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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
fab4fan
41 posts
 
In my mind, the last group to really do "protest music" well was CSNY. No one has been able to match the outrage expressed in a song like "Ohio," or the sad resignation of "Find the Cost of Freedom."

JMO, FWIW.
papertrail
186 posts
 
I'm with Nrchy on this one. Barbra Streisand compaigning for more money for the poor (which I am not totally against) while at the same time having $4,000 of fresh flowers delivered to her house weekly. Someone needs to teach some of these people the story of the widow's mite from the Bible.
And actually most of what Dylan has done in his career is not really protest music--even according to him. He has primarily done story songs and love songs.
jasman
102 posts
 
Check out the band "Bright Eyes".
hack
185 posts
 

I don't see how a band (e.g. Rage Against the Machine) can be faulted because their music/message was embraced by millions of people. Are they insincere they became popular in the process, and should they refuse the money cuz they would "appear" to be sell-outs? If no one buys the record then they must be genuine? Read the lyrics, and pick up a video of the band playing live, sure as hell doesn't look like good corporate citizens cashing in to me (and I'm a cynic by nature). Lot of anger and for the right reasons, this ain't no boy band with cute moves. This applies to many other bands, their commercial acceptance has nothing to do with their convictions.
ehart
215 posts
 
Nrchy,

Are you mad at Rage Against the Machine because they work for a big record company? Or at Ani DiFranco because she started her own in protest? You can't have it both ways, my man!

In the end, I don't think you are listening very carefully to any of this music. Do you really think Simon and Garfunkel wrote protest music? Great stuff, and it speaks to a certain teen and twenty-something angst, but nothing's being protested.

The reason you think "protest music" is all done by millionaires (I'm not sure you should be putting DiFranco in the millionaire category, btw) seems to be that you are only listening to "big acts". Dig a little deeper and listen to the suggestions given above.

I love Pete Seeger (the Weavers were the first recorded music I remember hearing as a kid). As a straight-ahead folkie, though, he's by self-definition not a musical innovator. People like U2, Bruce Cockburn, Rage Against the Machine, and Public Enemy have pushed musical as well as political boundaries.

Let's hope people will continue to see fit to put whatever moves them into music.

- Eric
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