Wasn't Neil Young a Reagan supporter in the 80s?

One of my fav songs. But it is over 30 years old now, and its anti-IMF diatribe is dated. Even so, the descriptions of characters and the woebegone nature of things still hold up.

Here are a few all released after Drump was voted Pres


Hurray For the Riff Raff with Rican Beach”

Joey Badass with Land Of The Free


Vince Staples with BagBak


Margo Price with All American Made

Priest with Pink White House


And one of the best anti war song's ever from 2015
Damn That Valley by Us Girls

Well most FM/top 40 radio is Producer driven with the majority of the artists reliant on a handful of middle aged Producers who churn out hooks on an assembly line. Max Martin is probably too busy to follow politics with as many songs as he producers. The youth who are making their own music with a few exceptions are not getting any airtime on mainstream radio.

None of these "protest" songs have had any traction. For such an anthem to be effective it has to be sung at rallies and retreats and demonstrations and such the way "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," and "Kumbaya" were sung ad infinitem at such gatherings in the 1960s.

I remember the Country Joe anti-Vietnam War song linked in an earlier post, "One Two Three--what are we fighting for? / I don't know, I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam," was repurposed for other anti-war demonstrations, e.g. against intervention in El Salvador in 1980-81, with slight changes in the lyrics. I know I remember hearing it that way back when I used to attend such events. (When I actually cared about what was going on in the world.) I can't recall if it was sung at any of the anti-Gulf War events I attended.

The only one that comes to mind (and it's not all that much of a protest) is Leeroy Stagger's "I Want It All":

Eminem's cypher at the BET Awards, with 43mm views, is probably the biggest protest song of last year.

Lindsay Ellis made an excellent 40-min video essay on the protest songs of the Bush era and how... they mostly sucked. I remember being into a lot of this music back then, but it's funny how times have changed.

Here's the video:


And here's a good one, not necessarily about... *waves hands*
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I was just thinking the other day that we don't seem to have the protest songs like we did in the periods of social upheaval during the late 60's - early 70's. I was watching the excellent Laurel Canyon doc last week and learned that CSNY recorded and rush released their "Ohio" single within a month of the Kent State shootings. Now, I may be way off base, I don't listen to much current pop music (my tastes in new music trend towards metal*) so maybe there have been current artists addressing some of the recent issues in powerful protest songs. I hope so, that kind of stuff is important.


* the only current metal bands I can think of that seriously address current problems are bands like Cattle Decapitation and Gojira, that cover a lot of environmental and animal rights issues in their songs.

Perhaps this absence (or low profile) of "protest songs" might have to do with how there are no more rockstars of the type from decades ago. (ie. Nobody pays attention to rock/pop singers anymore).


(Without getting into current day politics).

Protesting might very well be manifesting in other forms completely unrelated to music. For example stuff like: wikileaks, greta thunberg, metoo, blm, etc ...

Artists now have way too many deals going on with clothing brands, shoe companies, streaming services, etc. They don’t want to jeopardize that by getting political.