changed me mind

isn't the apostrophe in V's aberrant? It ain't possessive. Hey, we may be kerrrrazy revolutionary hepcats, but we're grammar mavens too, innit

run along the lines of the local Ford motor company (hence the name). It may have fostered great art, but what counted was the bottom line. Internally the artist, writers and producers fought like ferrets in a sack for the opportunity to score the biggest hits. There was no room for sentiment. Even a proven hitmaker like Smokey Robinson - who you‘d have though would have been cut a bit of slack - was bumped off the prestiguous and lucrative Tempations account in 1966 after a couple of flops. Norman Whitfield, who took his place, got into the songwriting business when he saw what Smokey was driving. Tamla Motown made The Apprentice look like a hippy commune.
They may have been prominent supporters of the civil rights movement and, some at least, opponents of the Vietnam war, but if you’d called most of the prominent Motown people “socialist” they’d have laughed in your face.

In the photo and the profile, I thought. (Deep breath), anyway...

I remember marching and crying 'Jobs not bombs' and 'Maggie Maggie Maggie out out out'. All that unemployment and youth on the dole with nothing better to do than form bands while living on benefits - those were the days.

Socialist countries? You mean undemocratic totalitarian regimes don't you? When was there ever a truly socialist country? But you can have a free democracy with a mixed economy and socialist redistributive policies and good pop music too - they managed it in parts of Scandanavia OK, like Sweden I believe.

Socialism is rather (simplistically and generally) about everyone being treated equally, not everyone being the same. Isn't China a capitalist coumtry now? Are you free to make any music you want there - don't think so? It's not whether it's a socialist or capitalist system (a distinction which is pretty out of date really, in the sense that those polar opposites no longer really exist in the world today as us and them), but whether your government prevents you making the music you want to - that's the important thing. Capitalism doesn't guarantee freedom of expression. Anyway, great art is made against the odds regardless.

Celia Cruz? Cui Jian? t.A.T.u? (OK, the last one might not be significant, even if they've sold millions of records).

India's constitution defines it as a socialist democratic republic, and its musical output is huge - Bollywood obviously being one of the world's largest producers of film, most of it music-led - and Bob Marley became a world star under a socialist government in Jamaica.

If you're defining socialist as strict, old-school, non-democratic, Marxist-Leninism, then the pool to choose from is pretty small - about half a dozen countries worldwide - and you're right, we don't get to hear much music on Radio 1 from Laos or the DPRK. But then as I write I'm struggling to name any truly significant acts from Italy or The Netherlands either...

from many other countries because a lot of their pop is not sung in English so doesn't get known here. Doesn't mean it does not exist and is not hugely significant in it's own country and others. Of course we could find out about it if we could be bothered, but it's hard to find time and there's all the other english sung music to get as well (a music lover's life is so hard) - bit of chauvinism too probably.

OK, they were tools of that disgraceful yankee Ryland Cooder, than of the Cuban State. But, funny that, it nearly killed his career in USA, as they tried to blacklist his pinko ways.
That's, um, pretty socialist action, really, to fight for the release of the music??
Cheers to Ry. You're OK with me, comrade!

Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn, any one?

Capitalism is just better at allowing it to flourish (and financing it too usually)

well done.

and i'm shot down in flames....Celia Cruz, Cui Jian, Los Van Van, Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanés. you can certainly walk into any high street in tokyo, new york, beijing, cleethorpes and hear those ones being played in the equivalent of top shop.