Lack of political action plagues music today

Chris Lew

The days of idealistic music crusades to save the world appear to be numbered.

While some bands such as Rage Against the Machine, the Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam and U2 still fight for political issues, there seems to be an overall political apathy in an industry that use to have such an influential voice in society.

Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Sugar Ray and Third Eye Blind all sing about nothing of substance and make no effort to contribute society or address its problems. While there is a time and a place for music to help you get away from the ills of daily life, why don't bands that have the ability to make a difference leave that to bubble gum pop acts like Britney Spears and N'Sync?

Some may point out that Metallica, Dr. Dre and Eminem have been taking on Napster, the most recent industry scapegoat as of late. The only thing that this battle proves is that when it comes to defending their pocketbooks, some musicians will always rush to the front lines. Fighting to shutdown the MP3 sharing program benefits no one but the artists who write the songs and actually takes away from the fans.

When Rage played at the Democratic National Convention on the 14th of this month they took their normally politically-scathing lyrics to the next level and took action. They have also in the past been involved in the Tibetian Freedom Concerts.

Pearl Jam announced last week that they are offering free tickets to fans that man registration booths in front of the concert venues from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. before the band's concerts.

The band has always been active in lobbying for causes they believe in most notably the fight to keep ticket prices low a few years ago in their highly publicized battle against Ticketmaster. However this is the first major step they have taken in the political arena.

U2 has always been one to take the lead in the fighting for political causes. In the ë80s they played at the legendary Live Aide and penned the openly political songs "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Bullet the Blue Sky." Front man Bono has been deeply involved in the Jubilee 2000 campaign which has been lobbying for world leaders to drop the debt owed to them by the world's poorest countries which included the concert Net Aide.

Hopefully bands like these will help turn this disturbing wave of indifference back to the way it was in the ë80s when people still cared about others and not just about their pocketbooks.

Chris Lew is the Diversions editor of the Daily Forty-Niner