ABSTRACT
In a world of alienation and road rage, music is valued not only as offering as model of community but also as a means of social education: the values of music as social good inform both teaching and writing on music. In this article, I examine ways in which values inform writing on music, arguing that they are often built into its basic metaphors, and that results in what might be called a discursive shallowness. I discuss different types of musical advocacy and the sometimes hidden agendas—the axes to grind of my title—that motivate them, illustrating this by comparing English- and French-language responses to my book Music: A Very Short Introduction. Finally, I discuss the sometimes overconfident association of analysis and value judgement, arguing for a rehabilitation of the ideal—however imperfectly achieved—of a value-neutral discourse about music: the more modest our aims as writers about music, I conclude, the more likely we are to achieve them.
