Comments on: Where are today’s protest singers?

By: Erika Price

Erika Price — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:27:41 +0000

I have to echo Heather here. Numerous popularly-played artists have songs addressing the war or the Bush administration in general. Gorillaz, Kanye West, The Dixie Chicks, Pink, Eminem, Dashboard Confessional, and several others have songs about the war or the President. This article on the subject even likens the boom in politically-themed music to Vietnam.

However, I do find it frustrating that so many people have come late to the game, so to speak. In the realms of comedy and music, Bush-bashing has become a no-brainer, and in quite a negative way. When people reject Bush but cannot explain why, we haven’t really gained any ground at all. We just have the same distracted multitude, repeating whatever popularity declares “fact”, and never questioning or thinking for themselves.

By: Heather

Heather — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 04:39:18 +0000

I agree with Jason that it all has to do with the profit margin. This doesn’t differ from any other area in our capitalist society. Sure you don’t hear underground protest music on the radio. You probably wouldn’t hear any of their music on radio. You do hear protest music from profitable groups. Green Day and Ben Harper, for instance, both have protest songs that are heavily played.

By: Jason Rayl

Jason Rayl — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 15:40:56 +0000

Of course, the songs are being recorded and if one knows where to look, one can find them. This is not very different from the Sixties. Then, AM radio ruled, and the only place you heard Phil Ochs was on college campuses, live, or on “underground” FM stations. Corporate America NEVER sponsored protest songs–usually because the music didn’t sell well enough to amount to anything like profitability.

It’s easy in hindsight to think of the Sixties as some kind of Golden Age of political awareness, but then you remember that this was the heyday of the Variety Show, cops in well-pressed uniforms, and the Osmond Brothers. Most of the country thought the Counter Culture was an obscenity and the “Silent Majority” elected Richard Nixon.

Protest songs? You had to dig to find them.