Slyngstad | Bluesky
Transcript
A three-panel political comic by Slyngstad highlighting the long history of political activism in music. In the foreground of all three panels, two audience members are seen talking in profile.
Panel 1:
On Stage: A modern musician holding a microphone calls out, “FREE PALESTINE!”
Foreground: One audience member complains, “UGH, WHEN DID MUSICIANS START TO BE SO POLITICAL?”
Panel 2:
On Stage: Freddie Mercury performing at the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert, with the “Live Aid” global logo in the background.
Foreground: The second audience member replies, “START?”
Panel 3:
On Stage: Folk singer Woody Guthrie playing an acoustic guitar with his iconic slogan written across it: “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”.
Foreground: The second audience member continues, “MAYBE YOU JUST WEREN’T LISTENING.”
No one who’s ever heard music before asks this in good faith. It’s a physical impossibility.
Queen played in apartheid south africa, chumbawumba referenced in a song called Slag Aid
Someone else who knows Chumbawamba music beyond Tubthumping!?
Don’t you hate when Rise Against the Machine gets political?
Rise
…
Rise Against is also fitting too
It’s a shame a band that wrote a perfect conservative anthem with Prayer for the Refugee would go on to become crazy leftists.
Yes but that had already been spelled correctly elsewhere in this thread
Fuck it it stays wrong whoops!
I respect when someone stands by their mistakes.
Same level of media literacy that missed the satire of the Starship Troopers movie.
Watching the US Government unironically propose Starship Troopers-inspired uniforms for the Space Force had me in stitches.
When did they become a bunch of woke libtards? /s
You mised about 7 other insult phrases, 4 slurs and at at least 2 racist remarks.
True but I don’t think they are able to string that many words together at a time
Where there’s a will there’s a grammatically incorrect way.
Reminds me of that Green Charlotte song, Lifestyles of the American Idiot.
Is this some other ratm I’m not aware of?
Tom Morello/Tim McIlrath side project?
Only thing I hate is their music is still relevant even to today. World’s only worse and worse. Love the music, hate nothing has changed.
Who thinks this? Even The Beatles were political.
Not that I’ve ever changed a political position because of a musician; I’d rather they not do so, as I don’t go to concerts for politics, but musicians don’t follow my preferences for some reason.
I’d also rather that they’d not “fade” the end of their song, but they won’t listen to me.
Not looking to start a debate. But genuinely what would you have them make songs about, if not something they believe in?
Edit: I guess you could listen to only acoustic tracks.
Love songs?
Robin Hood and Little John walkin’ through the forest…
I wasn’t there either but it’s still the first one that comes to mind.
Elvis broke segregation laws.
The Beatles refused to play if the audiences were segregated.
Billie Holiday started offending parts of her audience by singing “Strange Fruit” in 1939.
Bad example as you’re not allowed to like him anymore because of who he was as a person. Allegedly.
Laughs in System of a Down
Prison song, BYOB (bring your own bombs), BOOM, Deer Dance, PLUCK, Holy Mountains, Protect the Land … a few of which were used to directly raise funds to support victims of an Armenian genocide …
System of a Down was instrumental in forming my political views.
Me too. 10 years old telling people about the prison system and how fucked it is.
The best part is literally all of them are still relevant. Maybe that’s the worst part. Sad Statue we are more divided than ever, Cigaro our environmental regulators are removing safeguards for the environment, BYOB we still send poor people to die out in meaningless conflicts by bribing them with education, Prison Song incarceration rates are even higher, etc.
i was listening to BOOM this morning and i was…they’re talking about now…this is happening now too! “The bottom line is money, nobody gives a fuck!”
Also RFK still has a tapeworm brainworm telling him what to do. Needs to pull it out of his ass.
Brueh. Laughs in literally any band in history.
You’d have to be some kind of American Idiot to miss the messages.
The Message must have been lost on these people Born in the USA it’s a shame that The Revolution Will not be Televised because it might make it more obvious, but That’s Just the Way it is.
It ain’t me I ain’t no fortunate son…
We won’t be fooled again
Maybe they’ve just never listened to Gorilla Radio, or Taken the Power Back. Nevermind the Bollox, though. They’re probably being being dishonest. I Want it That Way. Wait…no that’s not right…
DAE SONG TITLES LOLOL
Yeah. Welcome to Paradise, right? Taking the Longview, only a Basketcase would be down with this Dookie.
Buncha Nimrods.
When you’re a Bull on Parade, you don’t care to look for them.
Well, I certainly don’t want to be one of those.
the ones that pretend to, like swift and shareen
you know what I miss that we used to do a lot of?
punching the fuck out of racist sexist piece of shit nazis.
that should make a comeback.
