Where have all the protest songs gone?

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.

I really want to spend my hard earned money listing to a multi-millionarie whining about how bad something is. Just because a person has a record contract doesn't mean they have anything to say and most artists(?) prove that every time they step into the studio.

All that said, what about Tom Petty's latest offering.

I heard Dylan is working on a song called "Damn these Birkenstocks are uncomfortable." I hope it comes out on vinyl!

Petty's latest is probably brilliant since no one paid much attention to it.Thanks to those who responded so far...check out the views to response ratio fellas,it's about one out of ten which is about what my experience vouches for...one out of ten people have anything important on their minds.