Where Have All the Protest Songs Gone?!?!

Seriously, with this much chaos, noise, and fire in the streets, why does music feel so… quiet?

I went to my local Hands Off! protest over the weekend, and while the crowd was fired up, the signs were clever, and the energy was electric, something was missing. Music. Protest music. The soundtrack of a rebellion.

No one was blasting anything from a speaker. No chants set to a catchy melody. No rallying cries in verse form. No “Come on people now, smile on your brother everybody get together”, or “I ain’t no senators son!” Just great vibes, regular chants, and angry cardboard.

It got me thinking: where the hell is the protest music right now? Like, seriously, in a moment this politically volatile, how is there not a single Bob Dylan, or Rage Against the Machine, or a Rise Against in sight, let alone climbing the charts? I know Hozier said “Eat the Rich” in a falsetto last year, but where’s the anthem that hits like a brick through a cop car window? Where’s the music that hits the airwaves and punches back? That charts and challenges? That makes you nod your head and clench your fist? Do they even have charts anymore?

I remember the Bush years. Protest songs were everywhere. Turn on the radio, flip on MTV, hit a live show, someone was pissed, and they were singing about it. American Idiot was a smash comeback album, but also a poignant political statement by Green Day. But now? It’s like political music has been banished to the algorithm’s basement. I know there’s been clever parody songs and viral clips here and there… but I’m talking real, original, hard-hitting protest music. The kind that gets under your skin and sticks to your bones.

Am I just old? Like… is this what aging is? You go to a protest and ask where the music is while everyone else is trading Spotify links in a Discord server you’ll never find? What even is Discord? Oh god, where’s my cane?

Look, I’ll admit to being behind the times. I still find new music the old-fashioned way: radio, TV, the people and speakers around me. But these days, I feel completely unplugged. I’m not sure Gen Z even knows what a radio is. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe protest music is out there, raw, righteous, and roaring, and I just don’t know where to look.

Or maybe, like me, artists are too damn busy trying to survive in this insane environment to promote their stuff. Maybe they’ve got jobs, kids, side hustles, and anxiety, and the idea of releasing a protest anthem just feels… exhausting.

But I’m still asking: Where’s the music?

Where are you hearing it?

Who’s making it?

And how do we bring it back to the streets, the rallies, the damn airwaves?

As for me, I did write and record my own protest music with the help of my best friend. We spent a decade jamming and playing together, and we created a good amount of music. Over COVID, we tried to learn how to record ourselves and picked a few of the best and easiest to record songs to create a demo.

It’s called Superior Street by Acquired Taste, and if you’re starving for music that actually sayssomething, give it a listen:

. If you like it, share it. I know it’s rough, but we did our best! I’m not gonna complain about a lack of music while holding on to mine.

And if you’ve got protest music, your own or someone else’s, drop it in the comments. I’m not asking for Top 40 polish, I’m sure not haha. But I am asking for fire. If you know where the protest music is pumping out, let the rest of us old farts know!

Because if we can’t scream with our music, what are we even doing?