{"id":43,"date":"2025-12-19T15:53:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/?post_type=back-matter&p=43"},"modified":"2026-02-09T20:41:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T20:41:44","slug":"summary-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"back-matter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/back-matter\/summary-conclusions\/","title":{"rendered":"Summary and Conclusions"},"content":{"raw":"So, what have we learned? Hopefully, a lot. We\u2019ve offered a great deal of insight, but it\u2019s what we do with that information that\u2019s so important. Have we seen the end of the age of protest, of music and art with a message, or have we simply failed to see how it evolved? Let\u2019s take a look at what we\u2019ve covered.\r\n\r\nHistorians dissect and analyze the times we lived in, but popular culture and mass media have proven to be the most effective method of delivering an immediate message to the masses.\u00a0 It\u2019s nothing new. The griots, the historians and troubadours of Western Africa, spread the news and lore of their culture from town to town in the days before they had access to print. Professor Bob West at Kent State University was a former beat poet who likened the messaging and delivery of the griots to the hip-hop artists of today. A look at the decades of modern popular culture shows the concerns of the masses in their particular eras. The Universal horror movies of the 1930s were centered in Eastern Europe where the Nazi war machine was starting to grow.\u00a0 Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor comic book heroes of the 1940s were already fighting the war, and paranoia about the nuclear age and a threat to our air space brought us films about atomic bred monsters and UFOS. The war in Southeast Asia provided fertile ground for late Sixties music and we\u2019ll address that in a moment. Concern about AIDS and the blood supply led to the popularity of vampire films in the seventies and eighties and rap artists let their voices be heard about their wide range of issues for years until the present day. What\u2019s the link?\r\n\r\nEverything we mentioned is the product of storytellers. Facts are vital but it\u2019s the story that compels us to listen and often to act. William Savage Jr. tells us that \u201ca reliable enemy is a fine thing for a storyteller to have\u201d (Savage, 1990). You can make a very effective case that the voices of protest were united by a common cause, and during the height of the age of musical dissent that concern was ending the war in Viet Nam and driving President Richard Nixon from office.\u00a0 The horrors of My Lai, the sight of bloodshed and coffins with U.S. servicemen on the nightly news and the angry protests on college campuses and city streets widened the so-called generation gap between the America that won World War II\u2026 a declared war\u2026and an overseas conflict fought by the post WWII baby boom that didn\u2019t understand why we were there.\u00a0 The deaths on the Kent State and Jackson State campuses, the New York Times<\/em> publication of the Pentagon Papers, and the rise of anti-war candidates all played a role in the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia, and it was the rich pool of talent that challenged the so called \u201cestablishment\u201d that helped fan the flames of dissent into a raging political fire.\u00a0 Even so, it was not an easy task facing off against a very powerful and, let\u2019s face it, very corrupt Nixon administration.\r\n\r\nRichard Nixon was driven from office before the fall of Saigon and essentially the end of U.S. involvement in April 1975, but a strong argument could be made that American troops could have remained in Viet Nam even longer had he not resigned in disgrace. Nixon\u2019s fall came the previous August when he stepped away from the White House faced with likely impeachment and even removal from office following the Watergate scandal and reports outlining excessive misuse of power in various levels of government. Even so, the Nixon administration used the power of the presidency and other government offices in an attempt to influence media and silence the forces that opposed him. He had his victories, too. The Nixon White House successfully stalled the admittedly left leaning Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/em> on CBS-TV and despite a lawsuit that ruled in favor of Tommy and Dick it was a hollow victory because they were silenced at a critical point in their career. You could say the same for John Lennon.\u00a0 His appearance at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally with members of the Chicago Seven brought FBI agents out to Ann Arbor to write down lyrics he shouted from the stage. There had also been rumblings the former Beatle was using it as a dry run to hit the road with an anti-Nixon tour, and his politically charged 1972 album \u201cSome Time in New York City\u201d didn\u2019t exactly endear him to the White House.\u00a0 It had a small cover photo of the president dancing with Mao Tse-Tung in the nude that pushed him to the top of Nixon\u2019s \u201cenemies list.\u201d Lennon found out the hard way you don\u2019t mess with the U.S. government. That LP turned into the starting gun for a very expensive and contentious legal battle over a drug bust years before in England that feds used as an excuse to deport Lennon. Granted, Lennon eventually won the right to stay and get his green card, but it pretty much put his career on ice for years. So why weren\u2019t the stories being heard to the same extent they were in the years immediately following CSNY\u2019s \u201cOhio.\u201d We weren\u2019t the first to ask.\r\n\r\nBy 1975, it seemed the populace that aggressively fought the status quo had become battle weary. Yes, change is inevitable, but many of the tent poles of the counterculture had simply collapsed. The highly produced progressive rock gave way to the simple redefined raw energy of punk with a segment of a new generation rejecting the sounds that immediately preceding it. At about that same time there was the emerging disco generation spurred by the notion that we have been through trying times and let\u2019s just let loose and dance. The flashy club scene that drew many of the superstars of the groundbreaking Sixties pop culture including Mick Jagger, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol to New York\u2019s Studio 54 was celebrated at its height in John Travolta\u2019s 1977 film Saturday Night Fever<\/em>.\u00a0 Entire radio formats adopted club dance music and rose triumphantly in the ratings before suddenly crashing when the fad faded into obscurity. Another film, 1982\u2019s Wild Style,<\/em> centering on the emerging hip hop lifestyle in the South Bronx didn\u2019t get the same media attention partly because it centered on the rougher side of ghetto life, though the music was making its way via underground clubs and low power radio stations much like punk and early rock and roll. In the case of Wild Style,<\/em> it was music with a message, but the messenger kept a distinct low profile.\r\n\r\nIt could also be argued that, sensing a growing and profitable audience, much of the underground pop culture was now being accepted and marketed in mainstream media of the day.\u00a0 The underground art of R. Crumb that he peddled on the streets of Haight Ashbury in comics titled Zap, Mr. Natural<\/em> and Big Ass<\/em> was by the 1970s seen prominently on newsstands in Arcade \u2014 the Comics Revue<\/em>, and a major feature film about his character, Fritz the Cat (which Crumb hated!)\u00a0\u00a0 His original art and stuff produced by Gilbert Shelton and S. Clay Wilson, among others, command huge prices. Poster artists like Rick Griffin, Dave Sheridan, Victor Moscoso and some other notables saw their stuff distributed for free and now hang in galleries.\u00a0 Then radio went through a major change.\r\n\r\nWhen FM radio started being included as standard features in cars in the early to mid-Seventies the free form progressive stations soon started programming with playlists, promotions and higher energy personalities than seen just a few years before when the AM dial was king. The shared communal experience of FM radio was switching from political and community concerns to heavy entertainment. Few remember that the band Ambrosia started out its recording career as a much heavier based group, but the lighter stuff on their later albums provided a form of escapism with lighter fare that gave them a success of which they only dreamed. Burleigh Drummond, the band\u2019s drummer, said it became evident to both himself and the band stating, \u201cI think there was a period in pop music where that was kind of the theme. Maybe it was a reaction to everything we had been through. You know, we had our share of protests. I mean Ambrosia actually wrote quite a few protests songs in our first two albums. \u2018I Wanna Know\u2019 is a protest. Things like that. I think around our third album is when we start having \u2018How Much I Feel.\u2019 I think it was a time to kind of celebrate feeling good again.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe concert business became far more organized and profitable with artists playing large arenas and festivals with sophisticated lighting and sound and escalating ticket prices. The \u201cestablishment\u201d that so many had feared had embraced the counterculture in the name of profit and the masses with expendable cash and energy liked what they saw and heard.\u00a0 But that also meant you played by the rules of mainstream media, and money talked big time.\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s not to say a lot of great art was not produced during those years.\u00a0 In 1975 NBC\u2019s Saturday Night<\/em>\u00a0 (later known as Saturday Night Live<\/em>) took counterculture humor to new levels introducing it to a late-night audience that saw heroes emerge from the world of comedic commentary. The twisted satire of National Lampoon<\/em> gave way to the midwives of this new form of comedy that took it from small stages played by troupes like the Second City and Groundlings to a national stage. Names like P.J. O\u2019Rourke, Harold Ramis, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, John Belushi and Chevy Chase, among others, went from driving from town to town for bookings to major media stardom practically overnight. But remember what we said about the \u201creliable enemy.