“Music as Politics” is the fifth pathway in Pathways to Music. In the introduction to this pathway, I suggest three ways of music promoting a “political” message. The first is an affirmative message, which promotes positive feelings about a particular organization, region, or nation. The second is an empathetic message, which seeks to trigger an emotional response in the listener related to a person, group of people, or issue. The third is an ironic message, which also seeks to trigger a response, but in this case by using music that seems at odds with the context in which it is placed. The dissonance between the music and its context suggests a meaning to a sensitive listener and can be just as powerful as a direct emotional appeal because it depends on the listener’s intellectual engagement. See the blog entries on Music as Politics here, and feel free to contribute your own!