I feel like there are lots of parallels between the eighties and now (recession/inflation, yuppies/inequality, skin-heads/fascists, hot-cold wars etc.) but there used to be protest music! Where is that stuff now? Music that’s intelligent and outraged - like we should be!
I’m out of touch now, so if it exists, educate me! Or have the protest songs been removed from tiktok by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (UK specific, but suppression of protest seems to be everywhere)? (I’ve linked to the Levellers - maybe it really was better back in the day?)
edit: Maybe not the right audience, but if the song is old enough to vote then I might already know it! What’s happening now? Any songs from the last 10 years!
edit: Thanks for everyone’s insights. I’ve spent the day discovering music that I’d never have found otherwise. Really enjoying a load of these, but thanks to everyone! It seems like protest music is confined to certain genres/places, and lots of older songs - maybe they just last longer… which is maybe a little interesting.
This thought has occurred to me recently. What is this generation’s soundtrack? What is the music everyone will look on and say it defined the time?
There isn’t one so much these days because streaming has given everyone their own particular music bubble. And stuff can still get insanely popular, but there aren’t hits that everyone talks about anymore.
Despacito, the fox, Gangnam style, shape of you, cruel summer, blinding lights, etc.
You won’t know until it’s long passed. Time is the best curator.