\u201d Was there such an enemy in the early days of SNL<\/em>? Chevy Chase\u2019s Gerald Ford was a bumbling slapstick president, but hardly a threat. Some of the SNL <\/em>crews most memorable moments came in simply reflecting the absurdity of everyday life. It wasn\u2019t a platform to preach revolution, at least not in a traditional sense. The post WWII generation that sought political commentary could see it and share the joke late night with names like Steve Martin, who helped the Smothers Brothers during their rise and battle against CBS. There was Buck Henry, whose dry wit that began in the early Sixties talk programs would be the forerunner of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em> and The Daily Show<\/em> which many young people in the early 21st century cited as their preferred sources for news.\u00a0 Henry was a regular host on SNL<\/em>, which also featured Richard Pryor and George Carlin along with a staff that knew how to \u201cwrite with a bite\u201d.\u00a0 The show also featured many artists with a message, but NBC didn\u2019t seem to worry about that hour on a Saturday night. It targeted a hip generation, and as commentators Jonathan Luxmoore and Christine Ellis would write years later the change would eventually go from \u201cgenerational to the cultural and economic\u201d suggesting \u201cchanging social habits have eroded music\u2019s political significance\u201d (Ellis, 2016). Could those seeds have been planted as far back as the 1970s?\u00a0 There were those who disagreed with Luxmoore and Ellis, and we\u2019ll hear from them coming up.\r\n\r\nPerhaps one area that we should stress is that when \u201cOhio\u201d was released the outrage over the Kent State shootings was obvious but still very divisive.\u00a0 In April 1970, WEWS-TV commentator Dorothy Fuldheim, who at the time was 77 and a Cleveland institution, abruptly ended a televised interview with Yippie Jerry Rubin and threw him off the set.\u00a0 The press and public lauded her as their heroine, but when Fuldheim spoke against the National Guard in the deaths of the four KSU students on May 4th the backlash was so severe and immediate she was certain she would be fired the next day. The station stood behind their matriarch and she never backed down.\u00a0 The point is that fans who embraced CSNY\u2019s song as an anthem were likely in the younger demo in the so-called \u201cgeneration gap.\u201d That song was targeted for young sensibility and heard primarily on radio stations aimed at the baby boom audience, primarily on Top 40 stations which reached the greatest number of listeners but also the FM with a more insightful though still young audience. Again, Luxmoore and Ellis could have been writing about the marketability of these messages even then stating, \u201cThe promoters have long since cottoned on to the commercial potential of protest music; you\u2019d have to be very determined and energetic to make yourself authentic and visible without them (Ellis, 2016).\u201d Does the modern dearth of protest music simply lack a beat rather than a viable message?\r\n\r\nThe Hill\u2019s<\/em> Judy Kurtz notes another important aspect relating to youth in her piece quoting singer John Legend who wisely points out the audience that embraced \u201cOhio\u201d had much in common with Kent State and protestors nationwide and that was the military draft. Legend has penned his share of songs with distinct messages and as he told Kurtz the audience facing possible conscription \u201cfelt a bit more urgency about what was going on. So even now, even though there are a lot of people concerned about what\u2019s happening in Washington, I think there was even more urgency back in the \u2019Sixties and \u2019Seventies, and you saw that reflected in the art\u201d (Kurtz, 2017). That urgency centered on a call from the military, and one that the previous generation saw differently having fought in World War II.\u00a0\u00a0 Kurtz also quotes noted attorney and music researcher Bob Lefsetz, best known for his long-standing newsletter titled, appropriately enough the \u201cLefsetz Letter.\u201d His thought is that many name artists are afraid of negative branding stating, \u201cYou have people who are into it for the fame, who are told what to do, are extending their brand, and are afraid of doing anything that might alienate anybody\u201d (Kurtz, 2017).\u00a0 In the past, like some of the folk artists of the 1950s, it could end you up on a Blacklist where you couldn\u2019t find work or, like John Lennon, be under a government microscope. Joan Baez was targeted by ultra-conservative cartoonist Al Capp in his \u201cLil\u2019 Abner\u201d strip. To be fair there are also artists who don\u2019t seem to care if they do alienate an audience that may not follow them anyway, with Kurtz pointing to Eminem\u2019s free style tirade against President Donald Trump at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards. This four minutes and 35 seconds of scathing fury\u00a0was surprising at first. Eminem is an artist whose work has long been accused of being saturated with misogynistic and homophobic themes. But it\u2019s a point he\u2019s aware of. He spits one line to Trump in the verse that acknowledges their similarity: \u201cWhen it comes to giving a shit, you're stingy as I am.\u201d. He even goes as far as to ask his fans who were Trump supporters to lose his number:\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd any fan of mine who's a supporter of his\r\nI'm drawing in the sand a line, you're either for or against\r\nAnd if you can't decide who you like more and you're split\r\nOn who you should stand beside, I'll do it for you with this:\r\nFuck you!\r\nThe rest of America stand up!\r\nWe love our military, and we love our country\r\nBut we fucking hate Trump!\u201d\r\n\r\nBut this \u201cstorm\u201d wasn\u2019t linked to any one incident, and that brings us to another point. The way music is delivered. Artists who made a name with protest music including Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, the Weavers and on and on had live performance, their records and maybe some radio and later TV. Plus, the music industry had changed from earlier days when a company would give an artist three albums to prove themselves. By the 1980s profits became paramount with some artists dropped from their labels because they made money, but not enough.\u00a0 The chance to develop a meaningful catalog of music diminished with the years, and then there was marketing linked to video. The TV video channels embraced the \u201chits format\u201d of radio and if the video release of a song wasn\u2019t compelling it didn\u2019t matter what the topic was.\u00a0 You had to keep people watching. To be fair, there were also some very mediocre songs that had a new life with pictures. There were options. College radio had made great strides in acquiring on-air signals and while they catered to a very select and usually hip crowd, they also had a niche audience that wandered to the far end of the radio dial. Digital would change everything once again.\r\n\r\nNo one was prepared for downloading, especially the big labels. The late Steve Popovich with Cleveland International Records was a music visionary who had once been on the upper tiers at Epic and other labels and he saw the threat of downloading and streaming early on. Most of his warnings were ignored and Napster took a huge chunk out of record company profits, but the biggest change came with the ease that an artist could record their music without a label and simply market it via You Tube and other music sharing platforms. You had artists who could be set for life with just a few songs and that could limit what they were willing to issue.\u00a0 They also didn\u2019t have to develop outside of their comfort zone. Add to that the fading influence of traditional media like TV, radio and compact discs. Many younger listeners don\u2019t embrace the traditional media in favor of streaming. In that same article by Kurtz, Lefsetz points out \u201cPrior to the internet, you know we had radio that was dominant, MTV that was dominant, and if something gained traction, everybody would know it.\u00a0 Whereas now there\u2019s songs in the top 10 where a great percentage of the public does not know\u201d (Kurtz, 2017). And then there is the burning question: Does anyone care?\u00a0 Is there an artist that can make them care?\r\n\r\nPopular music covers a lot of ground and over the years consultants have chopped it up making the thought of breaking a new artist with a strong message highly unlikely or at least very difficult. That doesn\u2019t seem to be the case with comedy, though audiences do tend to follow music and comedy in two very different ways. There are very few comedians like Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield who have signature lines and bits that keep people coming back even though they know exactly what they are going to say. Many new comedians benefit from topical humor to bring in new audience. Even veterans like Steve Martin and Martin Short, who have no shortage of classic lines and characters, consistently update their acts to draw crowds.\u00a0 Plus, people don\u2019t listen to those same comedic routines over and over like a hit song. They\u2019re more likely to pass them on in everyday conversation.\u00a0 Not so with a song.\r\n\r\nFolk music expert Malcolm Taylor came right out and said it. \u201cProtest songs are no longer seen as an effective form of communication,\u201d adding that social media is the venue of choice, but is he arguing musical style or simply the method we choose to hear it?\u00a0 Producer Emilio Estefan believes protest can thrive online, stating \u201c<\/strong>Now you get the internet, so people protest, but protest in their own way now because they have the new technology.\u201d That was also the route Estefan took when he assembled a chorus of Latino entertainers including his wife, Gloria, Pitbull, Carlos Santana and others for a song titled \u201cWe\u2019re All Mexican\u201d responding to comments Donald Trump made on the 2016 campaign trail.\u00a0 Even so there are those who suggest pop and rock may have run their course as well.\u00a0 Naseem Khuri is one of them.