Where is the music? No music no movement.

[safeinOhio]

No Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone, Country Joe, John Lennon, no Pete Seeger, and the list from the 50s 60s and 70s goes on. Demonstrations need a few verses, not just 4 or 5 word chants.

Us old farts remember.

[kentauros]

1. You'll have to ask the entertainment corporations

if they'll let their product (i.e., bands) make any songs for the movement. Of course, you won't hear any of them until they have been fully sanitized and homogenized for all markets.

Oh, and autotuned, too.

[sendero]

3. I couldn't have..

... said it better myself

[safeinOhio]

5. I only lister to Independent music

radio.

I still think if a major name makes it, it'll get played.

[kentauros]

7. Same here, with somafm.com

But I was never a fan of protest or movement songs to begin with. I do want to be entertained, if only to a higher standard of quality than the corporations care to offer.

[TexasProgresive]

16. That's a lame excuse.

Even the feds couldn't shut up Seeger.

[kentauros]

30. I was never much of a fan of Seeger's music.

So, did he get much airplay on Clear Channel?

[TexasProgresive]

47. Wouldn't know- never willingly listened to Clear Channel.

That "venue" is no place to find music with any depth. When a piece that has real feeling, that actually says something about the human condition, makes it on Clear Channel it was an accident.

[kentauros]

51. Well, that's precisely my point.

Clear Channel (and other media conglomerates like them) control the product broadcast over the airways, and online. Like any "good" corporate parent, they make sure nothing is too objectionable to the masses, if at all. Protest music would only get airplay if it was protesting Obama, or any other ALEC-enemy.

Besides, as I understand the concept of protest music, it shows up after people have already begun protesting. If it takes a song to get "you" interested in the original event worthy of protest, I have to question why the event itself wasn't enough to get "you" riled up.

("you" = the rhetorical kind.)

[hobbit709]

2. This one still works.

[bigwillq]

4. 10 of the Most Touching Trayvon Martin Tribute Songs

http://www.vibe.com/photo-gallery/10-most-touching-trayvon-martin-tribute-songs?page=1

[olddots]

6. this is bigger problem than we realize

Personized electronics are behind this .

[safeinOhio]

8. More like this

you have to click on link

But I'd love a "Tea Bag Boogie"

[safeinOhio]

9. This is the way I remember it.

[jwirr]

76. THIS is what we need. It tells the story and lets us make fun of the fools who are making the moves.

On election night in 72 a bunch of us listened to a recording of a song that said nothing more than shit, shit, shit. That made us feel better and may have been what we felt like at the moment but it did nothing to change anything. This protest song educates, protests, and makes the whole idea of going to Vietnam a sham because it is meant to move people to action.

That is what we need.

[el_bryanto]

10. The Music industry is fractured

So that there is probably 10 times more music available than there was in the 1960s. There are still protest bands out there - the problem is that they don't have the same cultural weight that they did in the 1960s.

You also have the issue of generational music tastes being different; so people doing protest music in the more modern style (rather than folk or folk rock) are often times not appreciated by old-timers who are looking around for this generations Pete Seeger.

Or that's my opinion anyway.

Bryant

[kentauros]

31. That's an excellent point.

I may be (just barely) in the generation most likely to be considered wanting/liking protest songs, but a marketer would never make any headway with me. Modern music is what I like, so long as it's not commercialized. And so, I listen to public radio sources and similar sites online. I've never been a fan of protest music, then or now.

I figure I'm not alone, generation-wise, in these music tastes, either.

[el_bryanto]

34. I wonder if the term Protest Music is really useful.

Most of the bands I've listened to over the years have done songs about political or social issues - but that wasn't their whole focus - it was just part of what they did. Even very politically minded acts like Ani DiFranco or Rage Against the Machine, there's other subjects there too. But then again most of the famous protest groups of the 60s and so on did other tracks too. Other than those bands who very specifically focused on protests and performing at protests.

Bryant

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. What current music do you listen to?

How do you even know there's no music?

[frazzled]

17. I think that's the point

Not only is the music industry fractured (largely the result of changes in technology); the culture at large is fractured. Maybe there's some alt groups with "protest" music that has a relatively small cult following. As opposed to those earlier days, when there wasn't a person in the nation who didn't know "We Shall Overcome." Those were anthems everyone knew to some extent.

