I don't think the decline of protest music is due to downloadable music, ditigalization, and iPoddery. I noticed 30 years ago (yikes!), when I first started my political activist work, that we were still relying on and recycling old Vietnam and civil rights and even older union music at demos. There is no "We Shall Overcome," "Which Side Are You On?" "If I Had A Hammer," "This Land Is Your Land," or anything similar (yeah, Doug, I know you hate that stuff) from the antinuclear, anti-intervention (e.g., Central America), or other issue movements of the 1980s or since. I don't mean there are no good songs, just nothing canonical, universal, instantly recognizable, and usable at a march or demo. Even back in the late 70s, when an album was a large flat disc made of vinyl that you bought at a record store, this was the case. Comrades have been kvetching about this for decades. People have been trying, but I don't think anything's taken root the way those songs did since the early-mid 70s. I'm not sure why. I don't think it's lack of talent; I am not sure how you'd compare the Clash or Bruce Springsteen with Woody Guthrie or the Freedom Singers, but each is great in its way. It would be nice to have a figure who could light up a protest rally the way Pete Seeger actually still can, bless him, voice gone and all, but I think it's something else. What, I don't know.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9245.html>
>
> Silent treatment: Anti-war songs fall flat
> By: Richard T. Cullen
> March 28, 2008 06:22 PM EST
>
> "Yo George," sneers Tori Amos, outrage flowing from
> her lyrics. "Is
> this just the madness of King George?"
>
> "Yo George," follows the next verse. "Well you have
> the whole nation
> on all fours."
>
> Amos' bitter indictment of President Bush in "Yo
> George" is a clear
> sign of the times.
>
> But so is the fact that — if you are not part of the
> songwriter-
> pianist's loyal cadre of fans — you probably have
> never heard the song.
>
> An unpopular president, an unpopular war, a restless
> young generation
> eager for change — all the elements of a mass
> protest culture would
> seem to be present in this election year.
>
> One thing is missing: a mass culture.
>
> The Vietnam era produced an entire genre of anti-war
> and cultural
> protest songs, the best-known of which became
> anthems of the age.
>
> Iraq and the Bush presidency have inspired lots of
> music in this
> tradition — but nothing that has gained a large
> popular audience or
> is vying to be a generational anthem.
>
> Music, say some sociologists, is just one
> manifestation of a more
> fundamental trend. Opposition to the Iraq war, which
> commands strong
> majorities in the polls, has not produced mass
> marches on the
> Pentagon or shut down college campuses.
>
> The reasons are varied, including the lack of a
> military draft and
> much lower casualty figures than were suffered in
> Southeast Asia 40
> years ago. But another big factor is the fragmented
> nature of how
> Americans live and communicate — with no clearer
> example than how we
> listen to music.
>
> The trend was highlighted this month when Warner
> Music's Sire Records
> issued a 30-song soundtrack for the anti-war
> documentary "Body of
> War," the release timed for the fifth anniversary of
> the invasion of
> Iraq. The album includes musical heavyweights like
> Bruce Springsteen,
> Eddie Vedder and 62-year-old Neil Young, who has
> contributed to the
> anti-war songbook for both Vietnam and Iraq.
>
> Despite the project's star power and its appeal to
> multiple
> generations, its format — the concept album — has,
> for the most part,
> been left for dead. People today download their
> favorite songs from
> multiple albums at a time, unlike in the '60s, when
> an iPod would
> have looked like something from the set of Star
> Trek.
>
> Back then, says Robert Thompson, founder of the
> Institute on Popular
> Culture at Syracuse University, protest music was
> inescapable.
>
> "Those songs, whether you were listening to them in
> your dorm room or
> whether parents were upset that their kids were
> listening to them in
> the basement, you were hearing them," Thompson said.
> "Those songs
> were the soundtrack of that period. They were in the
> air literally,
> and people had to come to grips with them."
>
> In today's culture, Thompson added, music
> consumption tends to take
> place in a narrow channel.
>
> "Now it's completely possible for songs that are
> getting huge
> distribution one way or another amidst their core
> fan base to remain
> completely unnoticed to a fully intelligent and
> aware American,"
> Thompson said. "Back in the pre-digital, network
> era, we all fed from
> the same culture trough, whether you liked it or not
> ."
>
> The biggest reason why today's protest music is
> failing to echo
> broadly, some cultural critics believe, is not just
> a shortened
> attention span on the part of music fans, but the
> move to an all-
> volunteer military. Compulsory military service
> during Vietnam meant
> millions more families felt they had a stake in the
> debate.
>
> "If you're at risk of going to a foreign country and
> getting your
> head blown off, then you take a very personal
> interest in what's
> going on around you," said David Fricke, senior
> editor at Rolling Stone.
>
> "Let's face it, people are distracted, they are
> distracted by reality
> shows, none of which have anything to do with
> reality," Fricke added.
> "They spend more time watching 'American Idol' than
> they do voting in
> the last couple of elections."
>
> Without a draft, it's easy for the public to lose
> sight of the war,
> especially when the media and presidential
> candidates turn their
> focus to the economy and other issues. The mission
> of rock activists
> against the war, then, becomes part of the
> subculture straining to
> reach the masses.
>
> "Just because we're not hearing as much about [Iraq]
> in the first 10
> minutes of every news broadcast doesn't mean that
> antipathy and that
> feeling of protest against the war has gone away,"
> Thompson said. "A
> lot of people out there still feel as strongly as
> they did before."
>
> For the activist group Iraq Veterans Against the War
> (IVAW), who will
> be receiving the proceeds of the "Body of War" album
> sales, the
> disconnect between mass culture and the war is
> particularly frustrating.
>
> Tomas Young, who enlisted in the Army two days after
> the Sept. 11,
> 2001, attacks, had been in Iraq for less than a year
> in April 2004
> when a bullet severed his spine and left him
> paralyzed. He later
> joined IVAW. It was the degree to which protest
> songs helped him deal
> with his rehabilitation and constant frustration
> that inspired the
> album's title "Body of War: Songs That Inspired an
> Iraq War Veteran."
>
> "These songs are not flower-and-hugs protest music,"
> Young said.
> "It's meant to incite anger and frustration in the
> listener that they
> need to make change."
>
> Along with Tomas Young, musicians featured on the
> "Body of War"
> soundtrack are confident that they still play a
> significant role in
> American culture.
>
> "Body of War" contributor Tom Morello, a lead
> guitarist for the
> mainstream rock bands Rage Against the Machine and
> Audioslave thinks
> that politically inspired music can still inspire
> action.
>
> "It was certainly the mixture of music and politics
> in groups like
> The Clash and Public Enemy that helped spur me into
> becoming an
>
=== message truncated ===
____________________________________________________________________________________ No Cost - Get a month of Blockbuster Total Access now. Sweet deal for Yahoo! users and friends. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text1.com