of the PR game these days and as long as “outrage” and “cancel” cultures exist, so will musicians who say and do things to get your attention. Some musicians do take a hit based on their actions, especially illegal ones, but many artists have gained traction and popularity based on the negative attention surrounding them online. Controversy can become part of the branding that gets you to stay tuned and has worked like a charm for plenty of musicians.
- Music is a Subtle, But Persistent Form of Persuasion
Whether it’s used in your favorite scene in a movie to move you to tears, adds a sense of nostalgia that harkens back to a simpler time, or is implemented for a campaign or national anthem, music is meant to influence your thoughts, worldviews and identity. Sure, we can think of the Grunge Era, Nirvana, and the teenage social movements of the 1990s, but music isn’t always that loud about how it shapes our sense of belonging. It isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it’s noteworthy. With AI on the rise and technology evolving, we will continue to see music’s influence and impact increase. At the end of the day, music is highly rhetorical. It shapes our identities, perceptions, favorite pop culture references, and, yes, politics.
Triauna Carey is a Lecturer in English at SMU Dallas. She is the author of The Revolution Will Be Spotified: Music as a Rhetorical Mode of Resistance.
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