Does anyone do good protest music anymore?

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.

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

Ehart I don't care about the record companies as they relate to this thread. So I guess I can have it both ways because that isn't the issue. I mentioned those acts because they were mentioned earlier in the thread. I have no use for either Rage Against the Machine or Ani DeFranco, not because of the subject matter, but because I don't like their music. That isn't a denouncement or an endoresment, it's just a personal thing...

Do you not consider S&Gs He Was MY Brother; Scarburough Fair/Canticle; or A Simple Desultory Phillipic to be protest music. Not everything they did was protest, but some of it is, and they were held in esteem by the movement (Such as it was).

Drubin my point was there are people who achieve success because they do what comes naturally and then there are people who succeed because they ride the wave. Success doesn't prove or disprove a persons motivation. There are people who protest because they know it will sell and there are people who protest because it is who they are, that's not the same thing. Pete Seeger accomplished succees regardless of what he sold because he related the point he was trying to make. Whether a person likes what he has to say or not, they cannot fault him for being genuine.

Bob Dylan, the man most often associated with protest music (although the majority of his music is not protest) once said that if you can't write about anything else, you can always write a protest song.

It must be extremely difficult to resist the effects of money (greed) in the music industry. Look at groups such as Jefferson Airplane or Steve Miller from the 60s bay area. Their music was sincere when they were at their artistic peak. Shortly after Blonde on Blonde Dylan was asked why his music had lost the bitterness of his early days. His response, "it's hard to be a bitter millionaire," pretty much says it all.