In late January, Bruce Springsteen released “Streets of Minneapolis,” a tribute to Minnesotans shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, weaving chants of “ICE Out Now” into the Trump-era chorus of resistance.
A few weeks later, U2 released “American Obituary”, one of five songs on Days of Ashes, a surprise album the band recorded to “cope with these crazy times”.
In February, Bad Bunny used their Super Bowl headline act to highlight Puerto Rico’s gentrification and economic struggles in front of 128.2 million viewers. He finished his performance holding a football with the message “Together, We Are America” engraved on it.
Many of music’s biggest stars have been politically vocal online and in interviews. But much of the new music doesn’t feel connected to defining moments of the protest movement. The songs arrive, cycle, and quickly fade out. They don’t seem to have the unifying force of ’60s songs like “People Get Ready,” “Give Peace a Chance,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which appealed to the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, and mid-century counterculture.
Today, there is a lot of music in the world and protests are active, but it still feels like something is missing.
In an era where artists are more outspoken than ever, why do we still feel like we’re waiting for a definitive political soundtrack?
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Bruce Springsteen, who released his protest song “Streets of Minneapolis” this week, performed the new song at a solidarity concert in Minneapolis.
Protest music has been ‘romanticized’, but not necessarily overtly
Explicit songs like Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” epitomize the 1960s transcendently. “Mississippi” was explosive and controversial, with Simone facing intense backlash and ultimately leading to her departure from music altogether. However, not all protest songs were hits and received recognition years later.
Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle, professor of music at the University of Miami, says that for many black artists on crossover radio, protest music often communicates through metaphor and ethos.
“Most black popular music up until that point had stayed away from any kind of overt protest narrative,” she says of the music of the civil rights era. “Notice why I said ‘overtly’ because we’re always saying something, even when we’re not saying anything.”
Much of the music from the civil rights movement didn’t “stick” in the way we might expect, Kernodle says. Resistance soundtracks became popular in certain environments. They were sung on the streets and in organized spaces. But especially in the case of black music, hits of the time, from Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” used indirect messages to get their point across.
“You could say that most pre-modern black music is some kind of protest music,” she says. “Black music has always had resistance, so we’ve always continued to sing, whether it’s expressing joy or really documenting the experience of oppression and the systems of oppression.”
She says the reason we remember the ’60s so fondly is because there was a clear soundtrack aimed at promoting political movements. She calls how the music of Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez (foundations of popular culture) became part of the consciousness of a larger moment “systemic.”
It also includes other causes of the times. In anti-war campaigns, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young protested the Kent State shooting with “Ohio,” and Creedence Clearwater Revival denounced the draft with “Fortunate Son.” In the pro-feminist movement, Leslie Gore declared, “You don’t own me,” and Aretha Franklin regained “respect.” And a revolt of anti-establishment youth swept through music with the help of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and the Beatles’ “Revolution.”
This era felt like a unification among diverse movements to the tune of music calling for a more peaceful and just world.
“This movement has a soundtrack that cannot be pinpointed to any other era. You can talk about the blues of the 1920s, but it is not associated with the mass mobilization and embodied radical social change that we saw in the 1960s,” Kernodle says. “Those young people amplified it. And they did it with music because they understood that music was a way to really spread ideology. It was also a way to disarm people’s ears.”
Why do you feel like political music isn’t here to stay today?
Engaging in protest music may be more difficult than it is now. Protest music has come in waves for the streaming era. In the late 1980s and ’90s, NWA’s “F— tha Police” and Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” challenged police brutality. In the ’80s, Green Day critiqued post-9/11 American culture with “American Idiot,” and Willie Nelson returned to the charts with a satirical cover of “The Gay Cowboy Song,” “Cowboys Often Secretly Love Each Other,” a cheeky affirmation of his longtime friend and tour manager’s coming out.
But musicians now face an additional problem: the fragmentation of musical culture. A proprietary algorithm places people on different sides of the internet and serves them songs similar to those they’re already listening to. Also, unlimited access to music via streaming makes it harder for smaller artists to break out.
“People are still playing music. They’re still putting on shows, they’re still saying what they want to say. They’re still finding an audience that way. But that’s not all,” says Dr. Dave Powell, who teaches the course “Music and Social Change Protest in the American Experience” at Gettysburg College. “There’s also a lot of art made by people just reacting to things on a daily basis, and it can be more difficult to find if you don’t know where to look.”
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The music is also less communal, and protest anthems require participation.
“We are no longer a singing nation. We no longer sing collectively, collaboratively and publicly,” Kernodol said. “We sang in church. We sang in school. You sang with your friends. You sang on the radio and on video. And then it disappeared.”
