Would the protest singer, please stand up

As the Messiah himself once proclaimed, “The Times They Are A-Changing”.

This certainly seems true with the Arab Spring quickly becoming an Arab year, a projected Autumn of discontent focused on the November 30th strikes and major landmarks from Wall St. to St Paul’s occupied by either fearless revolutionaries, lazy unemployed troublemakers or empty tents, depending on your choice of media consumption.

Of course nobody should claim that all music must have an overt political message. But with such an apparently strong craving for change in the ordinary person some musical group or genre should have come up with something new to reflect these new changing social dynamics surely?

Granted, political music will never dominate the top 40 (exceptions exist, for example Rage Against The Machine storming the Christmas number one, however this was more due to action from an anti-X Factor protest) indeed looking at the chart today you could be mistaken for thinking all acts were either shameless narcissistic egoists or obsessed with selling that abstract emotion called love. However it is entirely possible I’m incredibly mistaken and in reality songs such as “Chico Time” are really a rallying call for the repressed British-Moroccan Muslim community. However for some reason this doesn’t seem to equate with any evidence.

Underground music and cultures have always been the hotbed of political ideals, from the protest movements of the 60’s, to the overtly political music of minority genres, including Punk, Reggae and Old School Hip Hop. These musicians have traditionally always challenged the status quo and inserted political references and meanings into their music, getting people to “Stand Up For Your Rights” (The Wailers) “Fight The Power” (Public Enemy) or “Fuck The SPG” (The Exploited). So where is this powerful political message in today’s music?

Many of the old political warhorses are still fighting for the cause, from Billy Bragg to Jello Biafra, political music still lives on. However apart from improved production values there has been little change in styles from these artists and their influence has certainly slipped as their generation are the new authority figures and leaders today’s young musicians should be rallying against.

Although there is clearly no modern political musical movement today there are still examples of contemporary political music. However they are usually unheard of and have a retro feel such as Thee Faction’s new album Up the Workers! Which harks back to older 80’s Socialist Indie-RnB (bizarrely these guys used to be Sophie Ellis Bexter’s backing group!) or any of the thousands of identikit punk groups who have just adopted their forefather’s clothes, beliefs and musical style. Or they are treated as novelty songs to be featured on comedy panel shows (who could forget MC Nxtgen & Rob Gee’s Andrew Lansley rap).

Where is Marxist Dub-step? Feminist Nintendocore? Or Environmentalist bastard-pop? What or who can we blame? Money? In a way, yes, it’s an isolating factor for many musicians forcing them to shift from focusing on music to becoming businessmen and brands (Jay-Z, Def Jam and the rise of the entrepreneurial music maker). However money has always been in music and many groups have either semi-escaped the extravagance on offer (Pearl Jam) or had alternate ways of reaching the public (Crass). Therefore money can’t be the only factor. What about Simon Cowell? How can an article on modern music avoid this man? Well his stranglehold is on popular music, it’s already been established how we don’t expect to see any political music trouble the charts. Can we blame new social media? It seems such a massive opportunity for music but all it’s given us is Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black. Maybe it was the shift from the macro to the micro creating an emphasis on personal experience and feelings, over any political oppression or policy, which can be traced back to grunge’s focus on the self. Is it a combination of all the above? Or do musicians simply need to become more creative? Maybe after reading this some local Warwick university bands might start attempting to make something new and challenging. We need to do something to avert the more likely event that we’ll still live in a world where the mainstream is dominated by a triptych of money, hoes and last night’s club, whilst the underground remains subjugated by whiny insular emo-pop bands singing about how the world is out to get them.

As the Messiah also proclaimed “The radio makes hideous sounds”