Can an artist make an explicitely political song now-adays, or will it automatically be crippled by 60s nostalgia?

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For example, when they started coming out last March after we went into Iraq -- the beastie boys song, Zach de la Rocha's song, Thurston Moore's and all of his many cohorts on protest-records.com (whatever happened to that, by the way?) it all seemed kind of forced... even if it wasn't. I remember my local paper (Detroit News or Free Press, forget which one) had a big feature article on all of the songs, and of course compared them to the songs of the 60s-- the Buffalo Springfield one, and Crosby Stills Nash, etc. But to be quite honest it wasn't just the media-- it was hard for me to judge the songs on their own merits, or even get into them without feeling a little self-conscious.

I don't think it's all music related, anyway. When I see people on strike picketing or protesting, I don't feel emotional about it one way or the other. It's more like this anachronistic display, like a living museum. As David Berman once put it

It's just that our advances are irrepressible.
Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands.
It makes people too self-conscious about the past,
though try explaining that to a kid.

I don't care if you like Berman or not, I think this is a pretty good point.

To sway WAYYY back to the original question:
Can an artist make a protest song, or will we always get this "gee, isn't that cute, they're making a "Fortunate Son" type song!" notion, whether we like it or not?

― David Allen (David Allen), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/842

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 05:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Not if it espouses a right-wing POV.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 06:26 (twenty-one years ago)

or what if it's made to? we can ask springsteen on that one.

― duke banned, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 06:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Anything explicitly this or that will get novelty-status treatment .. (See entire catalog of Christian Rock...) .. Protest songs that are more subtle (like what? I dunno right now) might last .. but explicit protest songs don't fail because they're protest songs, they fail because they're trite (or just plain suck because they were written in a hurry.)

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 10:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't this a question of scale and of politics more than of the aesthetics of protest songs? It's likely that a song that aspired to be another "Fortunate One" wouldn't make a huge imprint *in the present political context* unless something really dramatic and unexpected happened. After all, most Americans originally swallowed the rationale for the war in Iraq without very much reflection at all, and I suspect that to a large degree that's why protest-records.com got little traction. The media treated it as a curiosity shop. But on a smaller scale I can certainly think of protest-type music since the 60s that had a lot of power and legitimacy. A band like Los Crudos, who did songs about and benefits for everything from migrant workers to the Western Shoshone Defense Project comes to mind.

― rasheed wallace (rasheed wallace), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 11:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Maybe the reason those new protest songs sounded forced was because they were all FUCKING AWFUL.

― Unknown User, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

the beastie boys song wasn't crippled by 60s nostalgia, it was crippled by total shittiness

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 12:16 (twenty-one years ago)

'60s-era slogan: GET US OUT OF VIETNAM

'00s-era slogan: GET US OUT OF IRAQ, BUT ONLY IN A RESPONSIBLE TIMEFRAME THAT WILL PREVENT THE COUNTRY FROM DISINTEGRATING INTO CIVIL WAR AND THAT WILL LEAVE IT BETTER THAN WE FOUND IT, BECAUSE IT'S OUR FUCKING FAULT, EXCEPT NOT OUR FAULT, BECAUSE WE VOTED FOR NADER, BUT DON'T HATE US FOR THAT - WE DON'T DO IT THIS TIME

― Chris Dahlen (Chris Dahlen), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 12:28 (twenty-one years ago)

protests, and protest songs, don't connect with people's lives....protestors and protest singers usually end up "talking down" to the people, while "picking" issues that are far enough removed from day to day concerns to be easily ignored....which is another way to point out the utter failure of the left.

so when you pass a protest and feel emotionless, isn't that what most passers-by are feeling? most probably don't feel self concsious though, or are reading David Berman.

shitty movements produce shitty songs. or should i say, songs that are meaningless.

― pheNAM (pheNAM), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Better way of thinking about the original question: how did people in the sixties manage to write explictly political songs, given that people had already been doing it for decades? It wasn't that they were any less self-conscious about it -- at least not in Greenwich Village.

Other interesting way of thinking about the question: have you guys heard that Sylvian / Sakamoto / dude-from-Blonde-Redhead "political" EP? My brain's still crying.

― nabiscothingy, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think explicitly political songs really have much of an effect really- they just preach to the choir. They might have an aesthetic influence, like early Napalm Death, but no one picks up on the politics. I think the most subversive bands are those that aren't blatantly political but pack ideological baggage that subtly influences the listener.

To be perfectly generic, i think that the Velvet Underground and their followers had more social impact than any political punk, be it the Clash or Crass. People picked up on the Clash sound and a minority of punks might have adopted Crass's agenda, but the overall effect was null and void. However, the highly sexualized Velvet Underground did usher in peripheral apsects of the sexual revolution, ideas that their followers would further assert. It wasn't a blatant life-changing thing, but probably had a subtle reinforcing impact on the listener. And really that's the best one can hope for, for better or for worse.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Why do fucking morons think "Crazy In Love" isn't political?

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Everything's political baby.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:28 (twenty-one years ago)

James Brown stopped riots. Fela Kuti ran for President. Victor Jara was brutally executed in public. Vaclav Havel cites the Velvet Underground as political inspiration.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:38 (twenty-one years ago)

(this strawman argument that explicitly political music never has any actual political impact is utter bullshit.)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Never said that.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Not that I think you're addressing me as such.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Shakey bang on the fucking money. How come it's only ever reactionaries who discount the political value of music?

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Now that's a strawman. Only a *reactionary* could possibly discount the political value of music!

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm aware of the comically earnest undertones, James. I just never met anybody who denied the political nature of moo-sick but right-wingers.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Explicitly political music can have quite an effect on an individual.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

you qualified your statement a little James, but it seems to be a fairly common sentiment on ILM: the idea that addressing politics in music is inherently ill-advised, clumsy, ineffective, boring, etc. I'm not saying your guilt of this yourself, but in general I think it's just another stick for people to beat their favorite musical whipping boys with (see: Beastie Boys, Dylan, Clash, etc.) so they can continue priding themselves on not being morally judgmental or "hating fun", ie, "all my musical consumption is guilt free! I am the greatest most open-minded person ever! politics is for busy-bodies!"

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I like highly politicized music. I came to age with political grindcore, and some of it had a very tremendous influence on me.

Hell, to this day one of the favorite musical units of all time is Henry Cow/Art Bears.

I'm not questioning quality so much as the overall effect it has on the listener. I'm not sure how receptive large audiences are to political messages.

Bob Marley was/is an extremely popular artist and his music along with other artists in reggae is extremely political. But I wonder how much it really influences its listeners.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Bob Marley has influenced thousands of white middle class kids to smoke dope.

And talk shit in a comedy accent.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 23:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Marley is an interesting case - go anywhere in the "third world" (especially tropical spots) and he is revered like a saint, or a god even. From India to Central America I would run across locals for whom he was the end-all be-all of music, and clearly a lot of it had to do with his personal background and political sensibility.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 23:12 (twenty-one years ago)

obviously Marley has a different impact on middle-class white dopesmokers as opposed to dirt-poor, dark-skinned street vendors.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 2 June 2004 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

True. He's very important in the "developing" world, particularly in the Caribbean basin.

― James Slone (Freon Trotsky), Thursday, 3 June 2004 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

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