Boards

http://www.theenemy.com/

in a Primal Screamy-kind of way.

reading like your post does, which, statistically is likely to just sound overearnest and simplistic.

I think it's interesting that there is such an increase in electronic music in the charts at present. Maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know.

Because

http://youtu.be/iZyPSLpy5KI

I though someone might say The Enemy!

I think it is possible to say stuff without sounding over-earnest and simplistic though (apologies if my post did!)

I just find it quite surprising that there isn't much out there attempting it. Can't say I've heard that Primal Scream song- is it new?

To be honest, it's more out of interest in the subject than anything else- was thinking whether the voice of protest had left music, and thought I'd see what others thought!

but it takes a great degree of ability to do so. Like, if you aren't particularly gifted lyrically, it ends up sounding quite trite, whereas a song about something else does not.

Very true. It's a tough thing to get right, and if you don't, you end up looking pretty daft. I thought there would be more anger in young bands too at the moment. Must be so many pissed off young people out there.

they publicly humiliated David Cameron, good effort guys

I think it's kind of seen as a bit 'lame' to do overly political music these days. I think that's why no band is really making it with ham fisted political lyrics and why so many bands don't even try.

#mature

heres a rap i wrote about david camewrong :

DAVE, YOURE A SLAVE , DAVE, YOU AINT NUTHIN BUT A SLAVE, YOU GOT US LIVIN IN A GRAVE, DAVE, U TRY TO BE LIKE TONY BLAIR, BUT WE KNOW U DONT REALLY CARE, AND TONY WAS A CUNT N E WAY, U SAID DAT U LIKED DA SMIFFS, WHILE U WAS HIGH ON COKE N SPLIFFS, THE BENEFITS OFFICE IS RUN BY CHIMPS, U SAID IT WOULD GET BETTA , WHY DONT U GET A JOB IN A CALL CENTA, U AINT NOTHIN BUT A SLAVE DAVE YOU AINT NUTHIN BUT A SLAVE, SAMANTHA GONE LEAVE YA HIGH N DRY, IF YA HAIRLINE RECEDES ITS GONE BE BYE BYE, U BE CRUSHIN ALL DA PEOPLE OUT BEFORE TOO LONG, U BE BURNIN UP IN HELL COS ITS WHERE U BELONG ! COS U AINT NUTTIN BUT A SLAVE, DAVE, BUT 1 THING U CAN BE PROUD OF, THE 1 THING U LACK , AT LEAST U DIDNT KILL ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN IRAQ ! BUT U STILL A SLAVE DAVE U AINT NUTHIN BUT A SLAVE BOO YA

am gonna get 50 cent to do a duet with chvrches on this 1 (summer 2014) b theyre or b destroyed

Always seems to have a shelf life of about three days

#stateofthenation. or something

Back in the 1980s you couldn't open NME or MM without seeing loads of ads for benefit gigs - anti-apartheid, support the miners, save the rhino & so forth. Stopped happening some time in the early 90s if memory serves me correctly.

:(

HMHB are making a stand and have been doing so for 30 years with more ingenuity and wit than most

Look at how many people on here get boners over Kanye West, who seems mainly preoccupied with his own wealth and social standing. Or how many are willing to defend manufactured, by-committee tat like 1D. But hey, they're all just a bunch of top lads living the dream, leave them alone.

Popular music sorely needs a punk influence at the moment, but it's hard to see what direction they could approach it from without looking like they're just rehashing the same tired old stuff.

It's kind of hard to be the voice of anti-corporatism while promoting yourself on Facebook et al

then there's the fact that being a band these days seemingly requires a trust fund in order to get on the first rung or two;
Frank Turner is a protest singer... who went to Eton, is signed to Universal and whose Grandparents were a millionaire director of British Home Stores and a Bishop
There's nothing inherently wrong with this but it's hardly an anti-establishment pedigree

But deeper than that is perhaps the problem that working class culture has been strangled in the UK at least since Thatcher (though she didn't invent the idea of the aspiring middle classes of course) and results in poverty being fractured into communities who, instead of feeling on the margins of society, feel removed from society completely and so invent there own subgenres (grime for instance) with their own language and preoccupations about their immediate surroundings

I guess the nearest to a political album known by the mainstream audience in recent times is Plan B's Ill Manors

but it's hardly 'What's going on' - or maybe it is ... time will tell

the other thing, as someone mentioned above, is escapism

people love to go dancing when times are hard - Saturday Night Fever, Blue Monday, Club Tropicana, Ebeneezer Goode; all of them the soundtrack to economic misery

But ill manors by Plan B was a no 1 hit, is powerful without being embarrassing and is a bit of a banger to boot.

