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Putting the politics back into the music Every generation seems to find it necessary to shit all over its progeny’s culture. Baby boomers can’t stand Kanye West and his bling, just as their parents despised the Beatles’ mop-tops. Similarly, the disciples of Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez aren’t moved to action by the pleas of John Legend and Will.I.Am. This election season has been marked by a campaign run like no other. Taking notes from Howard Dean’s failed 2004 primary run, Sen. Barack Obama and his advisers have created a movement based on grass-roots action, youth-friendly endeavors, and a healthy dose of popular culture. In step with his campaign’s theme of firsts, Obama traversed more new political territory in September, when his organization released an official soundtrack. Titled Yes We Can: Voices of a Grass-Roots Movement, the album features Obama-supporting artists, including John Mayer, West, and Sheryl Crow. Obama’s visible embrace of music and musicians nods to a time when music moved and motivated people, providing a score to social change. For those too young to remember sit-ins and walkouts, archival footage often plays on PBS and A&E over Bob Dylan’s gravelly voice demanding “Mr. Tambourine Man” play a song for him or the soulful Sam Cooke hauntingly prophesying “A Change is Gonna Come.” These songs became anthems of peace, equality, and justice for a generation eager to correct the mistakes and overcome the bigotry of its parents. By the time grunge took over in the early ’90s, American pop and political cultures were about benefit singles and concerts promoting universally acceptable causes such as FarmAid, USA for Africa, and Band Aid, with the occasional anti-apartheid single thrown in for minimal controversy. But overtly political music with protest messages was largely missing from the lexicon. Artists weren’t less political, nor were the times, but it seemed that music increasingly lent itself to coded and ambiguous meanings with less straightforward lyrics. After Sept. 11, 2001, a rush of songs about patriotism and pride gave way to music dealing directly with our president and his policies. In 2002, Toby Keith’s jingoistic musical boot-in-the-ass “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” stirred controversy and inadvertently laid ground for more liberal protests from R.E.M. and the Beastie Boys on the eve of American troops’ invasion of Iraq a year later. Political music truly hit its new-millennial stride in 2004, on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, when Bright Eyes released “When the President Talks to God,” a scathing indictment of Bush’s religion-driven policies. Where ’60s protest musicians released their songs as 45s or on LPs and performed on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” Oberst of Bright Eyes played his tune on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” — in complete cowboy regalia — and gave away his song as a free download on iTunes. Oberst also participated in a series of concerts called Vote For Change, with such acts as the Dixie Chicks and Dave Matthews Band, with the sole goal to unseat Bush. Pop-punk Green Day also played a part and released its Grammy-winning, critically acclaimed album, 2004’s *American Idiot*, a concept collection dedicated to maligning America’s political climate. Afterwards, in 2006, Bruce Springsteen released a cover album of protest anthems originally recorded by legend Pete Seeger, and Neil Young recorded an overtly political album, Living With War, including the bluntly titled track “Let’s Impeach the President.” Obama’s soundtrack to what he hopes will be his road to the White House is a more politician-friendly brand of protest music, but it shows that songs about progress and change make a difference and are still salient in American culture, even if parents just don’t understand. |