You don’t need to shout to be heard: nine present-day political songs

Janelle Monae’s underrated EP The Chase Suite featured a heartbreaking illustration of the despair of young people caught up in gang culture.

Pink took her diatribe directly to then-president George W Bush. It might be a forgettable ballad, but the lyrics are uncompromising and heartfelt.

Closer to home, Lily Allen’s depressingly passive complaint about consumerism in the credit crunch is still one hell of a catchy pop song.

One of the most powerfully affecting political releases I’ve heard in the past few months was the Sohrab album You Are Not Alone – a fundraiser to aid an Iranian asylum-seeker that is essentially an ambient-experimental collection of samples of the actual crowd noise from the Iranian protests, compiled and remixed into an eerie and moving soundscape. You can hear clips here.

Perhaps there’s not so much in the way of “screaming”, but you don’t need to shout to make yourself heard. I don’t think anyone needs to worry about musicians losing their voices any time soon.

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by Princess Stomper

Princess Stomper is a former magazine contributor and music researcher, who now works in a marketing department for an academic organisation. She lives in the English countryside and runs the Reinspired blog.

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