21st Century Political Songs

Another favorite of mine, "Rose, My Rocket-Brain! (Rose, le cervaeu électronique de ma fusée!)" by Stereolab

There are really a ton of them these days. "America's Boy" by Broadcast. A couple by the Super Furry Animals come to mind. And perhaps "Sing for Your Meat" by Guided by Voices: "21 is the legal age to kill yourself slowly / but 18 is the legal age to die". The whole of Camper Van Beethoven's album "New Roman Times" is rather obliquely though obviously political. Maybe the king is "White Devil's Dream" by Quasi, which ends with a fuck-off to the whole Bush administration.

also, diplomats - ground zero ("this that 9/11 music" says juelz ... but then it's about as political as most dipset)

"We're all living in Amerka
it's wunderbar, Amerika
We're all living in Amerika
Coca Cola, Wonderbra"

And the summation in case intent was not clear:
"This is not a love song"

and no one has mentioned ANTI-FLAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(!!!!!)

COINCIDENCE?

The Ayatollah's gettin' bombed yeah,
See Sergeant Bilko havin' fun again,
GOOD puppy, good puppy,
Rollin' on over for the Man

One of my new favourite lines is from "Wild American":
"When they burn your brother down in the name of freedom/I don't care if that's left or right, it's wrong."

I've been concerned with the lack of good current event songs out there. I was thinking about the politically relevant pops songs that were out when I was a kid. Genesis' 'Land of Confusion' video was so great, even as a young child i was obsessed with it. i didn't recognize most of the puppet faces when at the time, other than ronald and nancy reagan, Gaddafi and Gorbechev, but as an adult I still feel that it holds up and is incredible.

Another song I remember was "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel, and I remember my dad sitting me down and trying to explain to me what all the references were. These were not even cool bands in the 80's, I think... they were adult contemporary acts even then, right? But these songs were both good, thoughtful and appealed to mainstream America. So where is the equivalent? Of course there's no equivalent, because mass media is so heavily censored and no one seems to recognize it because you can swear on TV now at certain hours.

I liked Le Tigre's "This Island" because it threw in enough bits and peices that when it came out I really felt like it was 'here and now'... The aforementioned "America's Boy" is brilliant... I liked "Succexxy" by Metric, although it was also embarrassing because the chorus used the word "Succexxy"...

Maybe it's just hard to put anything with content out because there's such a lack of consensus in the country about the basic facts regarding the situation under which we are living. Or maybe there's some really good, gripping, thoughtful and provocative stuff out there that just isn't getting to my ears. You tell me, messageboard.

PS some crap modern-day band remade the Genesis song. If there's a thread for songs that should have never been remade (and I'm sure there is) this should surely be in there:

The worst thing about it is that the video goes to such length to avoid the America flag. There are all these renditions of Koizumi, Putin, Blair and other G-8 leaders but the American presence and flag is conspicuously missing from the video, especially on the robocop-nazi police's uniforms. Is this a hedge? Did Warner brothers censor or demand revision of the video? In any case it's crap and it doesn't hold a candle to the original video.

Genesis Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=56QSkTnTTDg\

Mall rock version: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rA0BXsdQ3O8

the NME editor asks why today's bands aren't angry and political enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/14/krissi-murison-punk-pop-riots

Van der Graaf Generator, "Every Bloody Emperor":

Every bloody emperor's got his hands up history's skirt
as he poses for posterity over the fresh-dug dirt.
Yes and every bloody emperor with his sickly rictus grin
talks his way out of nearly anything but the lie within
because every bloody emperor thinks his right to rule divine
so he'll go spinning and spinning and spinning into his own decline

M.I.A. The Sri Lankan artist.

― Piro, Saturday, 29 April 2006 15:18 (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so, what is happening in political music 2013? particularly interested in UK political stuff—seems like there's a massive political clusterfuck occurring without comment? surely cannot be true?