Seconded.
We’re trying here: A friend of mine got unconsentually kissed and by a guy with a… reputation, to say the least, who’s been trying to get into her pants for a while. So my roommate/her boyfriend and I of course got pissed off and were like “so when do we smack the little shit?” (FAR from his first time)
However, victims themselves aren’t aware of what happened to them. She’s already starting to forget as a trauma response and very easily got gaslit by him later that it wasn’t that big/deep - til her boyfriend/my roommate reminded her that yes it fucking is.
The situation is kinda on hold, and there’s of course a lot of details that make it more complicated and such, but nothing’s been done because the state of the victims here are so used to such shit that when it boils over, it seems like less of a big deal than it is.
I’m in Europe, but haven’t always been and can very certainly say that where I come from, the bitch would be smacked around by the victim itself and likely socially isolated for a while, no need for help - instead of no social consequence, victim unaware of what happened to them despite having a trauma response they subjectively typically have and unsmacked
Shit’s out of whack and more often than not (about this specifically, but in general as well) feel like I’m the crazy one for seeing almost rape and saying “that bad” TT
Oh I’ll happily do it. I grew up in a hockey family. My brothers all learned how to fight early and I learned through uhh… my own experiences with bullies. I hit one kid so hard, he told me how he was disoriented as fuck and we ended up becoming friends.
That cracks me up dude. “nice punch! We should be friends!” is a great simple story. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I really don’t like to embellish or promote violence. It was just funny the way it worked out. I was still new to the neighborhood, so the kids that lived there were essentially hazing me on the bus. The kid kept pushing me against the window, while bracing himself on the back of our seat and the one in front of us. All I remember is blacking out, punching him in the face as hard as possible, and then him trying to get me in a headlock but failing because he was so disoriented. It was wild. He tried to goad me into fighting again afterwards, but I did my best to defuse things and told him I didn’t want to fight.
Later that day, he came over to my house, admitted that I fucked him up good, we had a laugh, and then it was all good from then on.
👀
Such a great album too
This is not even a strawman. I seen people on reddit argue “art is supposed to just be fun, not push any ideologies.”
It’s a conservative identifier for me. I haven’t seen an example that was’t complaining about progressive political stances in some medium.
Ironic, the idea that art should just be for fun is its own ideology
I think what often gets missed is that art should be engaging. And that engagement - even negative engagement - can be fun.
But also, politics is very engaging and often very fun (especially when you’re winning).
So, what I’m seeing isn’t “Art shouldn’t be political” but “Art shouldn’t make me feel like I’m losing.”
It’s also “art shouldn’t leave me stuck thinking”
Idk about that.
People who didn’t want to think about it wouldn’t be so obsessed with catastrophizing it.
I seen people on reddit argue “art is supposed to just be fun, not push any ideologies.”
Right before they blow a gasket because they were forced, against their wills, to play as a Lady Jedi.
Those people are embarrassing. They’re probably the same people that say like “Dracula is just a story about a guy who bites people shut up about all this politics and feminism”.
Education is difficult and, in the US are least, under funded.
Jesus, somebody slept through art class for literally all of school. Several somebodies, apparently.
Yeah, ask Leni Riefenstahl about it! She knows everything about unpolitical art.
Oh so you saw one of the hundreds of thousands of bots?
Don’t have this issue as much with punk and hardcore music :P
Unfortunately, punk music does have nazi fans, hence the song Nazi Punks Fuck Off
I knew some dudes who were big into punk and hardcore in the early ‘00s. They seemed decent at first, so I hung out with them for about a month before I figured out they were racist neo nazi shitstains. I dropped that group of friends so fucking fast.
I am aware sadly. Good thing I said “as much” because the issue still exists, just not as much.
Very true, apologies, I totally missed that
No worries. I could have used better English but I got lazy :P
Nah, you’re good lol Sometimes my brain skips right over words. Anyway
Nazi punks fuck off!
Fuck yeah!
Okay I need some help. Is there a place I can figure out precisely the boundaries of hardcore music because I’ve been told a few times I should do a hardcore band.
I do blues, folk, jazz, and church music. Hardcore sounds fun but I should know what it is before I try
There aren’t really any boundaries.
You have: American hardcore Powerviolence Crust Euro hardcore
And about 100 other subgenres, that have their own styles. It’s mostly just energy speed and pissed off.
For example bands like Brain Tourniquet, storm of sedition, fentanyl, candy apple, tower 7, kinetic orbital strike, kohti tuhoa, extortion, Woodstock '99, Doped Up, and my current obsession 偏執症者 (Paranoid) all fall under the Hardcore label but all sound distinct from each other.
