*Ø* Protest song is back — with a vengeance
And this time the lyrics are not just antiwar.
From hip-hop to punk to rock, artists are wailing against
President Bush.
By Christopher Blagg
Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
The term protest music often conjures up images of unkempt folkies strumming guitars and warbling their dissent in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. All that has changed.
Folk music no longer dominates the genre. Today, rebellious political rhetoric can be found in hip-hop, punk, country, metal, alt-rock, and everything in between. Not only has protest music diversified, it seems to be rapidly on the rise.
Some of the new songs, unsurprisingly, address the war on Iraq. But whereas protest songs during the Vietnam era were broadly antiwar in their message, the new batch of political tunes aren't narrowly focused on the recent war. It's more personal than that. Most of the music is targeted at the actions and policies of one man: George W. Bush.
And it's often incendiary stuff.
"For better or worse, Bush has stirred up a lot of vitriol in the music community," says David Browne, head music critic for Entertainment Weekly. "There's always been protest songs against presidents, but they have never been near to the level of venom you're seeing now."
That isn't to say no songs are championing the administration's foreign policy — country music has produced hits such as Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American)." But they're being drowned out by the sheer volume of musicians working to oust the Oval Office's current occupant. [Emphasis added. -v]
The musicians range from punk rockers to pop acts to older artists like Patti Smith and Rickie Lee Jones. In all, Mr. Browne reckons protest songs seem to have been more numerous in the past year and a half than in the late '60s. "There just wasn't that concentration of songs during the Vietnam War," he says.
Leading the charge in the current round of Bush-whacking is Fat Mike, frontman for the veteran punk rock group NOFX. Mike created the current Billboard-charting compilation entitled "Rock Against Bush," a collection of sneeringly rebellious punk rock songs including ones from mainstream acts like Sum 41, OffSpring, and the Ataris. Twenty-six bands offered songs for the compilation, and many more joined the tour that followed.
The idea for the album emerged from the controversy over the Florida vote count in the previous presidential election. The outcome still rankles Fat Mike, who believes the result was unjust.
"After the 2000 election I was pretty upset," says Mike. "I needed to come up with a way I could use my celebrity to expose the fraud of the election."
[Emphasis added. -v]
Mike also soon founded the provocative website punkvoter.com, which aimed to harness the youth vote.
CONTINUE
And this time the lyrics are not just antiwar.
From hip-hop to punk to rock, artists are wailing against
President Bush.
By Christopher Blagg
Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
The term protest music often conjures up images of unkempt folkies strumming guitars and warbling their dissent in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. All that has changed.
Folk music no longer dominates the genre. Today, rebellious political rhetoric can be found in hip-hop, punk, country, metal, alt-rock, and everything in between. Not only has protest music diversified, it seems to be rapidly on the rise.
Some of the new songs, unsurprisingly, address the war on Iraq. But whereas protest songs during the Vietnam era were broadly antiwar in their message, the new batch of political tunes aren't narrowly focused on the recent war. It's more personal than that. Most of the music is targeted at the actions and policies of one man: George W. Bush.
And it's often incendiary stuff.
"For better or worse, Bush has stirred up a lot of vitriol in the music community," says David Browne, head music critic for Entertainment Weekly. "There's always been protest songs against presidents, but they have never been near to the level of venom you're seeing now."
That isn't to say no songs are championing the administration's foreign policy — country music has produced hits such as Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue (The Angry American)." But they're being drowned out by the sheer volume of musicians working to oust the Oval Office's current occupant. [Emphasis added. -v]
The musicians range from punk rockers to pop acts to older artists like Patti Smith and Rickie Lee Jones. In all, Mr. Browne reckons protest songs seem to have been more numerous in the past year and a half than in the late '60s. "There just wasn't that concentration of songs during the Vietnam War," he says.
Leading the charge in the current round of Bush-whacking is Fat Mike, frontman for the veteran punk rock group NOFX. Mike created the current Billboard-charting compilation entitled "Rock Against Bush," a collection of sneeringly rebellious punk rock songs including ones from mainstream acts like Sum 41, OffSpring, and the Ataris. Twenty-six bands offered songs for the compilation, and many more joined the tour that followed.
The idea for the album emerged from the controversy over the Florida vote count in the previous presidential election. The outcome still rankles Fat Mike, who believes the result was unjust.
"After the 2000 election I was pretty upset," says Mike. "I needed to come up with a way I could use my celebrity to expose the fraud of the election."
[Emphasis added. -v]
Mike also soon founded the provocative website punkvoter.com, which aimed to harness the youth vote.
CONTINUE
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