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.”

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
    3·
    3 days ago

    I would give it more to the 80s, as most pop music was overtly Ra-Ra America and good vibes. The political Big Bads were the Soviets and Apartheid South Africa, and then LiveAid was a fund raiser for Ethiopia. Everything was external-facing.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      3 days ago

      Pop music is often / always shallow. But, the 1980s to me feel / felt like the lowest common denominator kind of music. Not only were the lyrics of the songs vapid, but the musicality was sucked out of them too, with the rise of drum machines and synthesizers.

      There was good music in the 1980s, but you had to look for it. And, back then, that meant knowing someone with good musical tastes, or spending time in a record store. The stuff that you’d just encounter in pop culture was just… dire.

      Meanwhile, the stuff that wasn’t part of the mainstream white culture in the 1980s was very political. Take the emergence of rap. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five had a big hit with “The Message” which was nothing but social commentary, and then came the rise of Public Enemy.

      • hansolo@lemmy.today
        2·
        3 days ago

        Yeah. Not going to argue with that, but US media also flooded most of the world in the 80s.