It also makes it easier to identify protest music when a surge of resistance occurs, whether Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” reflects anti-war sentiment in Vietnam, Green Day’s “American Idiot” reflects Bush-era grievances, or Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” confronts racial injustice during the Black Lives Matter era.
Fewer sustained national uprisings often result in fewer musical responses. So now, with a resurgence of pro-Palestinian or anti-ICE political activism on the streets and on campuses, YouTube-famous folk singers like Jesse Wells may emerge as new champions of protest songs. The “War Is Not Murder” singer’s reactionary music-making style (he releases songs several times a month) may not top the charts, but he’s found a captive audience excited about what his presence means to modern political anthems.
Today’s protest music comes with new risks
There are also additional risks for artists without global stardom or creative control over their music. Labels value broad marketability and commercial viability, and potentially controversial records usually don’t fit the criteria. Today’s political songs are rarely promoted and don’t influence the cultural zeitgeist like they used to.
“There’s always some manipulation, there’s always some censorship. There’s always a desire to promote artists in a certain way, especially when singing in genres that are considered marginalized genres, because the shadow of crossover is so important,” Kernodle said, referring to rap, country and R&B. “I think labels don’t want to promote it right now because they think people don’t want that kind of music.”
Joseph Terry, a senior lecturer in communications at the University of New Hampshire, said established artists can take more risks. Beyoncé rarely made overtly political music until 20 years into her career. The Grammy Award-winning singer and her dancers appeared on the Super Bowl halftime stage wearing the same costumes made famous by the Black Panther Party, sparking an outcry from Rush Limbaugh and other conservative commentators and the airing of the “Saturday Night Live” skit “The Day Beyoncé Became Black.”
“Not everyone can be Bad Bunny and be seen as a mainstream figure, but it’s also political,” Terry said, noting that while the Puerto Rican rapper and singer’s music is fun to dance to, it also addresses colonization, gentrification and corruption in his homeland. While non-Spanish speakers may not be completely on board, this is a positive act of resistance for fans.
Also, contemporary artists tend to be less brazen in their political anthems. Bad Bunny’s rap about not wanting Latino families to leave their homes on “DtMF” was a subtle referendum on economic insecurity, and Lady Gaga’s song about self-love on “Born This Way” was an affirmation of the queer community.
“It doesn’t matter if a lot of people don’t realize the song is political, because as long as some people do, the point gets across,” Terry says. However, “I think these simple protests are seen as more controversial today. It’s a bigger issue than the music.”
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music was never neutral
At the Grammy Awards in February, multiple artists including Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Kehlani spoke out about ICE, drawing praise at the venue but infuriating some viewers on social media. Controversial comedian Ricky Gervais told X after the awards ceremony that he resurfaced a comment he made during his 2020 Golden Globes monologue, telling the actors watching: “If you win an award tonight, don’t use it as a political platform to make a political speech. You’re not in a position to preach anything to the people. You don’t know anything about the real world.”
“They’re not telling LeBron, ‘Shut up and dribble,’ they’re telling him, ‘Shut up and sing.’ That’s so ridiculous,” Terry says. “I’m completely ignorant about a lot of 20th century music.”
Some fans wish artists with opposing views would remain silent. It’s a familiar refrain, and one that could become even louder if protest music returns to the mainstream.
There is also debate as to whether music actually has the effect of changing people’s minds. Despite the absence of the national anthem, organizing continues. So why do we need them now? Well, art provides a mirror to see what’s going on and see what more than one person perceives as wrong. Protest music can make the difference between giving up and continuing to fight.
“Rather than creating movement, art can be used to reflect movement, sustain it, and support it,” Powell says. “There’s a famous line by Pete Seeger that says, ‘A good song reminds you what you’re fighting for.'”
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In the comments of one of Jesse Wells’ latest songs, “Good vs Ice,” dozens of users thanked the singer for being a breath of fresh air in these politically unstable times. “You’re needed. You’re one of the only things the rest of us can actually hope for through the haze,” one person wrote, adding, despite feeling helpless, “you make us all feel a little better.”
Powell, speaking to musicians who feel that songs don’t change anything, counters by saying that while it may be true that music only reinforces the views people already have, it still has a valuable purpose in political campaigns.
“If it uplifts people, if it changes the way people look at certain issues, if it gives you hope when something is missing, if it forces you to have conversations that you wouldn’t have otherwise,” he added. “Woody Guthrie certainly influenced people. Pete Seeger certainly influenced people through his music. Guys like Nina Simone and Josh White are great, great artists who change the way people see the world because of the music they make. To me, that certainly seems to make a difference.”
Like many things in contemporary American culture, protest music is now immediate and reactive. And like the battles that inspired them, the music continues to unfold.