\r\n\r\nThe front man for Kingsley Flood, Khuri told the Boston Herald<\/em>, \u201cMaybe rock and pop artists have less to say or maybe the genre is simply less relevant, even outdated.\u201d Less to say seems unlikely. Every decade since \u201cOhio\u201d has seen some degree of messaging in music with topics ranging from nuclear war to poverty to police brutality and beyond. However, the argument about delivery of that type of music may have some teeth. Music formats have become highly segmented over the years and satellite radio, streaming, You Tube and social media offer so many opportunities for specific programming that a breakout artist or even particular song gaining a wide audience ala \u201cOhio\u201d seems remote. Then there\u2019s the issue of partisan politics.\r\n\r\nIt might be seen as divide and conquer for those targeting a certain artist or opinion. A specific audience may not have the same voice to respond to those opposed to the message, especially in uncertain times. Natalie Maines of Dixie Chicks found that out the hard way in 2003 when London\u2019s Guardian<\/em> ran an abbreviated quote from Maines in a concert review stating, \u201cJust so you know ... we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.\u201d\u00a0 Those and other comments just days before the start of the war in Iraq were seen as near treasonous by the traditionally conservative country audience and the Dixie Chicks saw nothing but a rough road ahead. Maines publicly apologized for the slam at then President Bush while stressing her opposition to the war though that wasn\u2019t enough for a radical faction that targeted the band with death threats.\u00a0 Maines didn\u2019t help her case when she retracted the apology showing an emotional segment of the public, many still hurting from 9\/11, that emotional patriotism and free speech can sometimes be on opposing sides. There\u2019s also the disturbing possibility that protest music simply doesn\u2019t sell and a generation of programmers who grew up during the \u201cdefining age\u201d of protest music on radio may have abandoned that genre.\r\n\r\nGottlieb suggests that while there have been a few artists who continued promoting politically based music, producers and programmers in the 21st century opt for the Katy Perry \/ Justin Bieber \/ Rihanna style artist that promotes \u201cescapism.\u201d The music media, like most commerce, is based on profit and it\u2019s hard to argue that artists produce just that\u2026art\u2026instead of revenue. There are a number of pop artists who can embrace both, including Green Day and even Taylor Swift, but they belong to a very exclusive club.\u00a0 Those acts established themselves before dipping their toes in the pool of protest and their loyal fans were open to their messages. Still, a search for protest music on mainstream radio has turned into a frustrating ordeal. Plus, today\u2019s media users may simply have too many options in the digital age, but that might also offer new opportunities. We just have to recognize them.\r\n\r\nBack to Lefsetz who is quoted saying, \u201cMusic does not drive the culture\u2026what drives the culture is television and politics.\u201d It would seem the marriage of the two, especially in light of the 24-hour news cycle in the Trump presidency, would provide an atmosphere for protest music that is rich with potential. Is television being used, even exploited, to its maximum to provide the kind of coverage the voices of protest need? Frankly, the age of traditional mainstream television may be fading. Young media users who have traditionally been early adapters to new technology and systems have fled TV in favor of online programming.\u00a0 Even so, there have been flash points when protest messaging reached mass audiences via television.\r\n\r\nAgain, to Lefsetz, who\u2019s quoted as saying \u201cmusicians have \u2018a decent amount of power,\u2019 judging by massive social media followings.\u201d Social media! Could this be the link to drawing young audiences to protest messaging in the arts? Gottlieb says it\u2019s already begun and part of it stems from artists working outside the traditional industry boundaries.\r\n\r\nThere are also musicians effectively using the internet and social media to pursue a higher level of activism. The Boston based Chad Stokes with State Radio along with his tour manager Sybil Gallagher established their\u00a0 \u201cCalling All Crows\u201d site described as \u201ca musician-fueled activist organization\u2026 that works for a future when the success of live music is measured not only by ticket sales, but by the impact of fans and musicians mobilizing together to make a difference in the world.\u201d You can count Chicana rapper Xela de la X among that number. She performs under the name Cihuatl Ce and told music writer Luis Rivas, \u201cI think that whatever is being played is not because the masses are asking for it. It\u2019s what\u2019s being fed to us. Definitely, I think there\u2019s a degree of people being tired of the monotony of the messages in the mainstream.\u201d\u00a0 She describes her style as \u201caggressive, unapologetically militant feminist, gutter music from the streets and the people\u201d and is quick to add, \u201cMainstream (music) is mad misogynist\u2026 If they\u2019re speaking about rebellion and revolution and making change, that shit you don\u2019t hear on the radio.\u201d Social media has proven a convenient and very effective option.\r\n\r\nIt should be obvious that social commentary in music is nothing new, but at times it needs a jolt to let people know it\u2019s there.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s the marketability. But drummer Jim Fox says sometimes it\u2019s conscience. He tells us, \u201cI think Viet Nam was a watershed.\u00a0\u00a0Kent State was a watershed, no doubt. But I don\u2019t that explains the decline of music in the sense of importance in people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s really happening and there are a lot of things you can blame it on. You can blame it on video games, blame it on computers. Blame it on all kinds of things that occupy people\u2019s time, where at one time music was what occupied our time.\u00a0\u00a0As a trained musician I have not heard music as important as it was for thirty years, maybe longer, and it\u2019s very sad. I can\u2019t live without a continuous stream of stimulation. It doesn\u2019t have to be new, but it helps to be new to me. There are things I will go back to rediscover. Maybe I missed a Kinks album along the way. That kind of thing. That I think is wonderful and it keeps me alive.\u00a0\u00a0But radio no longer exists. There\u2019s nothing I can hear. I can\u2019t put a radio station on.\u201d Fox also points to the punk genre, which was heavy on attitude that transcends all forms of music.\r\n\r\nI would give more credit to the punk movement.\u00a0I would say that it was more often than not hidden.\u00a0Look at someone like Phil Ochs.\u00a0The difference between his stuff and later music was that he was never as popular as some people, but his songs were extremely relevant. There was all the obvious stuff.\u00a0Anything Dylan did, Joni Mitchell\u2026it was a genre.\u00a0Go all the way back to the Weavers, which gets you Pete Seeger.\u00a0But listen to Les McCann\u2019s \u2018Compared to What?\u2019 with Eddie Harris on sax.\u00a0That song was an example that was part of a conscious effort to be part of that movement, civil rights.\u00a0Whereas the Phil Ochs\u2019, the Bob Dylans,\u2019 the Weavers and a whole lot of the folk scene were really brave because they knew they stood to be investigated.\u00a0They were operating on their beliefs where a song by someone like the Temptations strikes me as reflecting someone at Motown more than someone in the band.\u00a0The writer knew what they wanted to express, and they did it successfully, but it wasn\u2019t the motivation from a different place.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt can be argued that it happened again when MTV finally started airing Black artists and groups like Run-DMC, Public Enemy and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, among many others, found a new forum, but MTV has long abandoned its music heavy format.\u00a0 The internet continues to provide a convenient \u201csafe harbor\u201d for new music, and as Zack O\u2019Malley Greenburg with Forbes<\/em> writes, \u201csocial media has enabled musicians of the current generation\u2014regardless of genre\u2014to keep their music apolitical but deliver more partisan messages directly to their followers if they so choose.\u201d And they are choosing that option a lot.\r\n\r\nSophie Weiner with the Village Voice<\/em> agrees with the future of political messaging in the arts on social media, and remember Luxmoore and Ellis? She doesn\u2019t buy their argument. She writes, \u201cIt\u2019s true that some aspects of social media \u2014 namely \u201chashtag activism\u201d that results in little offline action \u2014 may have dulled traditional forms of protest, but the internet has made political music much more accessible. Luxmoore and Ellis\u2019s romanticized version of the 1960s music industry fails to mention the chilling effect the major-label system had on musicians who didn\u2019t fit a certain mold. Not so today, where all you need to create and distribute music is a computer and a Wi-Fi hookup. To say that\u2019s a good thing for political music is an understatement.\u201d She adds that the scope of protest messaging has expanded as well, stating \u201cQueer people and feminists have taken to raw DIY punk to pen some of the most potent protest songs in recent times. Downtown Boys, the Providence, Rhode Island, punk band, are radical leftist feminists,\u201d a genre that would likely have garnered very little audience prior to social media access. Weiner delivers a final firm assessment in these words: \u201cPopulist music is, and by its very definition always will be, an evolving form. The images and songs may change, but their goal is always to transform our culture and end oppression. We\u2019re living amid an incredibly exciting intersection of art, technology, and social justice. It\u2019d be a real shame for these writers \u2014 and anyone else who shares their fears \u2014 to miss out.\u201d It\u2019s how we all use those elements that will write our legacy.\u00a0 All we are saying\u2026is let our voices be heard.","rendered":"