[Codeine]

21. So?

I fail to see how the end of a monolithic national music culture spells doom for protests. I know the "old farts" in question had their Country Joe and Whoeverthehell-style folk music thing accompanying their protest culture (we all know because they'll never, EVER let anyone forget), but it doesn't follow that the lack of a goofy sing-along anthem is a problem today.

Personally I think "Hands up, don't shoot" is as powerful a chant as any 60s song lyrics would be.

[safeinOhio]

22. Local college Indie station

for the most part.

[Codeine]

12. "You're not doing it right!"

[GreatGazoo]

13. MTV and American Idol turned popular music into a neutered marionette

There are many protest songs but few avenues for them to truly reach the largest audiences. For example the 3 companies that own all the radio stations in the US are never playing this song:

or this one (Clan Dyken):

and only occasionally this one:

[Codeine]

18. Popular music has always been a manufactured product.

The handful of exceptions are just that -- exceptions. The vast majority of popular music has always been and will always be pabulum.

[azmom]

20. Holy shiit

"This is what happens when you call the cops"

Wow. I have no words. I'm in shock.

[azmom]

24. Can you create a post with just

The first video. All of DU needs to see that one.

[GreatGazoo]

26. It's brutal. I found that one here (at DU) about a week ago

28 recs on the Greatest page, 1.2 mil views on YT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017229429

[azmom]

29. First time seeing it.

Sending it to my network.

[Skidmore]

35. Pop music is mass marketed. Protest music is viral.

Protest music during the Sixties made its way by being passed between students and other sympathizers and in acts of cultural disobedience. With YouTube and other social media, it would seem to me that protest music could be disseminated much quicker today, as would be true for dissident writings. Gee whiz, you don't even need a mimeograph machine and an ocean of blue ink these days to get word around.

[TexasProgresive]

52. I don't think YouTube is the answer- it may be the problem

The songs that went "viral" during the sixties was as you say, "passed between students and sympathizers and in acts of cultural disobedience." They were not playing on smart phones but were sung but masses of people. The songs had to have simple melodies and words so that everyone could pick them up no matter their talent or lack.

I can see it now, a giant demonstration and everyone holding up their phones playing a different song, only nobody hears it because everyone has their ear buds plugged in. The labor songs of the 30s and the protest songs of the 60s were unifying. So the OP has it right- no music-the movement can't sustain.

[Skidmore]

60. Rallies. Gosh, I remember the rallies

and sit ins and places where people sat. And the songs were a point of unity with words passed around. You still need to disseminate an idea even in the form of a song.

[GreatGazoo]

68. you might enjoy this, (if you haven't seen it already) -- 1990 doc

[logosoco]

79. I found "Call the Cops" and "Fuck the Police" to be very powerful.

But I am kind of an oddball with what I listen to. I am a middle aged white woman and I am not sure if I could get others like me to sing those!
Michael Franti is one of my favorites. I love "Hey Hey Hey". I thought that could be mainstream, but I don't think it did.

[jwirr]

83. I love all three. Yeah even the rap one because it did not have any of the stuff I posted about

below.

So it is out there - the question is how do we get it out to the people?

[Codeine]

96. "Get it out to the people"?

It doesn't work like that now. We find the music we want. Opportunities to discover new bands, new songs, and even whole new genres is infinite and utterly democratized. Entire labels exist because obsessive music nerds like me seek out white dudes from New York playing afro-beat or 70s Peruvian funk band reissues.

The people have the music they want.

[jwirr]

97. But that only educates you. And the message only gets to you. I think sometimes democracy does

not work.

[Codeine]

99. We don't use music as a messaging medium anymore.

We swim in a sea of information all day. Music is superfluous to that end. The world is not what it once was, and music plays a different role for modern people.

I don't seek out music for a message -- I just want intelligent lyrics, a solid hook, and a non-mainstream sound. Others want a killer beat or a booming bassline or an explosive blast beat and sudden time changes.

Almost nobody wants their music to tell them that the answer is blowing in the wind or that there are four dead in o-hi-o.

[jwirr]

107. I hear you. But there are a lot of people that we are missing. Those of us on DU are up on most of

what is happening in the world thanks to each other.

