[dfwgator]

"There's been an overt message in the mainstream media that if you criticize the president, you're criticizing America and you're unpatriotic — which is ridiculous, because this country was founded on dissent."

Ahh yes, the standard leftist bilge that dissent isn't allowed in this country. Actually that's what they really wish was the case, so they can think of themselves as dissidents, like the real ones that were in the old Soviet empire, or like the 60s protesters.

[randog]

This article is hilarious!

[ClearCase_guy]

Hip Hop Protest Music!!


We be overcoming,
We be overcoming
We be overcoming some day

Yo! Deep in my heart
I does believe
The ladies are all ho’s and stuff
But Bush is a moron

We’ll walk hand in hand
And then we’ll pop a cap
Into any M****F****
Who doesn’t dig my rap!

[Mr. Blonde]

The thing people don't like isn't protest music against certain things in society. It is the unbridled hatred of one man. It doesn't come across as anyone being upset about war, but upset because GWB is in office. Plus most artists today just aren't as talented of songwriters as many in the past were. With that said, Tom Morello is awesome no matter his politics.

[Supernatural]

Where have all the protest songs gone?

The answer my friend, lies blowin' in the wind. The answer lies blowin' in the wind.

[MNlurker]

I'm still waiting to hear Neil Young's songs of protest against the way Saddam Hussien treated the Kurds and Shiites during his time in power...I guess that makes me against freedom of speech.

This hubub over "protest songs" is tiresome. They're not protest songs, they're political songs from the artists point of view. They should be referred to as such.

As for Tom Morello, I can't stand his politics, but he is one hell of a musician.

[Lil'freeper]

There are some pockets of the music that are more conducive to protest than others. The Adult Alternative/Singer-songwriter 'genre' for instance. It is buffered from the commercial backlash that the Poor Dixie Twits encoutered because it only gets a lot of play on college campus radio stations and the local coffee houses. Even so, there's not much. And what is there is isn't bold or catchy. Little coy lyrics here and there that will get more praise for their clever irony than their actual message. It's not about 'war' or 'the war' just 'American life sucks' and 'why cant we just get along'. The only protest that pops to mind is Ray Lamontagne's "How Come?" It's really lame:

People on the street now
Faces long and grim
Souls are feeling heavy
And faith is growing thin
Fears are getting stronger
You can Feel them on the rise
Hopelessness got some by the throat you can see it in their eyes
I said how come
How come
Everybody on a shoestring
Everybody in a hole
Everybody crossing their fingers and toes
Government man spin his politics till he got you pinned
Everybody trying to reach out to each other
But they don't know where to begin
I said how come I can't tell
the free world from living hell
I said how come
How come all I see
is a child of god in misery
I said how come the pistol now as profit
The bullet some kind of lord and king
But pain is the only promise that this so called savior is going to bring
Love can be a liar
And justice can be a thief
And freedom can be an empty cup from which everybody want to drink
I said how come I can't tell
the free world from living hell
I said how come
How come all i see
is a child of god in misery
I said how come
Its just man killing man
Killing man
Killing man
Killing man
Killing man
I don't understand
Its just man killing man

[JerseyHighlander]

Strange article.

Here's another vote for the lyrics removed karaoke version of RATM w/Morello's guitar. Hell of a musician.

We all seen the diva minstrels, warbling on about this and that political cause, with consternation in their gaze and emotion in their voice, but you can only hear it so many times. Popular culture artists are not the historians of their generation, the whole idea of a soundtrack to rebellion is from some other age decades ago.