Escapism is like Fight Club. You don’t remind people that it’s happening. That drifting to a happier, safer place is involuntary, but vital. In the right way, and in the right quantities, it keeps us sane. It’s not fluffy, it’s important. But, even though it might not seem it, escapism and real-world engagement don’t have to be a binary.
This isn’t how Metallica frontman James Hetfield sees it.
He caused perhaps more of a ruckus online than he was expecting for comments he made to the crowd at the band’s Sphere show in Las Vegas over the weekend.
If you missed it, he said:
“I just gotta say, Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bullshit, OK. No bulls**t. We’re here to forget about all the outside s**t, OK? Metallica’s agenda is love, energy and heavy music, baby!”
The perception is that he was implicitly making a jab at Macklemore, who now infamously was removed from Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour after calling for a Free Palestine on-stage. Sheeran’s tepid, politically neutered response – “I want my music and shows to be about unity, not division; about humanity, not politics” - also went down like a wet lettuce. Unsurprisingly, Hetfield’s words are doing the same.
I’ve already written before about how the argument about keeping politics out of music is not just boring but overly limits and sanitises music as an art form. The difference with Hetfield’s statement is that I semi-understand it. He, and Sheeran, almost get it, and the seemingly good intentions he has, get buried under the need to tacitly point a finger at someone else.
Music is a beautiful outlet for escapism. Perhaps, in some ways, it’s intrinsically escapist. Part of its joy is that it’s a sonic landscape which transports us into a heightened existence, that feels brighter, less mundane, and lights our neural pathways up because it just feels that good. The craving for escapism is also why I believe an appetite has grown for concept albums and for bands who weave lore through their music that fans can lose themselves in unpicking for hours (hello Sleep Token, my beloveds.)
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Right now, there’s more we need to escape than ever. Music might have us floating away from the mundanity of moving from bed to the bus to our desk and back again, but it can also be a way of us putting down our fears for the future for a few hours and wrapping ourselves up in a more joyful moment, one that’s happening to us right now.
Crucially, escapism helps us recharge. We cannot, and ideally should not, marinate in our pain all the time. Recharging is political because rest is political, and its own form of resistance. After all, nobody can dismantle systems of oppression if they don’t have the energy.
The artists who offer escapism while knowing that escapism is political in itself know this well. In fact, it might be one of the easiest and least contentious ways in which they can be vaguely political, even if they might not otherwise consider themselves as such, or if their politics just happens to be kept separate from the music they’re making.
I often think of the Kerrang! cover interview I did with Olli Appleyard of Static Dress (yes, them again, don’t mind me), who explained his theory that music should be “about two things”, spreading awareness or providing escapism. Although he himself is politically engaged, Static Dress – coincidentally, another band for whom storytelling is a major cornerstone of their music - fall into the latter camp. That topic came up in a similar way in my newest K! cover with Bonnie Fraser, frontwoman of pop-rock band Stand Atlantic, who are also not especially political but whose upcoming album GODBREATH has a firm escapist slant as a way of counteracting the world’s rampant history.
The difference between artists like them and Metallica is that the former are escapist in a manner that is very conscious of the outside world. They say, ‘We see what’s going on, and we see you, and we’re going to give you something joyous in a world that wants you miserable.’ By contrast, Metallica feel like they’re pulling the shutters down. There’s a slight wilful ignorance to them taking their fans off to Never Never Land that maybe feels slightly tone deaf to the moment. As rich white men, they can look away with more ease than certain other groups could.
Not everyone has that luxury. Then again, there is some type of privilege to escapism. If your life is in danger, and there’s bombs dropping overhead, or your stomach’s rumbling keeps you stuck in the present moment, mental escape is harder. Not everyone can escape by spending hundreds of pounds on an arena concert, and some lack even the means for a cheaper local show. Even at a concert, something can remind you of the evil, stinking parts of society, whether a stranger touches you without your consent or the security scans and searches the people of colour in the room with far more thoroughness for reasons nobody said aloud.
Escapism’s not always divorced from the real world, either. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Dress up and go to a sing-along production of, say The Rocky Horror Show, and you’re still engaging with ideas about the real world, about gender and sexuality, transgression and freedom. When we escape, we’re still participating in society, albeit in a safer environment. There’s no opting out of that unless you move to a remote island.
Last year, when I interviewed Shirley Manson of Garbage – who is as much of a gem as she sounds, and is one of the greatest humans I’ve ever encountered – for DIY, she told me she believed that all music is political. Politics is about life, she made out, and so is music. I’ve thought about it frequently, intrigued by her argument even if I’m not sure I necessarily fully agreed, but maybe this is what she meant. If escapist music is political, then perhaps all music is. Sorry to point it out, James Hetfield, but when you said Metallica’s agenda is “love, energy and heavy music” (a good agenda, by the way), you might have done politics by accident. But that’s okay.
And in other news...
- The people of Digbeth - a historically artistic but increasingly gentrified area of Birmingham - threw a bloc party on Sunday (11th October) to protest the demolition of various music venues, including XOYO, Mama Roux's, Club Colette, The Night Owl and Luna Springs (three of which I've visited myself), in order to expand the railway. Save Our Scene have been involved, and are encouraging people to write to West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker and the local MP Shabana Mahmood to object to the proposals, which could be implemented as soon as 2030.
- HMV in Oxford Street has announced its closure in March 2027, just three years after reopening, which it blames on landlords doubling their rent and expensive renovation works. They've added that they're searching for a new location in the West End, and hopefully, it can live on as physical sales continue to boom.
- A new peer-reviewed paper by three academics cautioning against 'festival gigantism' has recommended that audience numbers at the UK'S biggest festivals should be capped, saying 'mega' events' continual growth will harm the environment. Set to be published in the journal Event Management, the paper also calls for these 'mega festivals' to consider 'degrowth', through "reducing absolute audience capacity", and for carbon budgets to become a “condition of licensing”, as well as mandatory travel demand management policies.
- The Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) has launched an independent online reporting portal, providing a secure, confidential means for workers in music, film, TV and theatre sectors to raise whistleblowing concerns. They can report anything that relates to the CIISA Standards, including but not limited to harassment, discrimination and victimisation.
- The Race Equality In Music Event Licensing (REMEL) project has found that Black music events are “cancelled, restricted or shut down” at higher rates than white-led events, at a cost of up to £141 million a year. It mentioned that the Black and South Asian music sector “still faces deep systemic and institutional barriers that limit even more success” and certain music genres were “assumed to be a risk despite evidence to the contrary”, including afrobeat, dancehall, R&B and hip-hop.
- RAYE has spoken out against ticket touting after the pre-sale for her Royal Albert Hall show was "overwhelmed" by scalpers using AI bots. The problem was so severe that she and her team will “manually review” the sign-ups to identify real fans. Letting this continue benefits very few people - surely if it's moved up the agenda, it's an easy win for Andy Burnham. Especially as capping the resale price of tickets is already in the Labour agenda, and a change to the law was announced by the previous PM.
Music job? Music job, anybody?
War Child are looking for a new Live Music Lead for a 6-month fixed term contract, helping to put on some of their fundraising live music events. It pays £50,000 pa, and you can apply here.
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Emma Wilkes