Battle of the Bands

[Karl Renegade]

Which "left-wing" band do you like best?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Lol RATM.

[TheEmancipator]

The spanish left wing bands tend to be the best ;)1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvW_2IvDtzI

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Among these Clash is better.

Boikot is great, btw.

[Raúl Duke]

ehhh...none.
But if I had to choose I guess the clash and mc5

[Ostrinski]

Voted Clash. But there are many better ones. Against Me!, Refused, Manic Street Preachers, etc.

[#FF0000]

It came down the The Clash and MC5 for me as well. Had to go with The Clash.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The Clash as a choice overall, but "The Feeding of the 5000" had an aesthetics-shattering impact on me when I was younger.

The first "political" band I got into though was Public Enemy and then Dead Kennedys a few years later. But now I'd have to say that the Clash and Coup are probably my favorite bands with political music - both present the politics in a very relateable way and both can be played at a party.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

The spanish left wing bands tend to be the best ;)1


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvW_2IvDtzI

Don't forget about ska-p!

65qjU0gEXX4

[La Guaneña]

The Clash is one of the best bands ever.

Other notables are Manliftingbanner, Seein' Red, Lärm, DOA and a few other that reside in my heart. :wub:

[TheEmancipator]

Don't forget about ska-p!

65qjU0gEXX4

Of course, they are Rayo Vallecano supporters a wonderful little football club in Vallecas, Madrid that had their players join the anti-austerity protests in the capital!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82BjWXP8nqw


Really like them. Upbeat singing about Palestine, the Revolution and anti-fascism, that's what its all about.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The Clash are good but are over-rated, and their left-wingedness is over-rated too.

Prefer them as a band to RATM who I haven't really gotten into, but I love Tom Morello's solo stuff as The Nightwatchman, so voted for them.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

How is The Clash winning this?
Is the board populated by persons who inherited their Dad's record collection and never went any further?

Also, CRASS's politics are far from perfect, but at least they a) were, at one point, sincere and not a marketing ploy, b) inspired resistant culture that persists to this day, and b) made music that was consistently challenging and evolving.

Further, they're the only band on this list that isn't a sausage party. Did y'all miss the memo? Sometime in the twentieth century, women were permitted to make music in public without being burnt at the stake. Any of y'all who haven't given their brilliant Penis Envy a serious listen should. As a bonus, it's also one of their most melodic and easily-digestible albums.

On the other hand, Yes Sir, I Will may be unlistenable by the standards of pop-radio, but it is arguably some pretty brilliant noise, featuring moments of soft piano melody, poetry and semi-improvisational freak-outs all inspired by the urgency of confronting the Falkand Islands War. Also on the war, the single How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of 1000 Dead was suitably confrontational that it was brought up in parliament, and a Conservative MP tried to have it banned under the Obscene Publications Act.

To be fair, I'll give some credit to anyone who doesn't want to vote for CRASS on account of their being sellouts . . . but every other band on this list was signed to major labels.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Crass does have some good stuff, but I know very little of them.

[Rusty Shackleford]

MC5


d1X1_fZOkLU

[Jimmie Higgins]

How is The Clash winning this?
Is the board populated by persons who inherited their Dad's record collection and never went any further?Lol, don't be an agist. My "Dad's record collection" is pre-british invasion and I don't listen to Fabian all that much... Bo Diddly and Little Richard though - good stuff.

Beyond that, while it's always a bonus if a band overlaps with my vales, music and the overall effect is of higher importance to me. Politics are probably what I enjoy the least in Crass come to think of it, I enjoy their minimalism and aesthetic much more. Probably Wood Guthrie and some early Bob Dylan would have any of the bands beat if we were going by lyrical political content - I think their protest music was direct without being too stale and didactic (their lyrics were emotive often, not just explanatory) but I don't listen to folk music. I do listen to Dylan, but electric garage Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde Dylan, not protest Dylan.

So to make a case for the Clash, I think they are an overall better "political band" because they broadened the scope of both punk and protest music, synthesizing and popularizing it with other rebel traditions.

"Selling Out" doesn't bother me as much as just the weakness of their later work. I like DIY because it is immediate and cheap and lo-fi - but I don't counter-pose it as anything more "moral" or valuable. Ultimately DIY isn't a alternative to the mainstream but a petty-bourgeois alternative to big companies. It can be good in that on the production side more people can self-produce things, but often it just leads to little niche markets rather than anything really challenging or whatnot.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Woody Guthrie is the best lyrical folk singer i've ever heard.

I hate this 'oh we can't like them they signed to a major label' crap. Typical indie/hipster shit.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

To clarify - I think CRASS sold out because some members are very obviously more concerned, at this point, about the royalties from reissues (http://www.anarcho-punk.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8983) than they are about the politics they once professed.

