Seriously, 'impressionable teens' and 'young people these days' are NOT 'inundated' with 'left wing politically influenced artists/celebrities', that's a joke. There are hardly any actually political bands in the mainstream of the music industry, and the ones that are rarely make specific, coherent or cogent arguments about current issues/events or people.
for the most part it's just general angst crap, ocassionally you might get a issue-specific song, that recent SOAD song comes to mind, but most is so generic it's hardly influential in any meaningful way, 'fuck the system' etc. is about as rebellous as good charlotte or sum41 head-banging/dressing like punks and throwing up the horns.
you act as if music is dominated by artists with cogent, so-called 'left-wing' political arguments and statements, when in reality the majority is just packaged 'non-conformism', one of capitalisms most effective cultural products. I would argue that 'young people these days' are more influenced by the fake 'rebels' of the sony or universal music variety than anything of meaningful political strength.
im suprised squancho hasnt pulled out a nazi-reference yet, artists should be allowed to express their opinions in their art, that's raison d'etre of art! EXPRESSION, saying they shouldnt be able to do it because it 'influences' teenagers to be 'left-wing' (what's wrong with that btw?) is akin to claiming that marilyn manson drives people to mass murder, it's just music, main-stream artists ARE NOT driving any 'teenagers' to anything meaningfully rebellous or 'left-wing', saying 'FUCK BUSH', 'FUCK THE SYSTEM', is great, but the same teenagers are still going home to sit down, take off their nikes, get changed into their comfortable *insert trendy clothing brand here* clothes, take off their nikes, eat their mcdonalds and watch big brother, just because they think george bush II is an 'idiot', doesnt mean we should start restricting or censoring artists that conservatives label 'too radical' or 'rebellous', this isnt a theocracy/stalinist/authoritarian/fascist state, it's democracy remember?
hehe, Zearle, this guy has some decent anti-capitalist hip-hop if not at times abit 'fuck the system', he rhymed proletariat though, so respect