Music to Fight Evil
seek inspiration from 50 years of protest with Jon Ewing
featuring artists like
Bad Religion, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Mavis Staples, Grace Petrie, The Clash, Woody Guthrie, IDLES, She Drew the Gun, Nina Simone, The Specials
Tolerance is good. There should be more of it. And whether you’re from the Left or the Right, don’t be fooled into thinking you have the monopoly on it. But we need to draw a line.
Let’s be clear: tolerance means accepting opinions and beliefs that conflict with your own. It doesn’t mean accepting prejudice in place of evidence, nor injustice in place of equality. And when the opinions and beliefs of others lead to deprivation and suffering – yours or anyone else’s – you don’t have to be tolerant any more. It’s time to rise up and act. The songs in this list shouldn’t have to exist. We should all just get along. Until that happens, seek inspiration from 50 years of protest, by way of a lot of anger and a little love.
Risk to Exist – Maximo Park
31 July 2017
“If you see something and you think somebody needs to stand up for it – whatever issue it might be – then you should,” Maximo Park frontman Paul Smith told The Independent earlier this year as they debuted their sixth album, Risk To Exist. “There’s a responsibility as a citizen and as a human.”
Repeat – Manic Street Preachers
24 July 2017
A song doesn’t necessarily have to earn its place on the Music to Fight Evil playlist by arguing a well-reasoned political point. Sometimes it’s enough to be angry at… whatever. Like this rousing battle cry from the first Manic Street Preachers album, Generation Terrorists.
Unfuck the World – Prophets of Rage
18 July 2017
This year’s first new Prophets of Rage material, Unfuck the World, has all the characteristics you’d expect from RATM and Public Enemy. Frankly, it feels like it was made for the Music to Fight Evil playlist.
Get Better – Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip
10 July 2017
Most protest songs concern themselves with the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself. But Get Better by Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip takes a wider and more positive outlook, challenging young people to rise above their circumstances rather than be consumed by them.
99 Red Balloons – Nena
4 July 2017
Ah, the Europop one hit wonder. Usually it’s as close to a definitive expression of disposable, fun-while-it-lasts, harmless bubble gum pop as it’s possible to be – Whigfield’s Saturday Night, Lou Bega’s Mambo Number 5, Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex, Blue by Eiffel 65… I could go on, but as the list grows it begins to seem less like harmless fun and the more like a pandemic of mindlessness.
Looking Forward to Your Fall – Eric Anders
27 June 2017
The word is schadenfreude – the German bon mot that describes the pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune.
In this case, of course, as the title suggests, Eric Anders isn’t able to experience that pleasure quite yet…
God Save The Hungry – Grace Petrie
20 June 2017
Apparently every nation has to have an anthem. Presumably this is so that footballers can stand awkwardly before important matches, incoherently mumbling the words while a TV camera probes their faces in close-up before they’re allowed to get on with what they came for.
It Says Here by Billy Bragg
4 June 2017
It Says Here is a warning about the danger of fake news, released in the year synonymous with George Orwell’s “doublethink”. The opening track on Billy Bragg’ second album Brewing Up with Billy Bragg scorns the newspapers and warns their readers to “just remember, there are two sides to every story”.
All You Need Is Love by The Beatles
24 May 2017
At the very peak of The Beatles’ career, modern communications technology gave them the opportunity to spread the message of what would become known as the “Summer of Love” all around the globe. Our World was a worldwide satellite TV broadcast on June 25th 1967, for which The Beatles were chosen to represent the United Kingdom by singing their specially composed song All You Need is Love.
Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
12 May 2017
When Neil Young picked up the new issue of Life magazine in May 1970 and saw the now infamous photograph of a young girl kneeling over the dead body of a student protester, he was filled with rage. He walked off into the woods and when he came back an hour later, he had written this song.
How Do You Sleep? by BIGG
28 April 2017
The whole paradoxical tangle of guilt and innocence is summed up in four familiar words – a single, weighted question at the heart of a riff-fuelled, two minute blast of vitriol.
Heartland – The The
27 April 2017
For this year’s Record Store Day, Matt Johnson has released his first new material for 15 years – a one-sided 7″ single called We Can’t Stop What’s Coming. In fact, as he reveals in the new documentary The Inertia Variations – a film essay that uses Johnson’s experience to investigate the notion of creative stagnation resulting from anxiety – it’s the first time he’s written a song or even sung one in a very, very long time.
