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The National
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Charting protest pop: How music can bring about change
Decrying the effects of deindustrialisation and mass unemployment, Ghost Town by The Specials from Coventry spent three weeks at No 1 in the singles chart in June 1981, just months after the first widespread rioting in inner cities for many decades. The lead singer from The Specials, Terry Hall, then left with two other members of the band, Neville Staple and Lynval Golding, to set up a new group called Fun Boy Three. Later that same year, Fun Boy Three had a Top 20 chart hit with The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum) about Thatcher, the Tories and nuclear war. The Specials continued as the Special AKA, led by its co-founder, Jerry Dammers. In 1984, the band released the single Free Nelson Mandela, written by Dammers. The single entered the Top 10, spending two weeks at No 9. It was, The Guardian, commented 30 years later, 'one of the most effective protest songs in history'. READ MORE: Scottish musician releases single condemning Israel's war crimes in Gaza The Specials and their offspring are just some of the many examples of not just pop becoming patently political but also being prolifically popular, judged by record sales, chart success and airplay. Such songs and others were played on daytime radio like Radio 1 and not just on its specialist late-nights 'ghetto' slots like those of John Peel. The Housemartins from Hull are another obvious example of popular political pop. Both the band's albums – London 0 Hull 4 (1986) and The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death (1987) – made it into the Top 10 of the album charts, and they had two Top 10 singles and four Top 20 singles. On the inner sleeve of the first album, the band declared: 'For too long the ruling class have enjoyed an extended New Year's Eve Party, whilst we can only watch, faces pressed up against the glass. [We] say: 'Don't try gate crashing a party full of bankers. Burn the house down!'.' Along the way, there was The Beat's single, Stand Down Margaret, in 1980, Morrissey's Margaret On The Guillotine in 1988, Elvis Costello's Tramp The Dirt Down in 1989, all about wanting to see Thatcher terminated. The Clash with its lyricist and leader singer, Joe Strummer, was still around, releasing a triple album in 1980 called Sandinista! in tribute to the successful Nicaraguan revolution and which contained tracks like Washington Bullets that condemned American and Russian imperialism. This was followed up by the likes of Know Your Rights (1982) and This Is England (1985) about human rights and deindustrialisation respectively. Of course, the politics of all these political pop lyrics were wide-ranging and left-wing, ranging from radical through to revolutionary. But later the same year as Free Nelson Mandela was in the charts, Midge Ure, of Ultravox fame and from Cambuslang, and Bob Geldof, from Belfast's Boomtown Rats, organised Band Aid, the one-off pop supergroup, which released Do They Know It's Christmas?' Bob Geldof and Midge Ure (Image: Getty Images) It was a desperate attempt to raise money to end the horrendous scenes of mass starvation taking place in Ethiopia at the time. The single made the Christmas No 1 that year, staying there for five weeks, becoming the fastest-selling single of all time in Britain and then went on to sell some three million copies. Band Aid then led to Live Aid, two mass simultaneous hours-long concerts in London and Philadelphia, again to raise money to alleviate the starvation in Ethiopia. In the US, Band Aid and Do They Know It's Christmas? inspired Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie to write and release the single We Are the World in 1985 with an American cast of super-group singers and musicians. With sales in excess of 20 million, it became the eighth-bestselling single of all time, again raising money for the victims of famine in Ethiopia. In 1985, Chris Dean, lyricist and lead singer of the left-wing band The Redskins (more about them later), branded Live Aid – and by implication Band Aid as well – as 'Egos for Ethiopia'' In 1986, anarchist band Chumbawamba released their album, Pictures Of Starving Children Sell Records. The Redskins and Chumbawamba argued such charity initiatives were thoroughly liberal and not left-wing as they not only masked the true causes of the starvation – that is, not a lack of rain – but also were sticking plasters on a gaping, open wound. Indeed, that Do They Know It's Christmas? was deemed to be needed to be released twice again in the next two decades illustrated the point that the effort had not ended hunger and starvation in Africa, nor even looked at its actual underlying causes. Band Aid was, indeed, a Band-Aid (brand) plaster. READ MORE: