Where have all the protest songs gone? Remember protest music -- that relic of '60s activism? It's still around, as MSNBC commentator James Sullivan writes in this piece. You just won't hear much of it on the radio -- or see much of it on MTV.
But -- protest music lives on, and punk prophetess Patti Smith is one of the leaders. Sullivan writes:
On her new album, “Trampin’,” the rock poet Patti Smith leads her veteran band through a squalling diatribe against the war in Iraq. The devastated Iraqi capital, she laments on “Radio Baghdad,” was once the cradle of civilization, the world center of scholarship.
"We created the zero, and we mean nothing to you!" Smith thunders, putting herself in the historic shoes of her own country's latest mortal enemy.
You won't hear this song on commercial radio anytime soon, and not simply because it’s a 12-minute noise mantra. War in Iraq and other policies of the current presidential administration are effectively off-limits on the popular airwaves.
It's perhaps not surprising that one of the top songs in America right now is called "I Don’t Wanna Know." Despite mounting evidence that the war is dividing the nation, our pop music -- at least on the surface -- seems oblivious. We're clearly living in a much different social climate than the era that made No. 1 songs of Edwin Starr's "War" and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction."
But all hope is not lost. Sullivan notes that "there is little indication that artists are actually shying away from the headlines and the hard subjects."
"If the vast majority of commercial hip hop is caught up 'In Da Club' and 'Tipsy,'" he writes, "there is an entire brooding underground making modern protest music. Public Enemy, members of Oakland radicals the Coup and an ad hoc turntable collective calling itself the DJs of Mass Destruction are among the acts featured on the new protest compilation 'War (If It Feels Good, Do It!).' And the Beastie Boys' long-awaited new album is said to contain some pointed criticisms of the Bush administration.
"Punk, too, is reconnecting with its traditional voice of dissent. The long-running Southern California band Bad Religion sounds revitalized on its forthcoming album, 'The Empire Strikes First,' which features bitter rants such as 'Let Them Eat War.'"