There are trade-offs in everything we do in life, and I have accepted that if I would like to be principled - and just principled - my best call would be to sit at home and shut up, because nothing I preached would be connectable to the practice.

There are trade-offs in everything we do in life, and I have accepted that if I would like to be principled - and just principled - my best call would be to sit at home and shut up, because nothing I preached would be connectable to the practice.

I am afraid of what is happening in the West. In a way, the link between art and politics is about to snap. Music and politics, it seems, are increasingly considered to be separate domains. Music is about making peace, not conflict, they say. And, therefore, it is best to do what is considered normal and uncontroversial. Increasingly, accepting the status quo is a precondition for being considered entertainment, while protest culture is grouped alongside politics.

The Eurovision Song Contest is by definition apolitical - unless your song criticises Russia, of course.

Norway is much more than just oil. We have a rapidly growing fish sector, a high-tech metal and aluminium industry, abundant access to green hydropower with all the opportunities that provides, an educated workforce, and an incredibly potent welfare system where people are allowed to contribute with what they have and what they know. And if that is not enough, our potential has perhaps even been limited by the oil sector draining all the intellectual and creative talent.

I believe it is dangerous to think that the more extreme forms of censorship are more worthy of our attention. If we put all our effort into looking for the splinter in Turkey or China's eye, we may fail to recognise the plank in our own.

If politically infused music is denied airplay, music reviews or festival stage time because it is considered "politics" rather than "art", then there will be no music left to ban. It will never reach the surface anyway, not to the larger audience. I believe that there is a high degree of censorship in the west, most importantly in the form of self-censorship among musicians themselves. This is why what you hear on the radio is - increasingly often - pure and toothless entertainment. Almost by definition, there's nothing left in pop music worth banning.