Do you think there's no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. Every month, I listen to it all, then select the best that relates to that month’s political news. Here’s the round-up for November 2024.
1. BAMBU - IF YOU SEE SOMEONE STEALING FOOD... NO, YOU DIDN'T
Republican Donald Trump won the US presidential election on November 5, with about 2.7 million more votes than Democrat Kamala Harris. It was the first time a Republican had won the popular vote since George W Bush in 2005. Nearly 89 million eligible voters didn't vote this time, compared with about 81 million voters in 2020, when Joe Biden won. Yet polls had predicted it would be a close race. Why? Investigative journalist Greg Palast has been proving in court for decades that Republicans remove non-white voters from the electoral rolls. He said such practices jumped this time. But he has also shown how Democrats got rid of leftist candidate Bernie Sanders with similar tactics, killing their hopes of appealing to their leftist base. Five days after the vote, Filipino-US rapper and activist Bambu released his new album, which closes with the election-mocking song "A November To Remember". LISTEN>>>
2. BODY COUNT - MERCILESS
Pop superstar Billie Eilish blasted the election result as a "war on women". Her contemporary Olivia Rodrigo, who has skewered Republicans' anti-abortion policies, removed her music from TikTok after Trump's team used it in a victory video. US women vowed to shun marriage, dating and sex with men, mirroring a successful campaign by Korean women against their right-wing president. Trump supporters then mocked women with the slogan "your body, my choice". A fortnight later, rapper Ice-T's heavy metal band Body Count, whose name refers to African-Americans' deaths in gang killings, released their new album, which compares both parties to gangsters with the words: "Democrips, Blood-Bloodpublicans, listen, fuck whatcha heard, both wings are on the same bird." And as Biden authorised using missiles against Russia, sparking nuclear threats, Body Count slammed such jingoism in the song "World War". LISTEN>>>
3. THE SEXY WILD EAST - UNFUCKINBELIEVABLE
Asked about Trump's win, Young Democratic Socialists of America member Cyn Huang said: “The right has waged a very successful cultural war against the left, making things like abortion, LGBTIQ rights, political education and critical race theory seem like the narrow concerns of radicals rather than the expression of universal equality, justice and freedom." His comments followed the new LP from Hungarian punks The Sexy Wild East, which opens with the words: "Being a good human is now considered radical. Giving a shit about anybody but yourself is now radical. What have we become? It's not radical to oppose government corruption. It's not radical to want to live in a world without war. It's not radical to believe in equality. It's not radical to want to save the planet. It's not radical to want peace in the Middle East. It's not radical to give a shit. It's not radical to not be a dick." LISTEN>>>
4. RED HOT ORG - TRAИƧA
Trump told his anti-trans followers during his campaign that he would "keep men out of women's sports". After Trump's win, his "first buddy", Elon Musk - whose drift rightwards was driven by his disgust at his child becoming trans after attending a government school - approved of Trump's plan to abolish the US Department of Education. Facing such transphobia, music non-profit Red Hot released a 46-track, 3.5-hour album for trans rights, featuring more than 100 artists, on November 22. A week earlier, the singer for Australian punks Amyl And The Sniffers, Amy Taylor, told an audience in London: "Donald Trump can eat my arse. But not in a cute way, in the way where he should stop being a fuckwit and let me get an abortion, let trans people go and be trans if they wanna be, and all that other fucked up shit." As the crowd roared, she added: "I'd also like to say at the start of this set, free Palestine!" LISTEN>>>
5. LOWKEY - SOUNDTRACK TO THE STRUGGLE 3
Joining that call was long-time Palestinian rights supporter Lowkey. Yet the hugely popular British-Iraqi rapper's latest album almost didn't see the light of day, after pressure group We Believe in Israel petitioned music streaming giant Spotify to remove his songs from its platform. “Pro-Israel groups had me no-platformed at different shows," he told MintPress. "I’ve been cancelled in at least four countries so far, thanks to their maneuvers." Of course, many Jewish people also oppose Israel's war on Palestine. Pro-Palestinian Israeli punk band Ka'tzon La'tevach, in an interview about their new album released days earlier, described how their shows in Europe had been cancelled by pro-Palestinian activists opposed to an Israeli band playing in their towns. Acknowledging that cross-faith disgust at the war, on November 17, the Pope called for an inquiry into whether genocide was happening in Gaza. LISTEN>>>
6. CHRISTY MOORE - A TERRIBLE BEAUTY
