[lbo-talk] RTe: The revolution will not be televised

123hop at comcast.net 123hop at comcast.net
Mon May 30 18:48:46 PDT 2011


I'm thinking of my all time favorite political songs and they are

Pirate Jenny (Nina Simone)

A Working Class Hero is Something to Be

The Internationale

Yo Tengo Tanto Hermanos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLqo-tJq55Y)

...and some Woodie Guthrie stuff

...and a lot of stuff by Los Olimarenos

...but the other thing is that beauty is inherently evocative of our desire for freedom. Is that not why Plato bans artists? For the most part, art is on our side; explicitly political ....or not.

Joanna

----- Original Message ----- From: "// ravi" <ravi at platosbeard.org>

On May 30, 2011, at 3:19 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> I was thinking of doing a radio show on political music - why so much of it sucks, and what makes the good stuff, like Gil Scott-Heron, not suck. Any ideas, either for substance or guests? Ned Sublette would be on the list, for sure. But others?
>

I don’t know… for a lot of political music the music seems to be an afterthought (especially in the case of overtly political content).

FWIW:

I always liked the Asian Dub Foundation and was surprised to find one of their participants, IIRC, running a WBAI show (I forget the name of the show now). Among more mainstream musicians with explicit politics, I have liked some (or at least one) of the songs of Everlast (the House of Pain frontman, IIRC), Taleb Kweli, Chumbawamba, Johnny Clegg… but I am a sucker for pop/hiphop/melody.

—ravi

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