So, what have we learned? Hopefully, a lot. We\u2019ve offered a great deal of insight, but it\u2019s what we do with that information that\u2019s so important. Have we seen the end of the age of protest, of music and art with a message, or have we simply failed to see how it evolved? Let\u2019s take a look at what we\u2019ve covered.<\/p>\n

Historians dissect and analyze the times we lived in, but popular culture and mass media have proven to be the most effective method of delivering an immediate message to the masses.\u00a0 It\u2019s nothing new. The griots, the historians and troubadours of Western Africa, spread the news and lore of their culture from town to town in the days before they had access to print. Professor Bob West at Kent State University was a former beat poet who likened the messaging and delivery of the griots to the hip-hop artists of today. A look at the decades of modern popular culture shows the concerns of the masses in their particular eras. The Universal horror movies of the 1930s were centered in Eastern Europe where the Nazi war machine was starting to grow.\u00a0 Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor comic book heroes of the 1940s were already fighting the war, and paranoia about the nuclear age and a threat to our air space brought us films about atomic bred monsters and UFOS. The war in Southeast Asia provided fertile ground for late Sixties music and we\u2019ll address that in a moment. Concern about AIDS and the blood supply led to the popularity of vampire films in the seventies and eighties and rap artists let their voices be heard about their wide range of issues for years until the present day. What\u2019s the link?<\/p>\n

