On Inauguration Day, Quasi’s Battle Hymnscompilation had lo-fi rock luminaries singing sly resistance slogans check out Mac McCaughan’s “Happy New Year (Prince Can’t Die Again)” for a particularly catchy example. Katy Perry has gotten nebulously woke Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl went for nebulously unifying.
Thank You 4 Your Service, Run the Jewels’s profane protest Run the Jewels 3, Gorillaz’s doomsday party Humanz. A slew of albums recorded during election season but released afterward have drawn attention for speaking to liberal angst: A Tribe Called Quest’s righteous celebration We Got It from Here. Last year’s presidential campaign spurred plenty of well-publicized anti-Trump sounds, from the mobilization of pop stars for Hillary Clinton to indie rock’s Trump-taunting “30 Days, 30 Songs” project to YG and Nipsey Hussle’s popular diss track “FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)” to Fiona Apple’s lewd ditty for the Women’s March. But the call for new protest music is nevertheless being answered in ways large and small under one of the most disliked incoming administrations in American history. When recently asked about the state of protest music, Joan Baez replied, “People are waiting for a ‘We Shall Overcome,’ they’re waiting for another ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘Imagine.’ Hasn’t been written yet.” She’s right that people often wish for a new smash anthem of uplift, resistance, and unity, and she’s right that there isn’t one, quite yet, for the Trump era. Though the left-leaning music world has stayed active and loud since Trump has taken office, its recent efforts often break with common expectations about what “political music” is-as, to an extent, such efforts always have. “Maybe the chords are spelling out something about the electoral college,” he cracked. Is it a let-down, then, that all of the song names above are for instrumentals? As the relaxed breakbeats of one such instrumental, “Vacuum Life” by the Sylvan Esso spinoff Made of Oak, boomed from my speakers, I told a friend who had just walked in that I was listening to a compilation of songs against Trump. “Requiem for 2016.” “Burn Your Money.” “I Know YOU Know You’re Evil.” Glancing down the list of tracks released for “Our First 100 Days,” a daily song project by and for those unhappy during Donald Trump’s early months in office, and the titles would seem to promise pointed speeches or singalongs.