This paper’s main aim is to provide temporal/spatial answers to a specific question: “What happens when the ball is in the musicians’ court in a/an time/environment when/where everybody has to have an opinion?”
With reference to anthropological discussions on media and emotion and culture-related philosophical discussions on affect, the paper tells about the recently formed “emotional” and “affective” alliances among Turkey’s popular music artists with regard to the socio-political atmosphere. It tries to keep an account of the AKP era (2002-present) in which social and cultural segregation has gradually become more apparent in the society due to government policies and the ever-growing consciousness of the government critiques. In this period, even in the sphere of popular music, terms like “partisan artist” and “marginal/marginalized/alien artist” have claimed their places in Turkey’s current political conjuncture just as it has happened in many other sectors which have been in direct interaction with the public (like the media). Apart from questioning the motivations of the artists who take position in favor of the state and the dominant culture or on the side of the opposition and the counter culture discourses, the paper discusses about the observed outcomes and further potentials of such alliances and tries to make theoretical and practical deductions from them.