But there is the worker who drives home from work listening to the radio all the way. Often that is all they do that has a message. They watch the idiot box and ignore news programs. They are liberals but not active ones like we are. Not too long ago my grandson's wife was angry and took it out on me. Her exact words were " you set out here with the news programs blaring all the time." What she meant was that I watch Big Ed, Chris Hayes, Rachel and Larry O week nights after the kids are in bed. The only way she ever knows anything is through that radio program on the way home.

Young teenagers are also often watching other things or playing games and listening to music. My 17 year old is one who knows more about what music tells him than what news says.

It does not matter which type of music but it does matter that we are still getting the message out there in some way.

[HereSince1628]

14. Isn't much of rap/hip-hop (?) social protest?

I may have the name of it wrong, but there is a university radio program of it that has a neighboring position on the dial to Madison progressive FM, and sometimes the rap drifts over...

It may just be that old farts think protest music should sound like what was sung by Pete Seeger or Judy Collins

[Codeine]

19. One wonders how well they'd have reacted to folks in their sixties and seventies

telling THEM what was wrong with their protests?

"No jitterbug, no movement!"

"Scott Joplin, not Janice Joplin!"

[former9thward]

45. Much of rap/hip-hop is violence towards women.

Hardly the music of social protest...

[Dr Hobbitstein]

72. Very little hip hop

Is violence against women. I suggest looking into Common, BlackThought, The Roots, NAS, Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest... Hip Hop is a multifaceted genre. Just like rock before it.

[Zorra]

15. A record producer convinced a band I was with to rewrite the lyrics of our songs,

Last edited Thu Dec 4, 2014, 01:21 PM - Edit history (1)

even some of our songs completely. The band had a democratic vote on it, and I lost, 3 to 1. I had written most of the lyrics did and did not want to change what we did, most of my lyrics were directly, or indirectly, political.

The producer was a shallow, money grubbing republican, and after he first heard the lyrics. he asked "What does this mean?".

I refused to rewrite anything, and the other band members had to do the writing. After a year and a half in the studio, the finished record sucked. The musicianship was flawless, the engineering and production was stellar, and the songs had no soul. The producer thought it was just peachy!

The band broke up shortly after.

Fuck the fucking music industry. The business of music is business.

[LeftyMom]

23. If senior citizens don't know about songs they don't exist.

[Codeine]

40. You'd do well to get off his lawn. nt

[johnnyreb]

25. Skidmark Bob will show you around

He crafts fabulous socially-relevant music mixes that introduce artists I would never have heard of otherwise;

http://popdefectradio.blogspot.com/

Here's a recent outstanding one;
http://popdefectradio.blogspot.com/2014/06/spoken-word-remix.html

People need these! Burn to disc and pass them around.

[MrScorpio]

27. Dead Prez... That's who you're looking for. nt

[aikoaiko]

28. My generation had NWA.

NSFW. And in case this is juried take the video as an expression of anger are bad policing and not an indictment of all police.

[KingCharlemagne]

36. And then there is\was Public Enemy

&feature=player_detailpage

Although I had previously been dismissive of rap and hip hop, I still remember how seeing Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing (where the song debuted) first opened my ears to the revolutionary artistic power and possibilities of rap and hip hop.

[aikoaiko]

41. True, that was the bigger NYC group.

[Recursion]

44. And Tribe Called Quest (nt)

[aikoaiko]

48. yeah, they were for smart people. ;-)

[Recursion]

50. Best album of the 1990s

You can throw all the "trustifarian" jokes you want to, it was perfect

[aikoaiko]

53. Ha. I didn't mean it that way.

I meant their verses were more subtle than NWA and PE.

It took me a while to listen more carefully.

[Recursion]

54. The Abstract Poet promenade like Shakespeare, or Edgar Allen Poe.

Man. I need to dig that CD up again.

[azmom]

92. Ouch

Very timely. This homegirl likes it.

[Recursion]

32. There's this genre called "hip hop"

You might want to explore it. Even geezers sometimes like it.

[randome]

33. This is not the 1960s.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking we simply need to repeat what worked before.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game. -Existenz[/center][/font][hr]

[dembotoz]

39. no shit

[jwirr]

86. I don't think anyone says it is the 60s again but what we are saying is that music educated about

the problems and unified protesters just like the phrase "hands up don't shoot" is doing. It also recruited people to the causes. No matter what the date is those are still issues that need to be addressed if we want people to get behind change. And it has to cross cultural lines in order to make a difference. That is because like it or not we need all kinds and ages of people to support us in making changes. So the songs are a good outreach tool.

