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Does anyone do good protest music anymore?

I had the news on the radio at work this morning and there was some fellow babbling on about reinstituting the draft. At the same time I had the CDP on and Simon and Garfunkel were doing a Dylan protest song. This set my mind to wondering... but I don't remember what I was wondering about.

In the 60's and even early 70's there were lots of talented people protesting. Dylan and S&G are a couple of the obvious suspects but people like Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Barry McGuire added a lot to that period.

With this reactionary fearmongering about the draft is there any chance that a new crop of 'protest' singers will emerge, or has the good stuff already been done, and if so, who did it?
128x128nrchy
pbb
1,140 posts
 
There is nothing to protest anymore now that the GOP has the whole US of A in its arms and that the US of A has the whole world in its arms. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

Just for his way of looking at the world and singing about it I think Tom Waits qualifies. It may be a bit too hermetic for some, but it is protest and acceptance all in one.
richingoth
326 posts
 
Sleater-Kinney 'One Beat' is one that comes to my mind.
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
Did we forget Tracy Chapman here?
edesilva
768 posts
 
Third nomination for Steve Earle, the American Billy Bragg.
rayhall
393 posts
 
The most historically significant protest singer of all time is Pete Seeger. He has been doing it since the 40's. As a target of Senator Joseph McCarthy's communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950's, he has risked more than all who have followed him for the right of us all to sing out and to speak up. Having devoted his whole life to progressive, populist causes, I guess the only reason that he is not more active now is due to his advanced age. Certainly, there is a lot to sing about now.

Others who have been important are Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Odetta, Miriam Makeba, Tom Lehrer and Nina Simone.
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