Everything we mentioned is the product of storytellers. Facts are vital but it\u2019s the story that compels us to listen and often to act. William Savage Jr. tells us that \u201ca reliable enemy is a fine thing for a storyteller to have\u201d (Savage, 1990). You can make a very effective case that the voices of protest were united by a common cause, and during the height of the age of musical dissent that concern was ending the war in Viet Nam and driving President Richard Nixon from office.\u00a0 The horrors of My Lai, the sight of bloodshed and coffins with U.S. servicemen on the nightly news and the angry protests on college campuses and city streets widened the so-called generation gap between the America that won World War II\u2026 a declared war\u2026and an overseas conflict fought by the post WWII baby boom that didn\u2019t understand why we were there.\u00a0 The deaths on the Kent State and Jackson State campuses, the New York Times<\/em> publication of the Pentagon Papers, and the rise of anti-war candidates all played a role in the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Southeast Asia, and it was the rich pool of talent that challenged the so called \u201cestablishment\u201d that helped fan the flames of dissent into a raging political fire.\u00a0 Even so, it was not an easy task facing off against a very powerful and, let\u2019s face it, very corrupt Nixon administration.<\/p>\n

Richard Nixon was driven from office before the fall of Saigon and essentially the end of U.S. involvement in April 1975, but a strong argument could be made that American troops could have remained in Viet Nam even longer had he not resigned in disgrace. Nixon\u2019s fall came the previous August when he stepped away from the White House faced with likely impeachment and even removal from office following the Watergate scandal and reports outlining excessive misuse of power in various levels of government. Even so, the Nixon administration used the power of the presidency and other government offices in an attempt to influence media and silence the forces that opposed him. He had his victories, too. The Nixon White House successfully stalled the admittedly left leaning Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour<\/em> on CBS-TV and despite a lawsuit that ruled in favor of Tommy and Dick it was a hollow victory because they were silenced at a critical point in their career. You could say the same for John Lennon.\u00a0 His appearance at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally with members of the Chicago Seven brought FBI agents out to Ann Arbor to write down lyrics he shouted from the stage. There had also been rumblings the former Beatle was using it as a dry run to hit the road with an anti-Nixon tour, and his politically charged 1972 album \u201cSome Time in New York City\u201d didn\u2019t exactly endear him to the White House.\u00a0 It had a small cover photo of the president dancing with Mao Tse-Tung in the nude that pushed him to the top of Nixon\u2019s \u201cenemies list.\u201d Lennon found out the hard way you don\u2019t mess with the U.S. government. That LP turned into the starting gun for a very expensive and contentious legal battle over a drug bust years before in England that feds used as an excuse to deport Lennon. Granted, Lennon eventually won the right to stay and get his green card, but it pretty much put his career on ice for years. So why weren\u2019t the stories being heard to the same extent they were in the years immediately following CSNY\u2019s \u201cOhio.\u201d We weren\u2019t the first to ask.<\/p>\n

By 1975, it seemed the populace that aggressively fought the status quo had become battle weary. Yes, change is inevitable, but many of the tent poles of the counterculture had simply collapsed. The highly produced progressive rock gave way to the simple redefined raw energy of punk with a segment of a new generation rejecting the sounds that immediately preceding it. At about that same time there was the emerging disco generation spurred by the notion that we have been through trying times and let\u2019s just let loose and dance. The flashy club scene that drew many of the superstars of the groundbreaking Sixties pop culture including Mick Jagger, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol to New York\u2019s Studio 54 was celebrated at its height in John Travolta\u2019s 1977 film Saturday Night Fever<\/em>.\u00a0 Entire radio formats adopted club dance music and rose triumphantly in the ratings before suddenly crashing when the fad faded into obscurity. Another film, 1982\u2019s Wild Style,<\/em> centering on the emerging hip hop lifestyle in the South Bronx didn\u2019t get the same media attention partly because it centered on the rougher side of ghetto life, though the music was making its way via underground clubs and low power radio stations much like punk and early rock and roll. In the case of Wild Style,<\/em> it was music with a message, but the messenger kept a distinct low profile.<\/p>\n

It could also be argued that, sensing a growing and profitable audience, much of the underground pop culture was now being accepted and marketed in mainstream media of the day.\u00a0 The underground art of R. Crumb that he peddled on the streets of Haight Ashbury in comics titled Zap, Mr. Natural<\/em> and Big Ass<\/em> was by the 1970s seen prominently on newsstands in Arcade \u2014 the Comics Revue<\/em>, and a major feature film about his character, Fritz the Cat (which Crumb hated!)\u00a0\u00a0 His original art and stuff produced by Gilbert Shelton and S. Clay Wilson, among others, command huge prices. Poster artists like Rick Griffin, Dave Sheridan, Victor Moscoso and some other notables saw their stuff distributed for free and now hang in galleries.\u00a0 Then radio went through a major change.<\/p>\n

