Posted on 12/30/2007 8:42:46 AM PST by originalbuckeye
In music, as in politics, timing is everything. In early 2003, just six weeks after performing the national anthem here to kick off Super Bowl XXXVII, the Dixie Chicks became national pariahs after its lead singer, Natalie Maines, told a London concert audience the Texas trio was “ashamed” to be from the same state as President Bush.
Result: derision, death threats, charges of sedition and worse. The group's music was virtually banished overnight from country radio and its album sales plunged. In 2006, the same year the Dixie Chicks released an album that won multiple Grammy Awards despite being almost uniformly ignored by country radio, Neil Young put out “Living With War.” Young's album featured such brash songs as “Shock and Awe” and “Let's Impeach the President” (sample lyric: Let's impeach the president / For lying and leading our country into war / Abusing all the power that we gave him / And shipping our money out the door).
Result: cheers from some fans and grousing from some conservatives. But, ultimately, a loud silence greeted these musical broadsides from Young, whose 1970 protest song “Ohio” remains one of the most visceral anti-war anthems of modern times.
In the past few years there have been anti-war songs by everyone from Pink, Pearl Jam, Molotov and Eminem to Nanci Griffith, R.E.M., jazz great Charlie Haden and even country-music icon Merle Haggard. (That's the same Merle Haggard whose 1970 song “The Fightin' Side of Me” ripped into hippies and anti-war protesters with zingers like: If you don't love it, leave it / Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin' / If you're runnin' down my country, man / You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me.)
Bruce Springsteen's new album, “Magic,” features songs that vividly chronicle the grim human cost of the war in Iraq. He timed its release to coincide with the ongoing presidential primaries. Other artists who have weighed in on the state of this divided nation include Bright Eyes, Trans Am, Calle 13 and such veterans as Steve Earle, John Fogerty, Toby Keith and ex-San Diegan Tom Waits.
An even broader array of artists – Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Madonna, Linkin Park, Keith Urban and dozens more – teamed up to perform in eight cities around the world this summer as part of Live Earth, a series of international concerts designed to raise awareness of global warming. And a growing number of musicians – among them U2, Green Day, The John Butler Trio and Jay-Z – have sung out on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina and against the bumbling government response.
Clearly, they aren't shirking the opportunity to weigh in on timely issues, pro and con, here and abroad, be it ex-Fugees mainstay Wyclef Jean working on behalf of his Haitian homeland or Lenny Kravitz and Iraq's Kazem El-Sahir collaborating on the song “We Want Peace.”
That's the good news.
The bad news is that the era when a song – any song – helps unite large numbers of people to rally on behalf of a common cause seems to have passed. In this digital age of information overload and corporate monopolies, ring-tones and widgets, it is easier than ever to be heard by millions but far more difficult to make a lasting impact.
True, some 4 million-plus YouTube viewers have watched the video for the R&B-flavored “I Got a Crush ... on Obama” by the lip-syncing Obama Girl (in actuality, a busty model and actress named Amber Lee Ettinger). But it's hard to believe she'll have any more impact on the presidential election than Barbra Streisand throwing her support behind Hillary Clinton or Oprah Winfrey stumping for Obama.
Perhaps we've simply reached a point of oversaturation, or we're just taking a breather before next year's onslaught. Or, maybe, while the causes being espoused now are just as compelling, the music that results is not.
Maybe he should listen to and observe the crowd when "Proud To Be An American" is played/sung, before he writes this stuff. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy- we're Conservatives...we get up for work, we get up for church and we get up for war when necessary. The author is obviously referring to HIS compatriots with this drivel.
The last song that brought large numbers of like minds together was aptly titled “We are the Weird”... right?
Did Bruce “vividly chronicle” the war in Iraq like he did the battle of Khe Sahn,
where his “brother” fought not the NVA but the Viet Cong?
Maybe we want entertainers to be entertainers instead of political hacks for the left.
Poor Bruce has hit the skids. Just don’t tell him or the music reviewers that still find him relevant. I, too, used to enjoy his work. No more.
Agree. I’m totally fed up with all the politics infiltrating everything. I find that celebrities who endorse Dems are no longer desirable watching/listening for me. Few celebrities endorse Conservatives so that’s not usually a problem for me.
...meaning the awards charade is transparently political and not artistic. shocking. not.
Great point!
But there’s nothing like a rousing rendition of Springsteens “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” , to press that one little nerve that so few can reach.
Whitney Houston
Maria Carey
Celine Dion
I’d rather be waterboarded
I don’t get it. I just looked up Viet Cong. Weren’t those the commies?
The sciatic nerve maybe. What an awful screetchfest. And the tone on the sax is equally screetchy and bad. You want to hear real talent, listen to Ray Charles' "Santa Clause is coming to town."
Too bad. So sad.
This guy has his good news and his bad news mixed up.
I like the E Street Band’s version of that song, because it’s a rare reminder of the days when Bruce and the gang were listenable, before some dirty lying so-and-so told him he could be the Woody Guthrie of our era.
*yawn*
My thoughts exactly. The Nobel Peace Prize can be added to that list. Several years ago I started boycotting the awards shows (after I watch the red-carpet walk. I do love to see the dresses!). After all, all the celebrity awards shows are just them giving awards to themselves.
I think it is telling that if Josh Groban had one of the best selling album for 2007, Noel. A CHRISTMAS album. They are all songs I have heard before, but I have the CD in my car and bought a copy for my housebound Aunt. Interstingly, this is music that “helps unite large numbers of people to rally on behalf of a common cause.” It’s just not a cause the MSM likes to rally around.
VC were local commie guerillas who operated in the south. Khe sahn, near the border with North VN, was attacked by the NVA.
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