Four Dead in Ohio

From Wikipedia:

The Kent State shootings occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The altercation killed four students and wounded nine others.The shootings were the culmination of four days of increasingly agitated demonstrations by members of the student body. The students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later.T here were significant national consequences to the shootings; hundreds of universities and colleges closed throughout the United States fearing similar outbreaks, and the event further divided the country along political lines.

CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG "OHIO"





Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Progressive Music Mix Vol. 2

Below are just a few of the many anti-war songs. I have previously written about the John Lennon hit Happy XMAS (War is Over).

Listen and enjoy.

Tom Paxton's "Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation" and

Bob Dylan's "Masters of War"



Darryl Worley "I Just Came Back From A War"



Nerina Pallot "Everybody's Gone To War"



Neil Young "Flags of Freedom"



Guns n Roses "Civil War"

The MP3, destroyer of worlds

Since Yahoo has been keeping track of the most searched words and I have been paying attention to its listings, there have been two most searched for phrases. "Porn" has been number 1 for every year except in 2000 when "mp3" was number 1 and Napster was created.

The mp3 has changed the music industry like no other single act. The mp3 allows the listener to spend their money differently then ever before. No longer can a band or a record label afford to make crappy songs, as they will not sell. Artists and record labels have begun to reduce the risks they are taking with music. Less and less bands are doing unique things with their songs and more and more albums are sounding a lot like albums that the band had just released.

The mp3 allows those of us who would never think of buying an album of a particular artist or a genre of music to listen to and learn new music. Sharing your music with your friends has been taken to a new high, as both your taste and that of your friends can grow exponentially. I for one would never purchase a Justin Timberlake album, but someone at my office downloaded a few of his songs and played them at work, which made work more enjoyable. Justin's music flowed with our work really well and often times lifted our spirits as he was always happy. This experience could not have happened before the mp3.

As Joyful Girl wrote, the ability, freedom, and ease for the listener to chose the order of the songs makes listening to music a better experience, as you can order the songs to fit your moods instead of those of the creator.

The biggest impact the mp3 has had is, of course, on the bottom line of the record industry. CD sales have been dropping every year since 2000. The record industry has been successfully sued for artificially keeping the cost of CDs inflated the last few years. Currently, record labels make the bulk of their profit from the bands they sign off album sales, but album sales and profit from those sales have recently been in serious decline . This has started a shift in both marketing and record contracts. More and more labels are taking cuts of T-Shirt sales and other merchandise and larger cuts of concert revenue.

The mp3 has altered the course of the music industry.

A Revolution

The thought of being without my digital music library induces a state of panic and displacement, and I'm sure this is a common reaction among music lovers. Part of our appreciation of music now involves having songs come up randomly on playlists or mp3 players for our instant enjoyment. This is different from the days when we primarily relied on CD players or even the old-school tape days. We had some freedom in skipping tracks then, but by and large we listened to albums straight through. Tracks that were different in positive or negative ways stood out, and we had a greater sense of the ordering of songs on an album.

With the advent of mp3s and file sharing programs, it’s much easier to remember an artist or album by a few select tracks and not by the whole package. For college students, downloading or buying a few songs from, say, The Open Door by Evanescence, is more economical than buying the album itself. In one sense, this is wonderful. If people who otherwise wouldn’t acquire music have a way of doing so, this lets the band reach more people and quickly broadens people's musical horizons. In another sense, however, not taking the step of buying the album can prevent listeners from grasping vital elements of its composition. When listening to the above-mentioned album in a small group, we pored over the lyric booklet and the way it was artfully put together. We talked about how the songs seemed to move in a thematic progression that resonated with Amy Lee‘s personal experience. If all a listener knows of an album is a few tracks that soon become shuffled into a rotating library, he or she misses the sensation of viewing it as a work of art that holds itself together. Albums like Tori Amos' Scarlet’s Walk that seem to be held together by a vague storyline, or Green Day’s American Idiot, which clearly is, can lose their continuity as some songs become more important than others or some parts of the story are even deleted.

Despite this risk, the mp3 is a dynamic invention that lets listeners have control over music. Arranging songs from multiple artists and albums on playlists or mixes is an example of active listening. The mp3 is democratic, as it lets music buffs take the same action that would be taken by band members or producers toward songs in manipulating song order for different effects.

When people of generations past say that artists don’t put enough thought into the creation of albums, they don’t always take into account that the way we think of music has drastically changed and that we assert almost as much authority over the material we hear as the artists who produce it. Music downloading programs should not be feared for a tendency to draw people away from the artists' work, but acknowledged for the shift in dynamic they cause. Although appreciation of music is changing, it's not diminishing. The die-hards will still by albums, listen to them from start to finish, and extend the power of the songs on said albums through the new tool found in mp3s.

On an unrelated note, Happy Holidays to all our faithful readers!

Progressive Music Mix Vol. 2

Music can be a great source of inspiration. Music allows people who don't always get along or know each other to bond. Music can make situations lighter and more enjoyable.

