Move along Billy Bragg…

capitalism-rocks-protestDon’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of his music, but I think Billy Bragg is great, and unusually, has become more musically and politically interesting as he’s got older.

But isn’t it time we had a new generation of protest singers and songs?  And particularly in the new and uncertain political climate in which we now find ourselves.  We know that young people are being hit hard by the cuts, so will there be any musical rebellion?  Call me jaded, but I’m finding it hard to believe this will happen.  What’s interesting about the ‘new folk’ revival (Mumford and Sons et al) is how apolitical it all is.  I’ve been to so many gigs recently where earnest young men with beards seem to be harking to a vision of Americanaland or Albion that just doesn’t seem to have any relation to the here and now.

Partly I wonder whether it’s to do with the fact that it’s just so hard to be counter-cultural these days, when the establishment is so quick to appropriate anything vaguely new, youthful and alternative.  How awful must it be to be a 13-year old Arctic Monkeys fan and hear your Prime Minister Gordon Brown profess his love for them.  I was mortified when David Cameron chose This Charming Man by the Smiths as one of his desert island discs.

There’s also the fact that pop music has been around so long now it’s become mainstream and pervades all our lives.  So while sixties pop music was still largely for young people, it’s now listened to by (shock) grandparents!  Look how the demographics of music festivals have changed – many headline acts are bands from the 1980s and 90s playing to people in their late 30s and 40s.  So perhaps bands aren’t speaking in a very direct way to a particular generation like they once did.

Meanwhile, programmes such as Skins and advertising companies employ music specialists to source the most obscure and cutting edge music and bring it to a wider audience.  Great in one sense, but again, absorbing into the mainstream in the process, and blunting the edges of anything, er, edgy.

I also suspect that there’s now a certain stigma attached to the protest singer – that they might be a bit eccentric, or straying from their role as entertainer – and as a result, in our shiny X-Factor world, the audience appetite for political song has dwindled.  Commentators say that we, and particularly teenagers and students, are much more passive these days, but I can’t quite believe that’s true, given the recent student protests and sit-ins.

Ok, I’m not suggesting we look for the next Pete Seger, or heaven forbid, Joan Baez, but loads of great political pop music was created in the previously difficult political times of the 1980s, including one of my own desert island discs, Ghost Town by the Specials.  Public Enemy were just a fantastic and really controversial band.  Robert Wyatt sang about the death of the ship building industry and interestingly, it was a 20 year-old song, ‘Killing in the Name Of’, that was revived in the battle to keep X Factor off the Number One slot in 2009.

There are still a few great, politically engaged bands out there if you look hard – check out Dalek for example – but nothing much beyond the fringes (Green Day’s American Idiot was a rare breakthrough).   Perhaps we’ve just reached a time in the great onslaught of globalism and capitalism where we’ve run out of energy to create real protest music. But I sincerely hope not, as surely it’s needed now more than ever.

2 comments

  1. I have thought and felt exactly the same as your closing statements for some years now, protest music is needed now more than ever but seems to be the reserve of the underground eg. punk, hardcore etc… there are people out there making more ‘popular’ forms of protest music, i like to consider myself and friends as just some of those people. Sadly, in my experience, live audiences do not want to hear it as much as a song about a drunk night out (standard fodder for that “difficult second album” that usually finds bands watering down their initial principles in order to keep shifting units) it becomes increasingly more difficult to motivate oneself to play such music in a live setting when, post gig, the sense that it’s a waste of time becomes all to regular an occurrence. Is music becoming a form of total escapism as opposed to a means of inspiration and galvanizing opinion? What a shame that a whole generation has abandoned the sense that music can affect change. Now here comes the bit where i plug the music i have almost given up on. This is the myspace of both myself, Yorkshireguese and friend Jonny Bollox (who has now quit making music under this moniker) I hope you enjoy and or have some constructive criticisms. Paz e Liberdade!

    http://www.myspace.com/yorkshireguese

    http://www.myspace.com/jonnybolloxnz

  2. The apparent disinterest of young musicians when it comes to political songwriting and, moreover, politics in general is mystifying, particularly as we’re living through a time when it’s arguably much-needed and there’s so much to object to. It’s something Billy Bragg was himself bemoaning recently: http://www.clashmusic.com/news/billy-bragg-laments-the-decline-of-protest-music

    I have to wonder whether it reflects a more widespread political apathy amongst many young people. I teach in FE colleges and I’ve met disappointingly few students who are interested in politics or concerned with what’s happening in the country and wider world. Recent protests over university fees did offer some hope that this isn’t the case for all young people, and I’m aware that young people in HE are perhaps more likely to be politicised than those in FE, but it would be nice to see this discontent being expressed through music. I certainly became aware of many issues through listening to and reading about Robert Wyatt, Billy Bragg et al in the 1980s. As you say, it’s a shame that there seem to be no equivalent voices now.

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