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Protest Songs: why do I feel like there were many more (and many more that were popular) in the 60’s and 70’s? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by phase_change@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I’m a guy approaching 60, so I’ll start by saying my perception may be wrong. That could be because the protest songs from the late 60’s and early 70’s weren’t the songs I heard live on the radio but because they were the successful ones that got replayed. More likely, it’s because music is much more fractured than what I was exposed to on the radio growing up. Thus, today, I’m simply not exposed to the same type of protest songs that still exist.

Whatever the reason, I feel that the zeitgeist of protest music is very different from the first decade of my life compared to the last.

I’m curious to know why. My conspiratorial thoughts say that it’s down to the money behind music promotion being very different over those intervening decades, but I suspect it’s much more nuanced.

So, why are there fewer protest songs? Alternatively, why I am not aware of recent ones?

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[–] pulaskiwasright@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Essentially popular music is made via assembly lines owned by manufacturers now.

People churn out beats.
Other people lay down gibberish lyrics to set a melody to the best from step 1.
The best from step 2 get, writers, actual lyrics and an artist.
Artist records
Engineers heavily rework the recorded vocals

The companies that run these assembly lines aren’t going to rock the boat like that. Writers that neither made the music nor will have any part of recording or performing are making a product. It’s not a passion project, so they aren’t going to write protest lyrics either. In the 60s and 70s, there was a lot of popular music that really was made by individual artists and bands.

Today, there is plenty of protest music. It’s just not popular music because it doesn’t have as much industry backing.