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Rock Politics


TheLizard

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Today in history we discussed protest and political rock songs. The two songs we listened to in class were:

"Chicago"- Graham Nash

"Eve of Destruction"- Barry McGuire

Some other great political/protest songs I can think of are:

"Fortunate Son"- Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Gimme Shelter"- The Rolling Stones

Many Bob Dylan songs (Blowin' In The Wind, Hurricane)

Many Neil Young songs(Southern Man, Ohio)

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"How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of A Thousand Dead?" - Crass

"Bloody Revolutions" - Crass. Virtually everything by Crass was political protest.Some were more accessible and comprehensible than others....

"California Uber Alles" - Dead Kennedys (amongst many other classic DKs tracks)

"Revolution" - Chumbawamba, or for a whole albums worthof political statement, try their "Pictures Of Starving Children" LP.

"Ether" - Gang Of Four, or any number of tracks my favourite album of all time "Entertainment!"

Actuallyall of the above bands have done lots of astute political/protest material.

I suppose it depends a bit what one includes as "political".

For more "mainstream" pop-music of a political bent, how about The Jam "Going Underground", "Eton Rifles" etc. or The Style Council "Money Go Round"?

Whoops! Should be working...best get off

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Sunday Bloody Sunday-U2

Civil War-Guns N Roses

Ghosts Of War-Slayer

Peace Sells-Megadeth

What God Wants-Roger Waters

Pigs(Three Different Ones)-Pink Floyd

Anything from The Final Cut by Pink Floyd

Police Truck-Dead Kennedys

Holiday In Cambodia-Dead Kennedys

Bleed For Me-Dead Kennedys

Hey Blind-Fitter, I've been meaning to get a Crass album, but don't know where to start, what do you recommend?

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Hey Blind-Fitter, I've been meaning to get a Crass album, but don't know where to start, what do you recommend?

Tricky one jman; I take it you're familiar with Crass already to some degree? I only ask because, being harsh, noisy, relatively tuneless and relentlessly political,they're something of an "acquired taste".

If I had to choose one of their albums to represent the "classic Crass sound/experience", I would go for "The Feeding Of The Five Thousand" album. This is the one that, after all this time, I still take out for a spin every so often... "Stations Of The Crass" is similar "classic Crass", but can be a bit much, spread out over two albums...

Later albums "Penis Envy" and "Christ!-The Album" have plenty to recommend them too, seeing the band maturing musically. If anything, "Penis Envy" is the most interesting and creative of their albums, on a musical level. Also this album lacks the usual yobbish ranting vocal of Steve Ignorant; all vocals are by Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre, which corresponds to the more feminist slant of the album's political content.

There is a compilation album available "Best Before 1984", which I don't have, as I have pretty much all of their original albums and singles on vinyl. This CD compilation features most/all of the tracks released as singles, with some outstanding album tracks ("Do They Owe Us A Living?") and a couple of "lives". Although it does feature the excellent singles "Shaved Women", "Reality Asylum", "Bloody Revolutions", "Big A Little A", "Nagasaki Nightmare", and the exceedingly rare "Sheep-Farming In The Falklands", some of the other material (the latter singles) is not quite as "essential" (occasionally verging on the unlistenable).

It's a very difficult call: on balance, I would be more inclined to go for "The Feeding Of The 5000", if you can only afford the one. But that's easy for me to say, as I've got all those classic singles I mentioned...

Why not stretch to "Feeding...." and the "Best Before 1984" anthology (for the classic singles). Then you may find you want "Stations", "Penis Envy" and "Christ!" as well.....

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