Israel 'sending soldiers to commit war crimes in Gaza', says former army chief By contrast, and though he'd been part of Band Aid and Live Aid, Paul Weller, previously of The Jam and then The Style Council, put together a group of musicians in late 1984 to raise money for the striking miners so they would not be starved back to work. Called the Council Collective, they released the Soul Deep single, which reached No 24 on the singles chart. This was a more radical move than Band Aid because it meant tackling the Tories on home turf. Weller had form here, whether with calling for a general strike in Trans-Global Express on The Jam's last album, The Gift album of 1982 and pronouncing on Walls Come Tumbling Down from The Style Council's 1985 album, Our Favourite Shop, that 'The class war's real and not mythologised'. During the year-long miners' strike, many bands and artists such as Billy Bragg, The Housemartins, New Model Army, Newtown Neurotics, The Men They Couldn't Hang, The Three Johns as well as The Redskins and Easterhouse played countless benefit gigs to raise money and spirits for the striking miners and their families. Bragg released Between The Wars about the miners' strike in 1985, reaching No 15 in the charts – followed by the likes of There Is Power In A Union from his 1986 album, Talking With The Taxman About Poetry. After the devastating defeat of the miners' strike in March 1985, Bragg and Weller together took the initiative to form Red Wedge, a collective of mainly musicians in support of the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1987 General Election. They organised gigs and meetings. Labour's loss to the Tories again was something of a death knell for popular political pop, with even Bragg mournfully opining on his song, Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards, from his 1988 Workers' Playtime album: 'Mixing pop and politics, he asks me what the use is/I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses'. Red Wedge (Image: Getty Images) The economic, political and social stimulants to the rise of radical music in the 1980s were not hard to find. High youth unemployment combined with the existing traditions of folk and punk music plus a personalised hatred of Margaret Thatcher were the wellsprings. Punk's DIY ethic also encouraged anyone to pick up a guitar and form a band. This expression through music was facilitated not just by music being the quintessential component of youth culture and youthful rebellion but also by the emergence of independent, progressive record labels like Go! Discs and Rough Trade. There were then far less stringent rules for receiving housing and unemployment benefits which allowed budding musicians to hone their craft without having to undertake paid work. Of course, an unfortunate but equally forceful – if not more forceful – movement in music was the escapism of the 'New Romantics' such as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. Surprisingly, the Scottish supply of political pop was slight even though working-class communities in the central belt were equally badly affected by Thatcherism and deindustrialisation. None of the big and medium-sized hitters like Altered Images, The Associates, Aztec Camera, Big Country, Bluebells, Blue Nile, Deacon Blue, Del Amitri, Hipsway, Hue and Cry, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, Orange Juice, Primal Scream, Texas, and Wet Wet Wet were known for anything approximating to political pop. This was even though Sharleen Spiteri of Texas said she was inspired by Joe Strummer of The Clash and wanted to do what he did. Where Scotland did contribute was through The Proclaimers with their single Letter From America in 1987 from the This Is The Story album. It reached No 3 with its telling outro refrain about deindustrialisation: 'Bathgate no more/Linwood no more/Methil no more/Irvine no more'. On their next album in 1988, Sunshine On Leith, there was the song Cap In Hand with its key line: 'I can't understand why we let someone else rule our land; cap in hand'. READ MORE: Scottish Labour 'blocking left-wing MSPs from standing' for election The various songs like Belfast Child and Mandela Day from Simple Minds' 1989 album called Street Fighting Years seemed to lack authenticity given the band's previous songs. Though Dick Gaughan, a communist folk singer from Edinburgh, never troubled the charts, his anti-war song, Think Again, of 1983 became well known in the peace movement. There was also anarchist leaning, The Exploited, from Edinburgh whose first two albums – Punks Not Dead and Troops Of Tomorrow – went Top 20. Scotland's only other connection was through UB40 from Birmingham. Taking its name from the Unemployment Benefit, Form 40 needed for signing on for the dole, the band was fronted by the three Campbell brothers. Their hits included Food For Thought (1980) about