Edited to add links to band pages
I’m no expert (more of a metalhead) but I don’t know any of these. When talking about hardcore I’m thinking more about Sick of it All, Hatebreed, Terror, Walls of Jericho, 25 Ta Life and the like.
I know some of them, but they’re not super likely to show up on hardcore discussion threads.
Yours would. Although 25 ta life would just be Rick riding a horse memes.
Terror is always good. Incendiary, Backtrack, Have Heart, Trap Them, Nails, Left Behind, Trapped Under Ice. But yeah, hardcore has been around long enough there’s lots of different flavors and offshoots.
I apologize if my last post seemed dismissive, I’m a lifelong hardcore fan. Like old enough to buy Minor Threat out of step when it came out.
I edited my first post to add links for context for the bands I named, if I had the time I would add hundreds more, cheers!
No offense, I fully understand there are a lot of subgenres. I dont want to dismiss the bands you like, I was just surprised to not see what seem (to me) to be the more popular names. But that may be just be my own bubble, and should definitely not be considered an absolute reference or an attempt at gatekeeping what’s “good” hardcore. Anyway, thanks for the links!
I totally get that, and I was definitely not trying to gatekeep. I apologize if I came off that way, cheers and love what you love and keep rocking!
I consider that NYHC style stuff meathead macho hxc, and not fully representative of hardcore as a whole.
Like punk there is a spectrum of sounds, scenes, and subgenres.
Rage Against the Machine but not like in a political way or anything, just like, noises and anger and centrism
You won’t believe the amount of right wingers who believe RATM are right wing. I assume because they sound angry?
“Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” is kind of universal, but you’d think “Some of those who work forces are the same who burn crosses” would have been a hint towards which side they lean towards.
Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.
You overestimate the rightoid mindset. “Police support the KKK? Well surely the KKK are respectable company.”
I’m pretty sure “The Machine” they’re raging against is like an annoying office printer or copy machine or something.
/s
Songs from Paul Ryan’s workout playlist
He’s singing along,
“Some of those that work forces, are the same that wear crosses”
You can imagine his thoughts on “chosen whites”
what you’ve described is AI generated music
Nah, that’s rage BY and probably FOR the machine
I wonder if RATM might have a claim as the most political band of all time. The only song of theirs I can think of that isn’t political is Born of a Broken Man. Even the songs they covered were political.
It’s the entire reason they exist. They are a protest band. It’s their genre.
I wonder if RATM might have a claim as the most political band of all time.
You need to listen to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Kennedys_discography
Michael Jackson is arguably the most famous musician ever, or at least VERY close and a lot of his music is explicitly political, “they don’t really care about us” comes to mind, I think “man in the mirror” also qualifies, I know other stuff he’s done definitely does too I’m just not a big MJ head, I know the guy is problematic but it’s obtuse to claim musicians are just getting political now when arguably the biggest musician of all time was very political in his own right decades ago.
Agreed about They don’t really care about us, but Man in the Mirror is more personal. Black or White has a certain political slant, and Earth Song has a very direct message.
Let’s look at some other musicians who might have a claim to “most famous ever”: Elvis was not really political - if anything he was pro-establishment.
Mozart and Beethoven however were very political. Beethoven scratched out the dedication to Napoleon in the Eroica when Napoleon made himself an emperor. Previously Beethoven had been a major supporter of Napoleon because he was pushing enlightenment ideals. Mozart was less directly political, but The Marriage of Figaro was very subversive at the time (which I know from the movie Amadeus, but apparently that checks out).
The Beatles didn’t start out political, but they became more so over time.
Well he wasn’t in the epstein files and he was an odd one. But as far as I know, no proof of the kid diddling has happened.
Nobody has ever made the claim that “musicians” are just now getting political. That’s just the comic artist to make the comic.
It’s literally the definition of a strawman argument.
Americans were literally outraged that rage against the machine gas become political. Or we’re not gonna take it by twisted sisters might not be the right wing anthem they thought it was.
“Americans” weren’t surprised by that, a handful of right-wing dipshits were. Stop ascribing a monolithic opinion to a third of a billion people. It’s tiresome.
“Dipshits” is certainly the more accurate grouping. If I took 1 million people from any random place in the world I can always dredge up a few dipshits.
A third of a billion people is a hell of a rounding up.
Um, no it isn’t? US pop is ~350m.
Dee Snider has even made a point of being staunchly and publicly anti-Trump.
![People act like musicians standing up for what they believe in is anything new. #FreePalestine [Slyngstad]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/229b1cbc-f82b-471f-a5b1-7aae0efb6aec.png){kind=link}