Following, somewhat fortuitously from an article here a few weeks ago on protest music, I’ve had the opportunity to interview self-identified Protest Singer, Sam Draisey, to talk about music as protest, the difficulties of trying to make it as a musician, and about the general state of DIY music in the UK. Sam, from Wolverhampton, […]
The sudden and untimely death of the Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan made for another sad start to another year, with the loss of another great, iconic rock star of the last two decades. Dolores, who was found deceased on January 15th in a London hotel room, was only 46. As I noted at the deaths […]
People are always complaining that in the '60s there was a lot of great protest music and that now there isn't. There was in the '60s, though much of it was "underground." Today there's plenty as well-- and much of it-- maybe more of it-- is underground. Look harder. Do you know Company of Thieves, the Chicago band that;s been recording and touring for around a decade? They put out a couple of albums and in 2014 seems to have disappeared. They're back-- with a new album coming out later this year and a new 5-song EP coming out February 23.
If you are asking ‘Where is all the protest music?’ you aren’t looking hard enough
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
4 September 2017
Every now and then an opinion piece is published in the press lamenting the lack of political songwriting today.
I haven't really kept up with the music business since retiring from Reprise. But I'm still a music fan and I was excited, about a month before the election, to hear the new Green Day album, Revolution Radio. The first single was the anti-gun nut song, Bang Bang and when they performed it at the American Music Awards a couple weeks after Trump won the election, Billie Joe inserted the lyric/chant, "No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA." The response was electric and downloads went crazy immediately.
SONY Records— they were still called CBS at the time— had just bought my independent label, 415 Records and I was over in England hanging out with the Clash, Generation X, the Boomtown Rats and Wire and scouting for bands I could sign to 415 now that we would have CBS’ marketing muscle behind us. I met a young unknown singer from a small indie label, Innervision, George Michael and he played me a tape of a kind of protest song called Wham Rap. It was a little slick for 415 but… 415 could change. One thing I knew instantaneously— it was a hit.
Was I lucky when I became the president of Reprise Records! The label had just debuted Green Day's Dookie and it was hurtling past gold and platinum sales. They reminded me of my favorite band, The Clash, in so many ways, not the least of which was a very genuine ideological perspective that encapsulated the ideals of the French Revolution-- liberté, égalité, fraternité-- and my first job was to persuade our European companies, which were ignoring the record entirely, that Green Day was for real. First stop: London. The chairman of our U.K. affiliate was condescending and steadfast.