starvation which reached No 4 and One In Ten (1981) about unemployment which reached No 7. The Scottish connection is that the Campbell brothers' father was communist folk singer Ian Campbell. He helped with the initial lyrical direction of the band. There was, however, no Scottish connection to Easterhouse. The band from Manchester, led by two brothers associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, took their name from the Glasgow housing scheme as an act of solidarity with the community there. Even though most of the aforementioned bands also wrote love songs, almost all of their political songs only dealt with what was wrong and not how to resolve the situation. The exception was The Redskins. Led by a member of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, their lyrics made clear that they believed unequivocally there was one solution, namely, revolution. Their single, Bring It Down (This Insane Thing), reached No 33 in 1985, and the next year, their album, Neither Washington Nor Moscow, reached No 31. Turning to today, is this 40-odd-year-old past all but a foreign country now? There are some songs that still have a resonance today. One, for example, is The The's Heartland from 1986 with its lines, 'Let the poor drink the milk while the rich eat the honey/Let the bums count their blessings while they count their money' and its outro of, 'As the pound in our pocket turns into a dollar/This is the 51st state of the USA'. But what about new and up and coming bands? While there are still some longstanding political bands around making new music like the Manic Street Preachers from Wales, there is a deadly dearth of the new. Bob Vylan, The Idles, Kneecap and Sleaford Mods are four of the relatively more well-known ones, though they are not exactly new. The likes of Joe Solo and Grace Petrie have kept the folk-based tradition of protests songs alive. Of course, existing bands have the potential to produce political music. Billy Bragg puts the dearth of the new down to younger people expressing themselves through other means now like social media. But this is only half the story at best as the reduction in the costs of technology means that it is much cheaper to make and distribute music now (even if it is difficult to make a living from it). There was no great revival of left-wing music under Blair and Brown from 1997 to 2010 because until the tail end of those Labour governments, there was economic growth, increased public spending and some hope. Now with a Starmer-led Labour government, we find ourselves in an altogether different situation. So, with Labour's loveless landslide turning into despair and destitution for many, the tyranny of Trump as well as endless war in Gaza and Ukraine, there's definitely an audience for music that not just attacks what's wrong but also points to the alternatives. Capitalist companies call that a 'gap in market'. We have to hope that we'll soon see an array of new Billy Braggs, Joe Strummers and Paul Wellers for the late 2020s, fired up by the dashed expectations of a Labour government and the mounting anger it is causing. Music cannot change the world in and of itself but it certainly can help change people's consciousness, giving expression to beliefs that provide hope and inspiration. Music that expresses this can reflect a popular mood for radical, left-wing change as well as spurring on those that are organising for that very change.
CairoScene
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
47SOUL Drops ‘Dualism Pt.1' EP - A Tribute to Palestinian Journalists
The Palestinian outfit explores feelings of desolation and refusal to accept the genocide as a cyclical reality. May 11, 2025 After teasing their upcoming new record for months with a steady influx of preview singles, Palestinian shamstep pioneers 47Soul have finally released the first installment of their highly anticipated album, 'Dualism'. Born out of grief and resilience, the three-track EP is a heartfelt tribute to the Palestinian journalists who have been risking their lives to report on the atrocities happening in Palestine, exploring feelings of desolation and refusal to accept the genocide as a cyclical reality. The EP features 'Ghost Town' and 'Ya Kho', which were both released as preview singles of the record, the latter of which marked a shift in the band's signature sound, offering more nuanced electronic arrangements of electric guitar riffs and minimal percussion. The newest track on the album, however, is 'Power', a subversive commentary on the brutal Zionist occupation, highlighting the perpetual destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The track blends space-age electronics with traditional folk influences, capturing the devastating daily life of Palestinians through sharp Arabic and English lyricism and El Far3i's powerful vocal performance.
