What are some of the best protest songs of the last 10 years?
Anohni’s HOPELESSNESS is full protest songs and I love them but are there any others?
Folk punk as a genre to me is the essence of protest.
Any recommendations? I only know AJJ
AJJ is among my favourites! I recommend looking into:
- Pat the Bunny and his related acts -> Ramshackle Glory, WIngnut Dishwashers Union, Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains
- Mischief Brew (absolute must - my most beloved song of all time is their
Coffee God and Cigarettes) + related act The Orphans (recommend For an Old Kentucky Anarchist) - Days N Daze
- The Orphans
- Blackbird Raum
- The Taxpayers
Best of wishes! Happy listening :)
Kendrick Lamar has made a lot of songs about prejudice, police brutality, and racial justice but I think “Alright” and “The Blacker the Berry” were both commonly played during actual large scale protests
sleepdrone/superposition by P.O.S touches on the same subjects as well
I don’t know if I can make a case for “best” because it’s not from a well known artist, but I found This song about late stage capitalism a few months ago that’s pretty on the nose, and it rips.
Public Enemy - Fight The Power: Remix 2020
Farewell to Welfare by Grace Petrie - I’m not usually too big on folk but I love her songwriting.
Click Bait by Svalbard if you like heavier stuff!
Bloc Party - Kettling
I am not sure if this counts as a protest album, but Wide Awake! by Parquet Courts touches on gun violence, oppression, environmentalism, and the merits of socialism. They have a post-punk vibe. Really great album outside of the message as well, it was my favorite from 2018 and one of my favorite albums in general.
The opening track entitled ‘Total Football’ is a manifesto of sorts, drawing a metaphor between total football, an originally Dutch tactical system in soccer in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team, and the call for collectivism between all sectors of society to fight against oppression. And as I said, outside of the message, it also just rocks.
Damn I never really looked into the meanings of the songs on that album, even though I quite enjoy it. Got any more insights?
I think the album name “Wide Awake!” (in addition to the eponymous song on the record) is a play on the term “woke.” As in they’re conscious/aware of sociopolitical issues, particularly in the US.
‘Violence’ is a critique of violence in the United States, and speaks to how increasingly numb we are becoming to it: 'Savage is my name because Savage is how I feel When the radio wakes me up with the words “suspected gunman” ’ is an especially poignant lyric today, 5 years later. Every time I see a new report of a school shooting I think of this song.
‘Before the Water Gets Too High’ is pretty self-explanatory based on the title as well, the song describes how we prioritize profit over environmental protection in a capitalist society, but the money we make won’t matter once the earth is fucked and Wall Street is underwater. The song also touches on wealth disparity, but that too will be irrelevant eventually “when the rich become refugees”. And maybe that is what it will take for change to happen, but it may be too late at that point.
‘Normalization’ speaks about the normalization of the toxic culture of our political discourse. Which again, is very relevant still and seems to have only gotten worse since 2018.
The final song ‘Tenderness’ is forward-looking and ends the record on a lighter note, and to me is about how the new generation can enact change, and about the hope that the world can be more "tender’ and kind.
Not all the tracks could be considered ‘protest’ songs, Freebird II and Death Will Bring Change (which is actually about how one of the band members lost his sister in a car accident, and how that affected him) are a lot more introspective rather than a commentary on society.
But overall, and also the fact that they chose to name it Wide Awake, the tone of the record is very much a protest of sorts to various issues we face in the US and across the world.
I consider Pinegrove - Orange to be a protest song, but your mileage may vary.