As for the question of major labels - I listen to bands on major labels. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a disappointing waste. Big labels with big promoters and big venues (not to mention big ticket prices) mean handing over a whole tonne of things to specialists, and taking away a whole lot of the means for music fans to participate directly. RATM the machine are fine, but Tom Morello is never going to crash on my floor. Bruce Springsteen is never going to fight the cops with me. No kid is going to learn to make wheatpaste or steal photocopies because Good Charlotte is playing a benefit for the Anarchist Black Cross down at the Steelworkers Hall. The Wailers aren't going to play a $5 show, and the local ARA aren't going to get a free table by the door. What's most important about this is that, lyrics aside, with none of the aforementioned happening, none of these bands are going to really help build effective links and networks of resistance. Am I saying these bands are evil? No, that's ridiculous. On the other hand, it's sad relative to what they might have accomplished if they'd used their talent to build from the ground up, helping generalize skills and create spaces where people work together, instead of just consuming music.

Full disclosure: I'm a serious musician who has toured Canada multiple times playing $5 shows in kids' basements in shit Northern Ontario towns. So, you know, maybe I'm just bitter that I don't get flown around and don't sleep in hotel rooms. Ha.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Ha literally as I started to write this, Born To Run came on the radio. Fun :)

Thing is, I sometimes feel that as non-artists, people can dis-respect the actual process of making music. I know this is unpopular in Socialist circles, but making music at a world-class level is a full-time, mentally torturous and technically difficult process. Making albums requires songwriting, performing various demos, tracks and finished tracks and then the whole mixing process. If people like Tom Morello and Bruce Springsteen spent ALL their time in jail having fought on the barricades their whole lives, they'd never get down to making any proper music, and for me that'd be a great loss because they contribute an awful lot; for instance, as the Nightwatchman, Tom Morello has plugged a lot of Woody Guthrie music, and that sends out an important leftist message, even if it isn't at the barricades.

Musicians have their place in terms of the propaganda war, in terms of sending out a positive message. They aren't on the barricades but they are a massive pin-prick in the mainstream and they CAN be a huge asset in shaping peoples' opinions. It's just a fact of life that, at the very highest level of music making, this often requires the help of the major labels.

And also, I shit you not but just as I was writing the words Woody Guthrie, the radio people start talking about how Springsteen often covers This Land Is Your Land. Ha! :laugh:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Virgin Molotov Cocktail;2579475] The Wailers aren't going to play a $5 show, and the local ARA aren't going to get a free table by the door. What's most important about this is that, lyrics aside, with none of the aforementioned happening, none of these bands are going to really help build effective links and networks of resistance

I'm sure i've seen Morello contribute a lot to immigration reform battles and so on. And, though it's not revolutionary, I am aware that Springsteen plays a lot of free gigs for various causes each year, for instance an annual Light of Day gig for Parkinson's disease. But that's more his liberal politics; Morello is a revolutionary and helps in more political ways.


On the other hand, it's sad relative to what they might have accomplished if they'd used their talent to build from the ground up, helping generalize skills and create spaces where people work together, instead of just consuming music.

Of course, today thanks to Youtube, Spotify and downloading, you don't always have to 'consume' music from the big labels, there are ways to circumvent this. And in any case, i'd argue that music is a hugely important social tool, and it's production shouldn't be hamstrung.



Full disclosure: I'm a serious musician who has toured Canada multiple times playing $5 shows in kids' basements in shit Northern Ontario towns. So, you know, maybe I'm just bitter that I don't get flown around and don't sleep in hotel rooms. Ha.

I really respect that. You guys allow the bigger musicians to flourish. Be bitter and make angry music! :D

[Zanthorus]

If we're evaluating music based on the revolutionary credentials of it's composers/songwriters, surely a mention should be made of one composer in particular who actually had a warrant issued for his arrest because of his revolutionary activities? Including association with one Mikhail Bakunin?

CoSLD1sCyfc

I agree with Jimmie Higgins actually, though. Music is an artform, not a political platform*, and evaluating it according to how revolutionary or social progressive the people who wrote it were usually ends up ignoring the musical/lyrical content of works altogether, or giving them secondary importance, which seems fairly important in a discussion of, you know, music.

Besides, this discussion is void, because everyone already knows that the greatest revolutionary songwriter in history was Cornelius Cardew (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEDZy4Z8os).

*Which isn't going to stop me from entitling my first piano sonata 'Marx was right, fuckers', in the unlikely event I succeed in getting one published.

[Ocean Seal]

Bob Marley was a leftist? I'm just curious, I never really looked into this, despite the fact that I enjoy his music and can see leftist themes vaguely present themselves.