A few points before I get to the list of songs. I limited the numbers of songs by Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, because although I could make an entire list just of the songs of any one of them I felt that I should try a get a variety of songs on the list. The only real criterion was that it speak about progressive values, regardless of in which era the music was written or by what artist or the style of music. The songs are in no particular order.

And on to the list:

Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome
I am not sure why this wasn't on the first list. To me there are very few songs that really signify progressive values more then this classic. This song goes hand in hand with the civil rights movement.

John Lennon - Imagine.
John Lennon gave us a vision of the future for us to work for. As a movement it's our ultimate goal to make the world better. The second link is a link to a cover song by the band A Perfect Circle and it puts a different twist on the song.

Bruce Spingsteen - Mrs McGrath
Yeah, this is a cover of a Pete Seeger song, but the video done by a fan is a compilation of anti-war images and this was off Springsteen's last album, which is just a great album full of songs with progressive values and amazing sound.

Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor
An ironic Punk song about the conservative war on America's poor. "Kill the Poor" was the leadoff track to the 1980's classic "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables" and is considered a classic of the early punk era as well as one of the Kennedys' best-known and most-loved songs.

Neil Young - Shock and Awe
Another Classic artist singing a great anti-Bush/anti-war song. Any song that mocks Bush and the war in Iraq is great in my book.

System of a Down - Boom
It is a protest song with a video of the protests against the war in Iraq. This video has some great crowd scenes and a wonderfully humorous cartoon. There is a chance if you protested this current war that you are in this video.

Tom Petty and Heartbreakers - Won't Back Down
We are looking to change this country for the better and we will find obstacles whereever we go. Progressives have pushed for all the great things about our country, including an end to slavery, universal sufferage, and everything else, and conservatives have fought us at every turn. They'll continue to fight us, but we can't stop or back down.

Edwin Starr - War
There is still nothing good about war.

Faithless - Weapons of Mass Destruction.
There is no subtlety in this song and its references to Halliburton and Tony Blair, amongst others, make this a poignant song. Nuclear bombs are not the only weapons of destruction we need to worry about.

Tom Paxton – Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation
Our President lied to us about war, we have to prevent that from happening again, oh wait...

Patti Smith - People have the power.
This is a people powered movement.

What do you think?

Progresive Music Mix Vol. 1

A few points before I get to the list of songs. I limited the numbers of songs by Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen because I could make an entire list of just the songs of any one of them but I felt that I should try a get a variety of songs on the list. The only real criterion was that it speak about progressive values, regardless of in which era the music was written, the artist, or the style of music. The songs are in no particular order.

And on to the list.


Neil Young - Keep on Rocking in the Free world

This protest song is still as relevant today as it was when it was first written. This song touches on inequities in society. It is a condemnation of the supply-side economic policies of President Reagan.

The economic realities of the 1980's with increasing social problems such as homelessness and drug abuse made Young mock the campaign promises of President Bush as hollow rhetoric.

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA

Ronald Reagan was wrong when he chose this song for his reelection campaign theme song as it is an idictment of Reagan's policies. The song talks about the hardships of coming from a low-income household and the futility of the Vietnam War.

Bob Dylan - Blowing in the Wind

One of the best anti-war songs ever written. This song's message hasn't changed just the war that its about.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - The Message

A classic Rap song with a classic message, that politicians are ignoring those who need their help the most.

Eminem - Mosh

This rap song that was written for the 2004 election is more than just an anti-Bush song, it is also a condemnation of conservatism and war. The song was released to help encourage the youth to vote. And any suck with the lyric "Fuck Bush" gets an A in my book.

Live - What Are We Fighting For

This is an anti-war song written about the current quagmire in Iraq. The chorus of the song is What are we fightin' for? I really think that about sums up this debacle.

Rage Against the Machine - Sleep Now in the Fire.

On January 26th, 2000, filming of their music video "Sleep Now in the Fire", directed by Michael Moore, shut down the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE locked its doors midday in response to fears of crowds gathering to watch the filming. The band saw its music primarily as a vehicle for social activism.

Nine Inch Nails - The Hand that Feeds

Trent Reznor, lead singer of Nine Inch Nails was told that he couldn't perform this song with a picture of George W. Bush on stage with him. He responded with a great quote:

"Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV Movie Awards as previously announced. We were set to perform The Hand That Feeds with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me. See you on tour this fall when we return to play in America."

Green Day - American Idiot

The song "American Idiot" has been described by the band as their public statement in reaction to the confusing and warped scene that is American pop culture since September 11th. It is just a very good an Anti-Bush song.

Jimi Hendrix - Star Spangled banner

This was played on the last day of Woodstock in 1969. It was his first gig since the breakup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and it was quite memorable. Hendrix played the Star-Spangled Banner on his electric guitar that's been called everything from the most important political rock statement of the 1960s to an afterthought caught in one of Hendrix's worst performances. I just think it was great.