When FM radio started being included as standard features in cars in the early to mid-Seventies the free form progressive stations soon started programming with playlists, promotions and higher energy personalities than seen just a few years before when the AM dial was king. The shared communal experience of FM radio was switching from political and community concerns to heavy entertainment. Few remember that the band Ambrosia started out its recording career as a much heavier based group, but the lighter stuff on their later albums provided a form of escapism with lighter fare that gave them a success of which they only dreamed. Burleigh Drummond, the band\u2019s drummer, said it became evident to both himself and the band stating, \u201cI think there was a period in pop music where that was kind of the theme. Maybe it was a reaction to everything we had been through. You know, we had our share of protests. I mean Ambrosia actually wrote quite a few protests songs in our first two albums. \u2018I Wanna Know\u2019 is a protest. Things like that. I think around our third album is when we start having \u2018How Much I Feel.\u2019 I think it was a time to kind of celebrate feeling good again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert business became far more organized and profitable with artists playing large arenas and festivals with sophisticated lighting and sound and escalating ticket prices. The \u201cestablishment\u201d that so many had feared had embraced the counterculture in the name of profit and the masses with expendable cash and energy liked what they saw and heard.\u00a0 But that also meant you played by the rules of mainstream media, and money talked big time.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say a lot of great art was not produced during those years.\u00a0 In 1975 NBC\u2019s Saturday Night<\/em>\u00a0 (later known as Saturday Night Live<\/em>) took counterculture humor to new levels introducing it to a late-night audience that saw heroes emerge from the world of comedic commentary. The twisted satire of National Lampoon<\/em> gave way to the midwives of this new form of comedy that took it from small stages played by troupes like the Second City and Groundlings to a national stage. Names like P.J. O\u2019Rourke, Harold Ramis, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, John Belushi and Chevy Chase, among others, went from driving from town to town for bookings to major media stardom practically overnight. But remember what we said about the \u201creliable enemy.\u201d Was there such an enemy in the early days of SNL<\/em>? Chevy Chase\u2019s Gerald Ford was a bumbling slapstick president, but hardly a threat. Some of the SNL <\/em>crews most memorable moments came in simply reflecting the absurdity of everyday life. It wasn\u2019t a platform to preach revolution, at least not in a traditional sense. The post WWII generation that sought political commentary could see it and share the joke late night with names like Steve Martin, who helped the Smothers Brothers during their rise and battle against CBS. There was Buck Henry, whose dry wit that began in the early Sixties talk programs would be the forerunner of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em> and The Daily Show<\/em> which many young people in the early 21st century cited as their preferred sources for news.\u00a0 Henry was a regular host on SNL<\/em>, which also featured Richard Pryor and George Carlin along with a staff that knew how to \u201cwrite with a bite\u201d.\u00a0 The show also featured many artists with a message, but NBC didn\u2019t seem to worry about that hour on a Saturday night. It targeted a hip generation, and as commentators Jonathan Luxmoore and Christine Ellis would write years later the change would eventually go from \u201cgenerational to the cultural and economic\u201d suggesting \u201cchanging social habits have eroded music\u2019s political significance\u201d (Ellis, 2016). Could those seeds have been planted as far back as the 1970s?\u00a0 There were those who disagreed with Luxmoore and Ellis, and we\u2019ll hear from them coming up.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one area that we should stress is that when \u201cOhio\u201d was released the outrage over the Kent State shootings was obvious but still very divisive.\u00a0 In April 1970, WEWS-TV commentator Dorothy Fuldheim, who at the time was 77 and a Cleveland institution, abruptly ended a televised interview with Yippie Jerry Rubin and threw him off the set.\u00a0 The press and public lauded her as their heroine, but when Fuldheim spoke against the National Guard in the deaths of the four KSU students on May 4th the backlash was so severe and immediate she was certain she would be fired the next day. The station stood behind their matriarch and she never backed down.\u00a0 The point is that fans who embraced CSNY\u2019s song as an anthem were likely in the younger demo in the so-called \u201cgeneration gap.\u201d That song was targeted for young sensibility and heard primarily on radio stations aimed at the baby boom audience, primarily on Top 40 stations which reached the greatest number of listeners but also the FM with a more insightful though still young audience. Again, Luxmoore and Ellis could have been writing about the marketability of these messages even then stating, \u201cThe promoters have long since cottoned on to the commercial potential of protest music; you\u2019d have to be very determined and energetic to make yourself authentic and visible without them (Ellis, 2016).\u201d Does the modern dearth of protest music simply lack a beat rather than a viable message?<\/p>\n

The Hill\u2019s<\/em> Judy Kurtz notes another important aspect relating to youth in her piece quoting singer John Legend who wisely points out the audience that embraced \u201cOhio\u201d had much in common with Kent State and protestors nationwide and that was the military draft. Legend has penned his share of songs with distinct messages and as he told Kurtz the audience facing possible conscription \u201cfelt a bit more urgency about what was going on. So even now, even though there are a lot of people concerned about what\u2019s happening in Washington, I think there was even more urgency back in the \u2019Sixties and \u2019Seventies, and you saw that reflected in the art\u201d (Kurtz, 2017). That urgency centered on a call from the military, and one that the previous generation saw differently having fought in World War II.\u00a0\u00a0 Kurtz also quotes noted attorney and music researcher Bob Lefsetz, best known for his long-standing newsletter titled, appropriately enough the \u201cLefsetz Letter.\u201d His thought is that many name artists are afraid of negative branding stating, \u201cYou have people who are into it for the fame, who are told what to do, are extending their brand, and are afraid of doing anything that might alienate anybody\u201d (Kurtz, 2017).\u00a0 In the past, like some of the folk artists of the 1950s, it could end you up on a Blacklist where you couldn\u2019t find work or, like John Lennon, be under a government microscope. Joan Baez was targeted by ultra-conservative cartoonist Al Capp in his \u201cLil\u2019 Abner\u201d strip. To be fair there are also artists who don\u2019t seem to care if they do alienate an audience that may not follow them anyway, with Kurtz pointing to Eminem\u2019s free style tirade against President Donald Trump at the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards. This four minutes and 35 seconds of scathing fury\u00a0was surprising at first. Eminem is an artist whose work has long been accused of being saturated with misogynistic and homophobic themes. But it\u2019s a point he\u2019s aware of. He spits one line to Trump in the verse that acknowledges their similarity: \u201cWhen it comes to giving a shit, you’re stingy as I am.\u201d. He even goes as far as to ask his fans who were Trump supporters to lose his number:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd any fan of mine who’s a supporter of his
\nI’m drawing in the sand a line, you’re either for or against
\nAnd if you can’t decide who you like more and you’re split
\nOn who you should stand beside, I’ll do it for you with this:
\nFuck you!
\nThe rest of America stand up!
\nWe love our military, and we love our country
\nBut we fucking hate Trump!\u201d<\/p>\n

