MUSIC: 'Combat Rock'

My radio show on WXDU happened to be during the very first hours of war, so I sent out an email to the station's listserv asking for song suggestions of an appropriately bomby nature. Responses flooded in, protest songs about bombs, presidents, all the right stuff - virtually every one, however, was at least 15 years old. For the show's purposes, this was fine: The people being bombed may change, but for the most part war - and war protest songs - stay the same; there's little that Hendrix and Dylan, the Clash and XTC haven't said. But I only found one recent song (other than the obvious "Bombs over Baghdad") that addressed the current situation.

That being Sleater-Kinney's "Combat Rock." Written about a year ago, this cut off the stellar One Beat is not the easiest to like, but it has a stunning prescience of what seems to be a worst-case scenario status quo:

"Where is the questioning?/ Where is the protest song?/ Since when is skepticism un-American?/ Dissent's not treason but they talk like it's the same/ Those who disagree are afraid to show their face."

Simultaneously decrying the blind march to war, exposing the false binaries imposed by patriotism, and calling out the silent opposition, "Combat Rock" seems to know, a year in advance, that it's alone. Almost alone: such notables as John Mellencamp and Chumbawumba have unleashed mighty ballads of resistance. To think my show missed those....

Music today is richer, more diverse, and more challenging than any time in pop culture's history - is this all it has to offer to a world in crisis? Indie rock is too detached and indifferent to get its hair mussed, while experimental rock is too antagonistic to send a wide message. In the meantime, nobody would accuse mainstream pop and rock of having enough substance in the first place to be actually disappointing. Say what you will about the hippies and punks, at least they were able to present a vision of solidarity and progress, however utopian or drug-addled. At least their music was a vessel of expression that people could rally behind.

Our generation's equivalent, the most promising torchbearer of socially conscious music, the most bracingly intellectual music in history, hip hop, is still largely mired in navel-gazing. The Beastie Boys recently made their first song in five years, "In a World Gone Mad," for download on their website:

"George Bush you're looking like Zoolander/ Trying to play tough for the camera/ What am I on crazy pills? We've got to stop it/ Get your hand out my grandma's pocket."

It's a step, although not a particularly encouraging one. But the most fundamental fact of protest music is its existence, rather than its content - and that is what's most ominous about our current world. The Dixie Chicks - perhaps the least likely provocateurs ever - spoke up about their shame at their country's actions. While I made a mental note to play them that night and every show thereafter, organized boycotts around the Midwest culminated in thousands and thousands of Dixie Chicks CDs being steamrolled in front of screaming crowds.