Is American Youth Angst Dead?
Nation's in a budget crisis. Three wars. America's broke. Trump's a birther. Beck got booted from Fox. Economic recovery. Slow employment growth. A deficit that is going to paralyze our children. Tell me if you didn't hear something like that in the last week.
We live in some toxic times. People are increasingly more self-serving. Politics has gone from nasty to disgusting. Muckraking is now poison pill slipping. It's unnerving right? However where are the young musicians to create the anti-establishment anthems of this generation of American youth? Do they exist? I don't believe they do. I posed a single question to my friends and not one could come up with an answer in less than infinity.
"Name me 3 musical artists who have broken onto the scene in the last 6 years that are completely driven by angst and political disgust."
Here is what I heard, after they thought about it for way too long.
Maybe Muse?
Maybe Old Crow Medicine Show?
Are you kidding me? That's it. Maybe? We've been reduced to maybe? I was a late teen during George Bush 1term.0. Our primary negative experiences were 40 days of Operation Desert Storm, a struggling economy and Rodney King. CNN was the only 24 hour news channel and Netscape 1.0 was about 5 years away and in 10 seconds I immediately thought of 3 artists who were absolutely angry at everything back then. Within 30 seconds I grabbed these 3 videos from YouTube.
Ministry "N.W.O"
Global government conspiracy always gets us going complete with HW soundbytes.
Public Enemy "Welcome to the Terrordome"
A song so relevant they re-mixed it in 2010
Primus "Too Many Puppies"
Did you like young men and women dying in Desert Storm?
Currently, Cee-Lo writes about relationships. Bon Iver's amazing debut focused on the worst break-up in history. Grammy Award winning Arcade Fire bitched about suburbia. Really? Boring ol suburbia? Where is the anger? Certainly life isn't this rosy? Is this all you can muster? Where is your voice?
Has it been suppressed by prescription medication, helicopter parenting, sheer laziness and excessive rule enforcement everywhere from school to the streets? Is "The Man" truly keeping you down? Please tell me he hasn't won. Until I can slip you a Jello Biafra track Muse is all you have...and they're British.
Oh and speaking of "The Man" embed code is blocked on YouTube for Muse.
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