But this \u201cstorm\u201d wasn\u2019t linked to any one incident, and that brings us to another point. The way music is delivered. Artists who made a name with protest music including Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, the Weavers and on and on had live performance, their records and maybe some radio and later TV. Plus, the music industry had changed from earlier days when a company would give an artist three albums to prove themselves. By the 1980s profits became paramount with some artists dropped from their labels because they made money, but not enough.\u00a0 The chance to develop a meaningful catalog of music diminished with the years, and then there was marketing linked to video. The TV video channels embraced the \u201chits format\u201d of radio and if the video release of a song wasn\u2019t compelling it didn\u2019t matter what the topic was.\u00a0 You had to keep people watching. To be fair, there were also some very mediocre songs that had a new life with pictures. There were options. College radio had made great strides in acquiring on-air signals and while they catered to a very select and usually hip crowd, they also had a niche audience that wandered to the far end of the radio dial. Digital would change everything once again.<\/p>\n

No one was prepared for downloading, especially the big labels. The late Steve Popovich with Cleveland International Records was a music visionary who had once been on the upper tiers at Epic and other labels and he saw the threat of downloading and streaming early on. Most of his warnings were ignored and Napster took a huge chunk out of record company profits, but the biggest change came with the ease that an artist could record their music without a label and simply market it via You Tube and other music sharing platforms. You had artists who could be set for life with just a few songs and that could limit what they were willing to issue.\u00a0 They also didn\u2019t have to develop outside of their comfort zone. Add to that the fading influence of traditional media like TV, radio and compact discs. Many younger listeners don\u2019t embrace the traditional media in favor of streaming. In that same article by Kurtz, Lefsetz points out \u201cPrior to the internet, you know we had radio that was dominant, MTV that was dominant, and if something gained traction, everybody would know it.\u00a0 Whereas now there\u2019s songs in the top 10 where a great percentage of the public does not know\u201d (Kurtz, 2017). And then there is the burning question: Does anyone care?\u00a0 Is there an artist that can make them care?<\/p>\n

Popular music covers a lot of ground and over the years consultants have chopped it up making the thought of breaking a new artist with a strong message highly unlikely or at least very difficult. That doesn\u2019t seem to be the case with comedy, though audiences do tend to follow music and comedy in two very different ways. There are very few comedians like Henny Youngman or Rodney Dangerfield who have signature lines and bits that keep people coming back even though they know exactly what they are going to say. Many new comedians benefit from topical humor to bring in new audience. Even veterans like Steve Martin and Martin Short, who have no shortage of classic lines and characters, consistently update their acts to draw crowds.\u00a0 Plus, people don\u2019t listen to those same comedic routines over and over like a hit song. They\u2019re more likely to pass them on in everyday conversation.\u00a0 Not so with a song.<\/p>\n

Folk music expert Malcolm Taylor came right out and said it. \u201cProtest songs are no longer seen as an effective form of communication,\u201d adding that social media is the venue of choice, but is he arguing musical style or simply the method we choose to hear it?\u00a0 Producer Emilio Estefan believes protest can thrive online, stating \u201c<\/strong>Now you get the internet, so people protest, but protest in their own way now because they have the new technology.\u201d That was also the route Estefan took when he assembled a chorus of Latino entertainers including his wife, Gloria, Pitbull, Carlos Santana and others for a song titled \u201cWe\u2019re All Mexican\u201d responding to comments Donald Trump made on the 2016 campaign trail.\u00a0 Even so there are those who suggest pop and rock may have run their course as well.\u00a0 Naseem Khuri is one of them.<\/p>\n

The front man for Kingsley Flood, Khuri told the Boston Herald<\/em>, \u201cMaybe rock and pop artists have less to say or maybe the genre is simply less relevant, even outdated.\u201d Less to say seems unlikely. Every decade since \u201cOhio\u201d has seen some degree of messaging in music with topics ranging from nuclear war to poverty to police brutality and beyond. However, the argument about delivery of that type of music may have some teeth. Music formats have become highly segmented over the years and satellite radio, streaming, You Tube and social media offer so many opportunities for specific programming that a breakout artist or even particular song gaining a wide audience ala \u201cOhio\u201d seems remote. Then there\u2019s the issue of partisan politics.<\/p>\n

It might be seen as divide and conquer for those targeting a certain artist or opinion. A specific audience may not have the same voice to respond to those opposed to the message, especially in uncertain times. Natalie Maines of Dixie Chicks found that out the hard way in 2003 when London\u2019s Guardian<\/em> ran an abbreviated quote from Maines in a concert review stating, \u201cJust so you know … we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.\u201d\u00a0 Those and other comments just days before the start of the war in Iraq were seen as near treasonous by the traditionally conservative country audience and the Dixie Chicks saw nothing but a rough road ahead. Maines publicly apologized for the slam at then President Bush while stressing her opposition to the war though that wasn\u2019t enough for a radical faction that targeted the band with death threats.\u00a0 Maines didn\u2019t help her case when she retracted the apology showing an emotional segment of the public, many still hurting from 9\/11, that emotional patriotism and free speech can sometimes be on opposing sides. There\u2019s also the disturbing possibility that protest music simply doesn\u2019t sell and a generation of programmers who grew up during the \u201cdefining age\u201d of protest music on radio may have abandoned that genre.<\/p>\n

Gottlieb suggests that while there have been a few artists who continued promoting politically based music, producers and programmers in the 21st century opt for the Katy Perry \/ Justin Bieber \/ Rihanna style artist that promotes \u201cescapism.\u201d The music media, like most commerce, is based on profit and it\u2019s hard to argue that artists produce just that\u2026art\u2026instead of revenue. There are a number of pop artists who can embrace both, including Green Day and even Taylor Swift, but they belong to a very exclusive club.\u00a0 Those acts established themselves before dipping their toes in the pool of protest and their loyal fans were open to their messages. Still, a search for protest music on mainstream radio has turned into a frustrating ordeal. Plus, today\u2019s media users may simply have too many options in the digital age, but that might also offer new opportunities. We just have to recognize them.<\/p>\n

