Mixing pop and politics
Another Friday mixtape: protest songs
Poem of the week: Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer. The most controversial album of all time? Paul Simon’s Graceland. “For the bourgeois record industry, Johnny Guitar Watson’s protest songs are a gimmick and a frivolity, an underclass whistle in the dark.” Alliterative hybridity: Tamatant Tilay Tunng team up with the Tuareg troupe Tinariwen. Not a protest song: a lovely song about […]
From Bob’s archive: Doves and hawks
This is another one from the archive, from August 2007, when everything was about the Iraq war, and it seems like a good addition to the recent country music posts. “A dove with claws” I take this from a post on Shagya Blog, linking to a piece in In These Times that I linked to a while back. It comes […]
On the Manic Street Preachers’ song Empty Souls
The album Lifeblood by Manic Street Preachers is 8 years old this year. For me this is hard to believe, it really doesn’t feel that long, but the album is little known, and largely ignored by all save for the hardcore MSP fans. I can understand this. There are stand out songs on there, and […]
What happens if songs become offensive over time?
What we need, so Blue Mink tell us, is one great big melting pot. And do you know – I agree with them. I’m sure if I’d been around in 1969 I’d have agreed with what was meant by the song all the way through, but I can’t say I’d stick their lyrics up on […]
Bob's Beats 