Four days after the Pope's call, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes. That came three weeks after "the greatest living musician" in heavily Catholic Ireland, Christy Moore, released his new album on November 1. On "Palestine", the revered folk artist sings: "Let me tell you a story, I'll be quick as I can. Terrible news from the Holy Land. Pictures of children etched in my mind. Buried in the rubble, on the firing line. The Jews and the Arabs lived one and the same. A thousand years, then the Zionists came. Came like a river, came like a flood. Al Nakba was written on the wall in blood." At the opposite end of the musical spectrum, Moore's fellow Irish act Post-Punk Podge And The Technohippies released their new album of experimental electronica, months after organising a fundraising gig for Palestine. LISTEN>>>
7. PRIMAL SCREAM - COME AHEAD
Across the Irish Sea, Glasgow's indie dance rock legends Primal Scream released their latest highly political, pro-Palestinian album on November 8. Its artwork features a photo of singer Bobby Gillespie's socialist, trade unionist father, who previously served in the army. On "False Flags", Gillespie sings of his father's post-traumatic stress disorder: "Out on patrol, we found a boy named Mohammed. He shook like a wee frightened bird. An officer said, 'Let's play Russian Roulette.' We hooded the boy, put a gun to his head." And on closer "Settlers Blues", Gillespie, who has been smeared by the media for his support of Palestine, sings: "They torchеd our houses, shelled our towns. Poisoned our wells, cut the olive trees down. Exiled us in our own land. Cast out like lepers in the desert sands." The album's title, Come Ahead, is named after a Glaswegian phrase that might be uttered in a fight. LISTEN>>>
8. THE TENEMENTALS - GLASGOW: A HISTORY (VOL. I OF VI)
Glaswegian battlers are also front and centre on the debut album from The Tenementals, released on November 22. The group, made up of Glasgow University academics and Glaswegian musicians, are named after the city's cleared stone terrace slums. They sing not only about Glasgow's radical past, but its ongoing entanglements with empire and slavery. “The songs are about history," said singer David Archibald. "About events that happened in the past, but they are also about developing what we might call ‘historical consciousness’, or ‘historical awareness’. We don’t live in the past, but by spending time with the past, we can recognise that the way the world is put together is not natural and eternal but changes over time. It invites us to look at our lives today and to see that the present doesn’t have to be the way that it is. We hope, then, that it invites us to conjure radical futures." LISTEN>>>
9. CALM. - ONLY VAMPIRES WEAR CAPES
There was no hint of a radical future at environmental summit COP29 in Azerbaijan on November 13. No doubt emboldened by the election of Trump, who has vowed to "drill baby drill" after soliciting a $US1 billion donation from the oil industry, Azerbaijan's President, Ilham Aliyev, called oil and gas "a gift of God" in his opening speech. Criticising "Western fake news" about his country's emissions, he said nations "should not be blamed" for exploiting fossil fuels. Such pollution is, of course, global. As Australians grappled with the fact that their drinking water now contains forever chemicals at rates far higher than levels deemed safe in the United States, US rapper Calm released his new album, which addresses such issues. On its title track, he raps: "I'm flying over this city with all of these microplastics in me. Not to sound sarcastic but it's in your blood, forever chemicals are with me." LISTEN>>>
10. KING STINGRAY - FOR THE DREAMS
The destruction of Australia's environment features prominently on the new album by King Stingray, released on November 8. The band, made up of Yolngu and white musicians, said the album's song "Southerly" is "a wink at climate change and that we are now a generation that needs to pick up the pieces". Its song "What's The Hurry" is "about trying to take care of our earth and protect it, nurture it. Yolngu people are perhaps the original conservationists, and caring for country is important to us." And "Light Up The Path" "also relates to political matters - too much talk, not enough action". A week before its release, Australian Labor politicians tried to ban a protest at Newcastle, NSW, the world's biggest coal port. Three weeks later, Indian billionaire Gautam Adani was charged with bribery, sparking calls for a review of his notorious Australian coal mine, which was also backed to the hilt by Labor. LISTEN>>>
This column is taking a break and will return at the end of January.
[Mat Ward has been writing for Green Left since 2009. He also wrote the book Real Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Country and makes political music. This year, Mat Ward released his new album, Take The Rad Pill.]
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Read about more political albums.
Stream our new “Best protest songs of 2024” playlist on Spotify. This replaces the previous “Political albums” playlist, that was getting too big at more than 700 albums.