Time Out
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson in ‘Friendship'
When it comes to Tim Robinson, there are two very distinct camps: those who can't get enough of his shows I Think You Should Leave and Detroiters, and those who just don't get his brand of recoil comedy at all. Actually, make that three, so we can include those who are currently thinking, ' Who?' Friendship will do nothing to convert nonbelievers, because it exists primarily to thrill existing fans and create new ones. And it's likely to succeed mightily on both counts. Writer-director Andrew DeYoung (PEN15) wrote the script with Robinson in mind, so his character, Craig, could have stepped straight out of Leave: he's excruciatingly awkward, entirely out of step with social mores, and increasingly unable to control himself. This explains why he has no friends, either in the bland suburban subdivision where he agitates for more speed bumps, the grim office where he makes phone apps more addictive, or even the home in which his wife, Tami (Kate Mara, ideally deadpan), barely tolerates him. He does get a brief, thrilling reprieve once he meets his new neighbour Austin (a perfect Paul Rudd), an impossibly cool weatherman with a loyal group of friends. When Austin impulsively invites Craig into his incredible life, our desperately basic antihero is engulfed in excitement. But since he cannot handle overwhelming emotions, the inevitable crash is so cringe it will haunt your dreams and spawn countless memes. ('You made me feel too free!' he eventually wails to Austin in his defence.) See it with someone you love now, or drive them crazy by quoting it endlessly later So, yes, Friendship does feel in many ways like an expanded I Think You Should Leave sketch built on bizarro absurdism and a waterfall of exacerbating circumstances. To his credit, though, DeYoung – a TV director making his feature debut – does take advantage of the opportunity in some satisfying ways. Leave tends to amplify the insanity by pairing dark experience with bright colours and music, while Detroiters is ultimately a heartfelt tribute to the unshakable bond between male soulmates. Friendship, in contrast, skirts right up to the edge of horror. (This is an A24 movie, after all.) The palette is dingy, the settings are dank, there is no Motown soundtrack to offer some relief (though there is Ghost Town DJ's' My Boo in a cappella). Indeed, while Craig's unhinged breakdown pushes well into surreality, there's genuine pathos in the existential nightmare of making the wrong choices, and thus finding oneself essentially alone. If this isn't your thing, you'll already know it. And if it is, make your own choice: see it with someone you love now, or drive them crazy by quoting it endlessly later.
Hindustan Times
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Movie Review: Dark bromance 'Friendship' hysterically explores modern men's awkward embrace
Craig Waterman is a suburban dad in middle age who favors extremely puffy jackets, yearns to see the new Marvel movie and is so uncool that he lobbies his town to have speed bumps installed. Naturally, he has no friends. Movie Review: Dark bromance 'Friendship' hysterically explores modern men's awkward embrace That changes one day when a misdirected package arrives in the mail and he trots off to hand deliver it to his new neighbor, Austin Carmichael, who has a '70s vibe — a mustache, soul patch and a neckerchief. He's a TV weatherman and fronts a punk band. Naturally, he has a tight group of male friends. So begins Andrew DeYoung's auspicious debut feature 'Friendship,' which tackles modern masculinity and male loneliness with biting satire and humor, taking detours into horror and the surreal. Craig is instantly smitten — platonically — by Austin and why would he not? The neighbor is everything Craig is not. Craig is like one of those loser characters in the Progressive Insurance commercials about not becoming your parents. 'It's a school night for me!' he'll announce when the party is just getting started. 'Might be nice to have a pal, a bud,' suggests Craig's wife, a wonderful Kate Mara, who is drifting away from her husband. His teenage son is, too. You would be as well if your dad ended a conversation with 'Stay curious!' Craig soon comes under Austin's spell — the pair smoking, going on an adventure to an aqueduct at night, looking at his collection of early human tools, foraging for mushrooms, some light boxing and singing along with his friends to an an impromptu a cappella version of 'My Boo' by Ghost Town DJ's. Craig falls hard, fantasizing about joining his neighbor's band and back slapping with his new band of brothers. 'You make me feel so free,' he confesses to his cool neighbor. But he doesn't have the skills to play it cool. As the kids today say, he has no rizz. DeYoung is at his best here, exploring the slippery notions of masculinity, both tender and muscular, and the difficulty of joining a circle of guys with their own idiosyncratic and iron laws. 