Back to Lefsetz who is quoted saying, \u201cMusic does not drive the culture\u2026what drives the culture is television and politics.\u201d It would seem the marriage of the two, especially in light of the 24-hour news cycle in the Trump presidency, would provide an atmosphere for protest music that is rich with potential. Is television being used, even exploited, to its maximum to provide the kind of coverage the voices of protest need? Frankly, the age of traditional mainstream television may be fading. Young media users who have traditionally been early adapters to new technology and systems have fled TV in favor of online programming.\u00a0 Even so, there have been flash points when protest messaging reached mass audiences via television.<\/p>\n

Again, to Lefsetz, who\u2019s quoted as saying \u201cmusicians have \u2018a decent amount of power,\u2019 judging by massive social media followings.\u201d Social media! Could this be the link to drawing young audiences to protest messaging in the arts? Gottlieb says it\u2019s already begun and part of it stems from artists working outside the traditional industry boundaries.<\/p>\n

There are also musicians effectively using the internet and social media to pursue a higher level of activism. The Boston based Chad Stokes with State Radio along with his tour manager Sybil Gallagher established their\u00a0 \u201cCalling All Crows\u201d site described as \u201ca musician-fueled activist organization\u2026 that works for a future when the success of live music is measured not only by ticket sales, but by the impact of fans and musicians mobilizing together to make a difference in the world.\u201d You can count Chicana rapper Xela de la X among that number. She performs under the name Cihuatl Ce and told music writer Luis Rivas, \u201cI think that whatever is being played is not because the masses are asking for it. It\u2019s what\u2019s being fed to us. Definitely, I think there\u2019s a degree of people being tired of the monotony of the messages in the mainstream.\u201d\u00a0 She describes her style as \u201caggressive, unapologetically militant feminist, gutter music from the streets and the people\u201d and is quick to add, \u201cMainstream (music) is mad misogynist\u2026 If they\u2019re speaking about rebellion and revolution and making change, that shit you don\u2019t hear on the radio.\u201d Social media has proven a convenient and very effective option.<\/p>\n

It should be obvious that social commentary in music is nothing new, but at times it needs a jolt to let people know it\u2019s there.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s the marketability. But drummer Jim Fox says sometimes it\u2019s conscience. He tells us, \u201cI think Viet Nam was a watershed.\u00a0\u00a0Kent State was a watershed, no doubt. But I don\u2019t that explains the decline of music in the sense of importance in people\u2019s lives. That\u2019s really happening and there are a lot of things you can blame it on. You can blame it on video games, blame it on computers. Blame it on all kinds of things that occupy people\u2019s time, where at one time music was what occupied our time.\u00a0\u00a0As a trained musician I have not heard music as important as it was for thirty years, maybe longer, and it\u2019s very sad. I can\u2019t live without a continuous stream of stimulation. It doesn\u2019t have to be new, but it helps to be new to me. There are things I will go back to rediscover. Maybe I missed a Kinks album along the way. That kind of thing. That I think is wonderful and it keeps me alive.\u00a0\u00a0But radio no longer exists. There\u2019s nothing I can hear. I can\u2019t put a radio station on.\u201d Fox also points to the punk genre, which was heavy on attitude that transcends all forms of music.<\/p>\n

I would give more credit to the punk movement.\u00a0I would say that it was more often than not hidden.\u00a0Look at someone like Phil Ochs.\u00a0The difference between his stuff and later music was that he was never as popular as some people, but his songs were extremely relevant. There was all the obvious stuff.\u00a0Anything Dylan did, Joni Mitchell\u2026it was a genre.\u00a0Go all the way back to the Weavers, which gets you Pete Seeger.\u00a0But listen to Les McCann\u2019s \u2018Compared to What?\u2019 with Eddie Harris on sax.\u00a0That song was an example that was part of a conscious effort to be part of that movement, civil rights.\u00a0Whereas the Phil Ochs\u2019, the Bob Dylans,\u2019 the Weavers and a whole lot of the folk scene were really brave because they knew they stood to be investigated.\u00a0They were operating on their beliefs where a song by someone like the Temptations strikes me as reflecting someone at Motown more than someone in the band.\u00a0The writer knew what they wanted to express, and they did it successfully, but it wasn\u2019t the motivation from a different place.\u201d<\/p>\n

It can be argued that it happened again when MTV finally started airing Black artists and groups like Run-DMC, Public Enemy and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, among many others, found a new forum, but MTV has long abandoned its music heavy format.\u00a0 The internet continues to provide a convenient \u201csafe harbor\u201d for new music, and as Zack O\u2019Malley Greenburg with Forbes<\/em> writes, \u201csocial media has enabled musicians of the current generation\u2014regardless of genre\u2014to keep their music apolitical but deliver more partisan messages directly to their followers if they so choose.\u201d And they are choosing that option a lot.<\/p>\n

Sophie Weiner with the Village Voice<\/em> agrees with the future of political messaging in the arts on social media, and remember Luxmoore and Ellis? She doesn\u2019t buy their argument. She writes, \u201cIt\u2019s true that some aspects of social media \u2014 namely \u201chashtag activism\u201d that results in little offline action \u2014 may have dulled traditional forms of protest, but the internet has made political music much more accessible. Luxmoore and Ellis\u2019s romanticized version of the 1960s music industry fails to mention the chilling effect the major-label system had on musicians who didn\u2019t fit a certain mold. Not so today, where all you need to create and distribute music is a computer and a Wi-Fi hookup. To say that\u2019s a good thing for political music is an understatement.\u201d She adds that the scope of protest messaging has expanded as well, stating \u201cQueer people and feminists have taken to raw DIY punk to pen some of the most potent protest songs in recent times. Downtown Boys, the Providence, Rhode Island, punk band, are radical leftist feminists,\u201d a genre that would likely have garnered very little audience prior to social media access. Weiner delivers a final firm assessment in these words: \u201cPopulist music is, and by its very definition always will be, an evolving form. The images and songs may change, but their goal is always to transform our culture and end oppression. We\u2019re living amid an incredibly exciting intersection of art, technology, and social justice. It\u2019d be a real shame for these writers \u2014 and anyone else who shares their fears \u2014 to miss out.\u201d It\u2019s how we all use those elements that will write our legacy.\u00a0 All we are saying\u2026is let our voices be heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"back-matter-type":[33],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-43","back-matter","type-back-matter","status-publish","hentry","back-matter-type-conclusion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/back-matter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/43\/revisions\/193"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter\/43\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"back-matter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/back-matter-type?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/all-we-are-saying\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}