[Comrade Nasser]

Which "left-wing" band do you like best?

I voted Clash, because they are awesome. RATM would have been my second choice. Also, i'm pretty sure everybody here know's this but just because a band doesn't come out and claim straight away that they are "left-wing" does not mean that they are racist, nationalistic, Skrewdriver-listening assholes.

[Art Vandelay]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVkOzFU11iE

I rest my case.

[Questionable]

No Gang of Four on that list? What the fuck?

[Sam_b]

This is a dumb thread. There's really no content except a poll and a one-liner, and there's nothing to be achieved in pitting bands against each other because apparently we can compare punk, metal and reggae bands to see which is 'better'.

I want to remind people that Music is not Chit-Chat and is meant for serious threads. I would move this to there but there's been a couple of interesting posts that have some value.

[DoCt SPARTAN]

RAMT's music is so powerful, moving, revolutionary, and just down rite goods as hell with Tom Morello with kick ass guitar effects and revolutionary lyrics by Zach De la Rocha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI

*also should have put System of a down for left-wing metal heads like me!:thumbup1:

[Leninslefttesticle]

Are you all having a laugh? The Clash a left wing band? They were a GREAT Rock n Roll band, but Left Wing? They were politico poseurs, All Vivienne Westwood stencil n' sniff fashions and then they signed with CBS/Epic as soon as a whiff of money came their way - they bent over and took the capitalist cock with alacrity! Great Band, Great Pose, but saviours of the downtrodden masses, Hardly!

[ellipsis]

Are you all having a laugh? The Clash a left wing band? They were a GREAT Rock n Roll band, but Left Wing? They were politico poseurs, All Vivienne Westwood stencil n' sniff fashions and then they signed with CBS/Epic as soon as a whiff of money came their way - they bent over and took the capitalist cock with alacrity! Great Band, Great Pose, but saviours of the downtrodden masses, Hardly!

Don't u know "killing an Arab" is based on camus's the stranger?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

I don't know any of these all too well, but I like what I've heard of Crass and The Clash, and some of Rage Against The Machine. I'll vote Crass because they're so important.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Propagandhi should be an option.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HuWgP-hwCY

Bad Religion, Leftover Crack, Dead Kennedys, and others too. But the Prop is #1.

[Turinbaar]

The Weavers outdo all of them as far as being leftists. They were blacklisted in the fifties, and at least one (Pete Seeger) was a member of the Communist Party


Bob Marley was a leftist? I'm just curious, I never really looked into this, despite the fact that I enjoy his music and can see leftist themes vaguely present themselves.

He met with and supported opposition leaders in ZANU-PF when he went to Zimbabwe.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

To clarify - I think CRASS sold out because some members are very obviously more concerned, at this point, about the royalties from reissues (http://www.anarcho-punk.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8983) than they are about the politics they once professed.

As for the question of major labels - I listen to bands on major labels. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a disappointing waste. Big labels with big promoters and big venues (not to mention big ticket prices) mean handing over a whole tonne of things to specialists, and taking away a whole lot of the means for music fans to participate directly. RATM the machine are fine, but Tom Morello is never going to crash on my floor. Bruce Springsteen is never going to fight the cops with me. No kid is going to learn to make wheatpaste or steal photocopies because Good Charlotte is playing a benefit for the Anarchist Black Cross down at the Steelworkers Hall. The Wailers aren't going to play a $5 show, and the local ARA aren't going to get a free table by the door. What's most important about this is that, lyrics aside, with none of the aforementioned happening, none of these bands are going to really help build effective links and networks of resistance. Am I saying these bands are evil? No, that's ridiculous. On the other hand, it's sad relative to what they might have accomplished if they'd used their talent to build from the ground up, helping generalize skills and create spaces where people work together, instead of just consuming music.

Full disclosure: I'm a serious musician who has toured Canada multiple times playing $5 shows in kids' basements in shit Northern Ontario towns. So, you know, maybe I'm just bitter that I don't get flown around and don't sleep in hotel rooms. Ha.
Lol, Rage Against The Machine does a lot of these things. I mean they put on a free concert across the street from the DNC in 2000 which basically ended in a riot, they've done numerous shows for Mumia, played songs at union rallies, they've been arrested numerous times, they've done shows to help the EZLN, etc, etc. Why would Tom Morello crash on your floor when he makes enough money to get a hotel room or spend the night in the tour bus?

Anyways I voted RATM because I like the sound a lot better. Sure Clash has some good songs, but I've never heard a Clash song that got me pumped up, that made me want to go out and strangle my boss. Not only are the lyrics angry and energizing, a mix of punk and rap, but the instrumentals are awesome, a mix of blues, metal, and other stuff.