[Codeine]

104. But music was different then. There was a whole lot less of it.

Everyone basically listened to the same top acts. People listened to radio stations who played an r&b song followed by a folk-rock song followed by a schmaltzy pop song. You could unify a movement with music because the music crossed demographic lines in a way it doesn't now.

These days people focus musical tastes much more closely. I don't listen to a radio station that plays music I like followed by music I dislike or even feel neutral about -- I no longer need to do that. My tastes (which run from 80s alternative to goth to black metal to modern alt-rock to Coltrane) are catered to much more directly in the Information Age.

As an example, when I was a kid in the 80s I heard lots of early hip-hop because media was limited and in order to see videos or listen to radio you took stuff that wasn't your bag along with that which was. But today I live in a world where I can honestly say I've never heard a single song by most of the biggest, most successful acts in music. I've never heard Jay-Z, for example. Not one song.

And the people who do listen to those acts have almost certainly never heard anything from the bands I enjoy. Why would anyone expect us to find a song to sing together? They don't like my shit and I don't like theirs. That's not what unifies us.

[jwirr]

109. I hear you. We are in the age of specialization. How do you try to get the message to others about

issues you care about? Or isn't that important anymore?

[Codeine]

111. Social media.

Every young person in America knows about Ferguson because they're tuned into that world. Social media spreads that stuff like wildfire. I follow some Instagrammers in Mexico and they're using that service to ignite the protest movement there with admirable efficiency.

[librechik]

37. there's this thing called rap

that white folks don't listen to.

[Recursion]

42. Oh, they do, just not "commercial" rap

Meaning, "rap that black people listen to", as far as I can tell.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

38. Well, there's always been protest music.

It's just not folk rock.

From the 90s to the early 00s, there was Rage Against The Machine

In the early 00s, you had great stuff from System Of A Down

Green Day during the Bush years

But if you really like the folk rock genre, Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine has his solo project The Nightwatchmen

All of this music has been very popular over the last 20 years. Most of it Grammy winning. All of it received considerable airplay on MTV as well. Not to mention all the great work in hip hop over the last 30 years:

[Recursion]

43. Thank you. I'm sick of boomer BS about this.

Honestly I'd take 1991 vs. 1968 as a protest year any day.

[giftedgirl77]

56. Thank you!!! I love Talib Kwali, Mos Def, PE....

Nas, & Damien Marley have also done some great stuff.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

70. Welcome to Jamrock

Was an AWESOME album. I think Damien has far surpassed his father. NAS is great, and so is Common.

[giftedgirl77]

91. They are amazing & very much the reason I just shake

my head at people who say hip/hop & rap is nothing but talk about objectifying women. The song Patience by Nas & Damien Marley is great, I play it whenever I need to get my mind right.

[bravenak]

102. Nasir my favorite!!

I love him to death!!

[Recursion]

46. Please tell me this post was a high-level parody.

Please.

[True Blue Door]

49. What you're trying to say is that modern movements lack romanticism.

They are purely cerebral, and miss the kind of passionate energy that drives forward.

There has been no Neo-Romantic artistic portraits made of these movements yet. Nothing like...

[fadedrose]

55. "We Shall Overcome"?

may have been overused, but still very poignant and relevant - maybe with a change in lyrics.

But it's a "black" song. We really need one that combines whites who have never had to "overcome" in the same way as blacks, and a new melody.

Something like "That's What Friends Are For," that sort of brought all races and religions together, but in a new way that expresses that whites are fed up with the treatment of other races, as well as the people of other races.

I am fed up but can't write music....

[Recursion]

57. The headlining act at Woodstock was Sha Na Na.

Sorry, I don't mean to keep beating up on you over this, but this issue is a sore point.

[azmom]

63. What are some current ones?

Any from 2000 and on. I'd love to listen to some new stuff.

[Recursion]

66. Well, Jay-Z comes to mind as a good starter (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

64. Sha Na Na played 7:30 am to 8:00 am on Monday and were followed by Jimi Hendrix

Hard to run that up the flag pole and call it headlining. What are you, Bowser's agent?

