Where have all the protest songs gone?

Steve Earle can throw together a pretty good protest song. Not exactly mainstream, but I recommend you give him a listen.

U2 seems to have an opinion about everything. It'll come out shortly. Maybe Alec Baldwin will cut a few tracks.

two words: BEN HARPER. Check out "fight for your mind," "welcome to the cruel world" and "the will to live." listened to the first title for the first time in awhile last night--brilliant.

Give Natalie Merchant's Motherland a spin if you crave some not-too-happy-about-it social commentary.

Steve Earle, yes. And Sinead O'Connor in her better moments. Also, rap music--like an earlier generation of reggae--has a lot of the protest spirit that's missing in other genres. Much of it also panders to the market's desire for vulgarity and consumerism/materialism, and that makes the genre as a whole appear less squeaky clean and inherently virtuous than, say, young Bob Dylan with an acoustic guitar. But listen to Public Enemy's record _It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Me Back_ for an example of what I mean by rap protest music.