Bob Marley I'll listen to when I just want to chill and smoke some weed, but when it comes to politics hell no. Too much "be happy". When I want to listen to political music I don't want to hear shit about peace unless we're talking about ending the wars, I don't want to hear about love, I don't want to hear about not worrying. I don't even know the other bands but from the couple of songs I've seen in this thread by these bands I'm not really digging them.

[Turinbaar]

Bob Marley I'll listen to when I just want to chill and smoke some weed, but when it comes to politics hell no. Too much "be happy". When I want to listen to political music I don't want to hear shit about peace unless we're talking about ending the wars, I don't want to hear about love, I don't want to hear about not worrying. I don't even know the other bands but from the couple of songs I've seen in this thread by these bands I'm not really digging them.

Marley's music wasn't about "don't worry, be happy" (that's not even a Bob Marley song), his message was "Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!"

[Geiseric]

Woody Guthrie is the best lyrical folk singer i've ever heard.

I hate this 'oh we can't like them they signed to a major label' crap. Typical indie/hipster shit.

Correction: Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs are 10/10 leftist folk singers.

I can't believe Bob Marley isn't winning this! What's wrong with you people?!?
!http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4690818144272470&pid=1.7&w=219&h=135&c=7&rs=1 Phil Ochs

[Geiseric]

Lol, Rage Against The Machine does a lot of these things. I mean they put on a free concert across the street from the DNC in 2000 which basically ended in a riot, they've done numerous shows for Mumia, played songs at union rallies, they've been arrested numerous times, they've done shows to help the EZLN, etc, etc. Why would Tom Morello crash on your floor when he makes enough money to get a hotel room or spend the night in the tour bus?

Anyways I voted RATM because I like the sound a lot better. Sure Clash has some good songs, but I've never heard a Clash song that got me pumped up, that made me want to go out and strangle my boss. Not only are the lyrics angry and energizing, a mix of punk and rap, but the instrumentals are awesome, a mix of blues, metal, and other stuff.

Bob Marley I'll listen to when I just want to chill and smoke some weed, but when it comes to politics hell no. Too much "be happy". When I want to listen to political music I don't want to hear shit about peace unless we're talking about ending the wars, I don't want to hear about love, I don't want to hear about not worrying. I don't even know the other bands but from the couple of songs I've seen in this thread by these bands I'm not really digging them.

What are you talking about? Bob Marley talks about so much shit, haven't you heard Buffalo Soldier? He talks about politics all the time.

[Geiseric]

If we're evaluating music based on the revolutionary credentials of it's composers/songwriters, surely a mention should be made of one composer in particular who actually had a warrant issued for his arrest because of his revolutionary activities? Including association with one Mikhail Bakunin?

CoSLD1sCyfc

I agree with Jimmie Higgins actually, though. Music is an artform, not a political platform*, and evaluating it according to how revolutionary or social progressive the people who wrote it were usually ends up ignoring the musical/lyrical content of works altogether, or giving them secondary importance, which seems fairly important in a discussion of, you know, music.

Besides, this discussion is void, because everyone already knows that the greatest revolutionary songwriter in history was Cornelius Cardew (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEDZy4Z8os).

*Which isn't going to stop me from entitling my first piano sonata 'Marx was right, fuckers', in the unlikely event I succeed in getting one published.

Cornelius Cardrew is the coolest thing i've seen all day. thanks.

[Sam_b]

Don't u know "killing an Arab" is based on camus's the stranger?
That was the Cure, not the Clash.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

What are you talking about? Bob Marley talks about so much shit, haven't you heard Buffalo Soldier? He talks about politics all the time.
Yeah he does but to me he's always seemed kind of like a John Lennon type of person. I've never seen Bob Marley as revolutionary.


Marley's music wasn't about "don't worry, be happy" (that's not even a Bob Marley song)I didn't say it was...

[Geiseric]

Yeah he does but to me he's always seemed kind of like a John Lennon type of person. I've never seen Bob Marley as revolutionary.

I didn't say it was...

Well he was shot by reactionaries, and the FBI had a big file on him... Kinda like John Lennon, but they were musicians, from the 60's. Marley was less utopian than John Lennon I think. He never got rich at least.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well he was shot by reactionaries, and the FBI had a big file on him... Kinda like John Lennon, but they were musicians, from the 60's. Marley was less utopian than John Lennon I think. He never got rich at least.
And has been pointed out, Phil Ochs from that time was way better in respects to political music. But I just like the fusion of rap, metal, etc, that RATM had, I'm more of a metal and rap person than I am a reggae person. I'll listen to reggae once in a while when I'm just really stoned and someone puts it on. I mean Sublime is probably the only reggae(term used lightly considering their sound goes from reggae, to ska/punk, even kind of a rap sound) band I listen to by myself.