[Recursion]

67. They were at the top of the poster. And Jimi always played last per his contract (nt)

[Bluenorthwest]

73. He who plays last and can demand such is the headliner. The biggest words on the poster were

Love, Peace, Music and there was a tiny list of lots of names. Sha Na Na were not the headliners of Woodstock, dude. They played, but so did 30 other acts. In reality, it was Woodstock that made Sha Na Na into major act. It was their big break. Prior to that show and the film there were not well known at all. They had been opening act at clubs for several of the major Woodstock bands, which is how they got booked there. They also opened for Frank Zappa. Think about that show.
I come at this from a different and very fortunate place. Upthread you are going off about 1991 artists and I'm a guy who has been in a room with more then one of those very people and an actual Woodstock top slot artist and watched them fall all over each other and remix blowing in the wind. Not sure about all of this 'my music, your music' trip. I think it is toxic. There is music I adore that was made prior to my existence, much of it. Other music I love was made last week.

[azmom]

77. Right there with you.

I enjoy the old stuff and the new. When the music is good it withstands the test of time.

[giftedgirl77]

58. I wasn't even born until the late 70's.....

Why in the world would those be our protest songs, that's not our music?

[brooklynite]

59. Um, which came first: the protests or the songs?

[Catherine Vincent]

61. ...

This isn't new but it'll work:


"They Don't Care About Us"
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/theydontcareaboutus.html

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate
You're rapin' me off my pride
Oh, for God's sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy...
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Black male, black mail
Throw your brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame
They're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from which I came
You know I really do hate to say it
The government don't wanna see
But if Roosevelt was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Some things in life they just don't wanna see
But if Martin Luther was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, segregation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Kick me, kike me
Don't you wrong or right me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about
All I wanna say is that
they don't really care about
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

[Bluenorthwest]

65. Good choice.

nt

[Ink Man]

69. Here you go.

Stand with Hillary!

[jwirr]

71. That is something I have thought for years. When did we stop listening to folk and protest music?

Edited to say that rap is somewhat and answer but there are a lot of problems with the genre. I will probably get tombstoned for this but I see the problem with rap being their attitude toward women, hard to understand and name calling. Since my grandson is a rapper I get tombstoned by him all the time.

[Recursion]

74. When folk music turned 50, maybe?

If it's too loud, you're too old, bro.

[jwirr]

87. LOL. Only hard rock is too loud.

[Recursion]

88. Hard rock is 60 years old (Dick Dale). Get with the times. If your genre doesn't have "post-"

in its name, it's not music man!

[Codeine]

98. Hard rock was what my parents listened to, and I'm in my 40s.

This reminds me of a conversation I had on Thanksgiving. We were discussing current alternative music and someone chimed in that they avoided modern alternative because it lacked hooks. "I mean, I like Wilco, but they have no hooks." Dude, Wilco is alternative from friggin 20 years ago! People think music immediately stops changing when they drift away from it.

[jwirr]

101. What are hooks? Yes I am 73 years old and I actually like some of the music today. Imagine! But

since I baby sit for 3 of my 11 great grandchildren I am much more tuned into cartoons. I hate a lot of them also. But it is their choices so I go along with it. I get the feeling you think we should all forget everything we enjoyed and grab onto TODAY? Sorry I do not find much to grab onto today. It all seems to be falling apart.

[Codeine]

106. I don't feel that way at all.

I just think it's weird that we should be expected to find relevance in the same cultural constructs that people did nearly half a century before, and if we don't then we're not protesting right. Those kids back then didn't harken back to the media of the 20s for their lessons, did they?

Hooks are just that -- bits of a song that catch you and hook you in. Think of the beginning of CSN&Y's "Ohio", the catchy, jangly bit that drives the song along. That's a hook, and a damned good one. A hook can be a bass line that grabs you like in Queen's "Under Pressure" or a drum pattern like New Order's "Blue Monday" or a big guitar riff like "Iron Man."

[jwirr]

110. Thanks for the explaination. But we did look back to the 30s - Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seegers

were both singers from the Great Depression era. We used what was still relevant to fit the needs of the time. But you are also correct that the specialization in music has put a damper on using it to unify any group that is protesting.

As to the way the kids in Ferguson MO and other cities are protesting I could not be prouder. I only wish that all of us not matter our color would have started protesting a long time ago. But it needed a trigger to start it and that happened with Michael Brown.

Fortunately we do have the internet and a few programs on tv that actually tell us what is going on.

