If anyone ever tells you that music can’t radicalize people, tell them to go buy some proper ears. Billy Bragg did it to me in my early teens, galvanizing my disparate beliefs and throwing in a few more on top.
Ten years on from the death of punk hero Joe Strummer, and 100 years since the birth of dust-bowl balladeer Woody Guthrie, it’s worth remembering that protest music – at its best – mainlines into the heart and brain simultaneously. It can articulate the anger, passion, love and confusion we all feel better than anything else. At its worst, however, it’s a trite, reductive, moralistic, cringeworthy dirge. Just because something is politically on message, doesn’t mean it can’t be utter shit.
