Rage Against the Mundane

Perhaps it's telling that it took NPR and a Neil Young album for me to finally finish this stupid entry about the dearth of protest music in an era ripe for protest. This isn’t exactly Under the Rock, which is consistently well written and backed up by research. No, this is more akin to Smash Your Head On the (Punk) Rock: messy and haphazard with only a single source on the reference, excuse me, works cited page.

The Goats reunion show at the Khyber in January reminded me how sorely the music scene needs a dissenting voice in the current political climate.

Where have you gone Zack De La Rocha?
A nation turns its angry eyes to you.

This could be Rage Against the Machine's finest moment. So where the fuck are they? It's like Superman II all over again; 3 super villains are running the country (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld), trampling civil liberties, and there's no one to champion the people.*

Zack disappeared after 1999's Battle of Los Angeles, but the seeds of his reclusion were planted in 1995 when the Smashing Pumpkins released their anthem to defeatism, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings." The kids were angry, the colleges were a hotbed for a slacker revolution, and then, like a wet blanket, Billy Corgan screams, "Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage!"

With one catchy chorus he took the wind out of countless angst-ridden sails and thousands of kids walked the plank into conformity, and corporate America breathed a sigh of relief. Being angry and doing something didn't mean shit, so it was off to haircuts, dead-end 9-to-5 jobs, and Starbucks-style homogenization.**

After unknowingly being used as a corporate schill, Corgan's band fell apart, his solo album sucked, and he bought an ad (on the day he released his shitty solo album) admitting he sucked and wishing he could take it all back. Too bad, pumpkin, the damage has been done.

Who's taken up the fight? System of a Down? Pretenders to the throne. Ministry? They're still fighting the good fight, but their influence has always been limited (they never packed arenas the way RATM did), and their recent efforts have been sub-par.

Damn it's great to have the Goats back.

Donde es la rock?***
Maybe it's better that Zack burned out instead of turning into Audioslave.

The current breed of hybrid supergroups have left everything good about Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Guns-N-Roses, and even Stone Temple Pilots behind when they formed. Absolute crap from Velvet Revolver, Audioslave, and the re-formed Guns-N-Roses (3 songs from the forthcoming Chinese Democracy were leaked earlier this year, and they suck).

*I originally had DeLay in there when I started this entry.
**OK, I'm oversimplifying the situation. Most of the frat guys and meatheads listening to Rage Against the Machine were destined for conformity anyway.
***I use "ser" (the permanent form of "to be") because I don't think the lack of rock is a temporary situation. These bands eat ass. In the halls of supergroups, they're not Cream.