Nice

So real he opened up an orphanage in Afghanistan with his own money.

which is a position of protest that perfectly gels with coming from a privileged background :')

if he even was one then

Basque separatist noise rock

GREAT
BUNCH
OF
LADS

I think all that sums it up really. Excellent post.

but really I think that these days most people are interested in the personal and will deal with issues of life and poverty and that through either escapism or personal songs - there isn't going to be a Cameron-era equivalent to Nevermind The Bollocks or London Calling.

Have there been any opinionated dance bands.

As in, trying to bring the worlds problems to everyones attention?

Underworld might have done.

The new wave of industrial techno people coming thru at the moment was because of some kind of social unrest. Most of the artists denied it being an influence tho, they just said they liked the sound of loud shit and distruction. I can't remember where the article was though, maybe Quietus or some kind of protentious techno blog.

in the 'glory' days of protest music it was helpful for people to build up figureheads/icons/slogs/songs to rally around, because communication was much slower and it was harder to disseminate a nuanced argument.

But now that people can share their ideas and organise themselves rapidly, it feels pretty redundant sitting around and waiting for a twentysomething indie band to show us the way.

which is maybe why the shift has been made to stuff like dubstep being the sounds of the riots the other year. Because people aren't looking for something to speak out about the issues for them they just want something to sound obnoxious when they're doing it.

yeah, the problem isn't that he's posh, it's that he's a fucking twonk

because when you're faced with the problem of political lyrics sounding cliched and trite, as discussed upthread, moving to instrumental music is the obvious way to go.

plus you'll prob get your head kicked in during a riot if you pull out an accoustic guitar and play dylan.

You do hear more lyrics in hip-hop about ressesion and all that, but in the bits I've heard its more like...Its a ression work hard like a muthafucka, don't worry I'm still loaded I've got loads of cars cos I work hard cos I sell tons of dope kinda way.

although there's plenty of political music (Plan B, Springsteen, PJ Harvey's last records, to name three), but they're not pointedly taking 'a stand'.

And yes, spot on about the dubstep I reckon - very few of the great punk songs were particularly reasoned in their arguments, it was basically obnoxious noise, albeit with a simple message attached.

apologies for a there/their error though

Missing an opportunity to make his classic Sonic Youth gag!

le tigre are easily the most famous for their overt political themes (i guess julie ruin and men are in a similar vein). peaches is in the same boat a bit too, i guess, and then all the stuff thats similar like chicks on speed, lesbians on ecstacy and gravy train!!!!, although not as political.

there's a good piece in the guardian with The Knife about this

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1774

i don't think they really followed through with that but i think its starting to happen..

it'll only take a few popular bands to start doing it for it to become trend

Cabaret Voltaire - obv.

admittedly they're largely focused on environmental issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkzCi5mHvkc

or one of their writers blogs,it was to do with factory floor i think?

if it comes at all.
guitar/indie music is mostly a middle/upper class concern and far to removed from the street for any movement that thats going to be taken seriously to stem from.

but they allegedly purvey something called 'eco metal', I guess that's, er, pre-environment..?

-because being overtly political is crass and most modern indie rock is sickeningly tasteful (and they'll never be as good as Crass)
-because minutemen already wrote the greatest political lyrics of all time

^shit

the one about the drug addict/prostitute or whatever

what i'm saying is the whole culture of guitar music has changed,its became bogged down and tainted through its ongoing association/obsession with trust funded upper class bands and its halcyon past.so its no longer exactly the perfect medium to work as an authentic voice of dissatisfied and marginalised youth.
i could be wrong but i'd hazard a guess that the next political movement within music to carry any real cultural weight will come from hiphop or dance in some form or the other.

i still love guitar music,but there's no getting away from the fact its position in society has changed dramatically this last decade or so.

the A team!the videos got model running about london in a duvet looking angsty

innit?

although I guess that's going to be true of musicians. Or indeed most public figures making political statements.