No need for shame here. Yip Harburg was probably the only authentic radical of the bunch any one's mentioned here so far. A true cultural front icon in fact. Even today, enraged plutocrats have been known to have walked out when they have been forced to confront "When the Idle Poor become the Idle Rich" in their children's high school musical production.
As far as the others, the quasi-fascist underpinnings of the VU are pretty obvious, thanks for the confirmation on this point. Incidentally, the stuff on the Sedgwick family is in an old Cockburn column. It has to do with Edie's grandfather (I believe), a close aide to Hitler, who has the distinction of selling Hitler on the value of band music in inciting demagoguist hysteria. The Harvard fight song in particular was to become a staple at Nazi rallies, or so I seem to remember, with the appropriate substitutions in the lyrics, of course. (It might be fun to imagine these.) Hey JSC, do you have access to AC's old columns? This one's not on the Nation site.
As far as reliable leftists go-slim pickings among musicians, even counter-cultural ones, unless I'm failing to apprehend the latent transgressive irony in the music of Melanie. Perhaps Tom Frank can set me straight on this as he did with the Yum-Yums in his Harper's article.
As far as my greatest hits from the late sixties-many of the one's mentioned so far of course, augmented by Schnittke's (1968) second violin sonata-makes an interesting comparison with Shostakovich wonderful sonata from just about the same time. Not crazy about much of the Darmstadt stuff, but Ligeti should probably get in there, maybe the Chamber Concerto. Americans? Hmm, how about Copland's Inscape from 1969, (and you thought you knew what Copland sounded like!) Carter's Second Quartet has something to recommend it, after about 400 listenings, but probably not enough. Brits? Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King has a nice psychotic edge to it. Oh yeah, how about Messaien's Chronochronomie? I'm sure that has lots of fans out there-lots of big sounds. (Probably about as many as of Chomsky's epistemology, I would guess.)
Best,
John