'Friendship' shows Craig aping his man-crush and failing terribly — and bringing down the object of his bromance at the same time. It's as if Larry David remade 'Single White Female.' Most impressive is that DeYoung has not created a collection of connected 'SNL' skits. Each part cleverly feeds to another, with echoes throughout the script. If a muscle car is mentioned at the top, you'll know you'll find a muscle car by the end. Same with a lick or sliding doors. DeYoung also has things to say about our commercial-saturated times, where even Craig's desperate attempt to get super high and escape his disintegrating life ends with a pedestrian hallucination where he just orders from a fast food joint. Craig orders his clothes from a catalogue bizarrely called 'Ocean View Dining' — 'The only brand of clothes that fit me just right,' he crows — and his adoration of Marvel shows a lowest-common denominator thinking. But there's also a feeling in the second half of the movie that DeYoung isn't sure how to end this slide into insanity and the movie gets unmoored from its satirical look at bromances and just follows Craig as a one man wrecking machine, like the movie was hijacked by Charlie Kaufman. Not to take anything away from DeYoung's debut, which is a hoot. Do us all a favor and see it with your buddies. And if you see a guy there all alone, maybe reach out? 'Friendship,' a A24 release that is in select theaters Friday and goes wider May 23, is rated R for 'language and some drug content.' Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Associated Press
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Movie Review: Dark bromance 'Friendship' hysterically explores modern men's awkward embrace
Craig Waterman is a suburban dad in middle age who favors extremely puffy jackets, yearns to see the new Marvel movie and is so uncool that he lobbies his town to have speed bumps installed. Naturally, he has no friends. That changes one day when a misdirected package arrives in the mail and he trots off to hand deliver it to his new neighbor, Austin Carmichael, who has a '70s vibe — a mustache, soul patch and a neckerchief. He's a TV weatherman and fronts a punk band. Naturally, he has a tight group of male friends. So begins Andrew DeYoung's auspicious debut feature 'Friendship,' which tackles modern masculinity and male loneliness with biting satire and humor, taking detours into horror and the surreal. Craig (Tim Robinson, at his awkward best) is instantly smitten — platonically — by Austin (Paul Rudd, at his charismatic best) and why would he not? The neighbor is everything Craig is not. Craig is like one of those loser characters in the Progressive Insurance commercials about not becoming your parents. 'It's a school night for me!' he'll announce when the party is just getting started. 'Might be nice to have a pal, a bud,' suggests Craig's wife, a wonderful Kate Mara, who is drifting away from her husband. His teenage son is, too. You would be as well if your dad ended a conversation with 'Stay curious!' Craig soon comes under Austin's spell — the pair smoking, going on an adventure to an aqueduct at night, looking at his collection of early human tools, foraging for mushrooms, some light boxing and singing along with his friends to an an impromptu a cappella version of 'My Boo' by Ghost Town DJ's. Craig falls hard, fantasizing about joining his neighbor's band and back slapping with his new band of brothers. 'You make me feel so free,' he confesses to his cool neighbor. But he doesn't have the skills to play it cool. As the kids today say, he has no rizz. DeYoung is at his best here, exploring the slippery notions of masculinity, both tender and muscular, and the difficulty of joining a circle of guys with their own idiosyncratic and iron laws. 'Friendship' shows Craig aping his man-crush and failing terribly — and bringing down the object of his bromance at the same time. It's as if Larry David remade 'Single White Female.' Most impressive is that DeYoung has not created a collection of connected 'SNL' skits. Each part cleverly feeds to another, with echoes throughout the script. If a muscle car is mentioned at the top, you'll know you'll find a muscle car by the end. Same with a lick or sliding doors. DeYoung also has things to say about our commercial-saturated times, where even Craig's desperate attempt to get super high and escape his disintegrating life ends with a pedestrian hallucination where he just orders from a fast food joint. Craig orders his clothes from a catalogue bizarrely called 'Ocean View Dining' — 'The only brand of clothes that fit me just right,' he crows — and his adoration of Marvel shows a lowest-common denominator thinking. (The fact that the object of his love-jealousy is played by Ant-Man — a member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — is a remarkable piece of kismet.) But there's also a feeling in the second half of the movie that DeYoung isn't sure how to end this slide into insanity and the movie gets unmoored from its satirical look at bromances and just follows Craig as a one man wrecking machine, like the movie was hijacked by Charlie Kaufman. Not to take anything away from DeYoung's debut, which is a hoot. Do us all a favor and see it with your buddies. And if you see a guy there all alone, maybe reach out? 'Friendship,' a A24 release that is in select theaters Friday and goes wider May 23, is rated R for 'language and some drug content.' Running time: 100 minutes. Three stars out of four.