[IDemo]

89. I listen to folk, Americana, "New-Grass", and alternative country

But no, I'm not hearing a lot of protest sentiments coming from any of those.

[Hekate]

75. I noticed that starting in 2002. It has been grievously missing.

Music pulls people in and binds them together. The greats from our youth sang to their last breath, they believed that so strongly. The ones still alive are still singing, but they are now old....

All during the protests against Bush/Cheney I kept listening for the younger generation to write a new anthem, a new satire, a new theme song-- but it never appeared.

We need music to pour from our throats, we really do.

[Recursion]

81. No, seriously, it hasn't

It's there. find any decent hip-hop station. Even the commercially successful hip-hop is a lot more "message-ish" than rock was back in its heyday.

[Hekate]

93. I'm glad that hip-hop is aware and current, but can a big crowd sing it?

That's one of the functions of folk (not rock, folk came first) music -- anyone can join in, from a small group to a mass march. I don't get that vibe from hip-hop or rap, because they seem specialized, as in a soloist or small backup group puts on a show and the masses watch. It's not participatory, afaik.

I went to Washington two or three times and to weekly marches and rallies in my home town, but never saw or participated in a protest hip-hop. Some of us sang the oldies, all of us chanted, but though I listened hard, I didn't hear something new that caught fire like We Shall Overcome, or Blowin' in the Wind.

I'm a musical person; I was disappointed.

On edit: scanning some of the comments here, I almost deleted this post. "Boomer BS" indeed, you young whippersnappers. Get off my lawn, but first post links and lyrics to something we can all sing.

[Recursion]

94. Gangstas' Paradise is the most singable song of the past several decades

I play old-time banjo and mandolin, personally, but I love a lot of the music being made today

[Codeine]

100. Why do we need to sing?

we keep being told that a group singalong is somehow essential to the cause. I'm frankly mystified by this view. I don't want to sing folk songs with people. Nobody I know wants to do that. Music has become so varied and fractured that no crowd of young protestors are ever going to drawn to the same song, and why should they?

Is a crowd chanting "Hands up, don't shoot" or "I can't breathe!" in unison somehow LESS united than a crowd singing a song?

Did old people tell YOU how to enliven and unite a protest? Did they decry a lack of bathtub gin and flapper dresses?

[wyldwolf]

78. Perhaps some of you aren't listening?

There are often posts on DU about how dreadful today's music is and how 'you' never listen to it. If that describes you and you think there are no protest music lately, how would you know?

The 10 Most Powerful Protest Songs of the 21st Century
http://flavorwire.com/143568/the-10-most-powerful-protest-songs-of-the-21st-century/

The Protest Movement | The 10 Best Political Protest Songs of the 2000s
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Protest-Movement-The-10-Best-Protest-Songs-of-the-2000s

The best protest songs of the decade
http://www.peoplesworld.org/the-best-protest-songs-of-the-decade/

And, yes, I've heard many of these on rock, hip hop and pop radio. And even before I googled, I immediately recalled these:

John Mayer 'Waiting for the World To Change.'
Black Eyed Peas 'Where is the Love.'
Macklemore's 'Same Love.'

[logosoco]

80. Thanks for the links!

I have those last three on my iPod already.

My kids will appreciate you as well. They like showing me new stuff, but I am still just mom!

[Codeine]

84. Macklemore and John Mayer?

Oy vey.

[LeftyMom]

90. These threads always say so much about DU's demographics. nt

[wyldwolf]

95. Perhaps they're waiting for a Crosby, Stills and Nash comeback?

[dilby]

82. The music is there, you just need to listen.

[azmom]

85. My favorite

[bravenak]

103. You must not listen to much Rap.

Try Nas.

https://m.

[bravenak]

105. I have more.

https://m.

https://m.

https://m.

https://m.

[otohara]

108. Today's Music Festivals - Focus On

the environment, charities like Conscious Alliance - Art That Feeds, recycling

Unfortunately they shy away from endorsing politicians because that would include aligning yourself with a party
and most are registered as unaffiliated.

Politicians don't reach out to them - most are liberal and vote for Dems, but they are an apathetic and feel
the system is fucked - no politician will fix.

Grrrr...

But don't think they aren't writing songs about our problems, you just aren't hearing them because they aren't
on the radio, there is no record business.

I know, I have a son who works for a band trying to make change and they now realize voting is necessary, but
their fans are a skeptical bunch.