"Most of the worst songs about Serious Issues ever recorded were made in the five years after Live Aid."

finest worksong bro!

It's pretty (unintentionally) funny I think. Neil Young, Geddy Lee and Joni Mitchell look so out of place.

Joni Mitchell has never looked more uncomfortable. Then again, she's never looked particularly comfortable.

xp yeah I hate that album dude (but it reminds you a bit of Go4; we've touched on this discussion before...)

(Finest Worksong, that is)

Hear N Aid is pretty awesome. Shocked to see Nugent, i doubt he would do anything charitable nowadays, unless its for Second Amendment rights.

OK "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" and "The Lebanon" are not bad songs.

I like the Lebanon! Guitars suited the Human League a lot better than they did ABC.

I kind of hated it when I was young, but I'm just thinking how dignified and noble a song Labi Siffre's 'Something Inside' was compared to all the rest of this bilge.

A lot of these songs are not at all bad songs. Surely not the Johnny Hates Jazz one, that one is a great song.

Geir, why do you keep posting great songs including pre-Live Aid ones? It's not "Please post every issue-based song from the 80s" until the thread is dead.

Even now that I like Labi Siffre and appreciate what the song's about, I still find Something Inside ghastly and I feel sort of bad about that.

Was anything on the Greenpeace LP actually recorded especially for it? Doesn't look like it. I bought this with paper route money, it's kinda an awesome tracklist:

Peter Gabriel - Shock The Monkey
Queen - Is This The World We Created
Kajagoogoo - Turn Your Back On Me
Thomas Dolby - Windpower
Tears For Fears - Mad World
Kate Bush - Breathing
Heaven 17 - Let's All Make A Bomb
Pretenders, The - Show Me
--------------------------
B1 Hazel O'Connor & Chris Thompson - Push And Shove
B2 Howard Jones - Equality
B3 Madness - Wings Of A Dove
B4 Nik Kershaw - Human Racing
B5 George Harrison - Save The Wold
B6 Roger Taylor - Killing Time
B7 Depeche Mode - Blasphemous Rumours
B8 Eurythmics - No Fear, No Hate, No Pain, No Broken Hearts

Did No Nukes have songs about nukes?

just dropping in to say that Rockin' in the Free World is an absolutely amazing song

The most recent examples: Just Stand Up 2 Cancer, Everybody Hurts and We Are The World 25. They were all very, very bad.

I feel like Pearl Jam is one of the big inheritors of this tradition. One of the reasons I like Nirvana more tbh

No Springsteen here either?

Springsteen's most "political" 80s songs were probably "Born In The USA" and "My Hometown". Both of which were pre-Live Aid anyway.

Right on.

Btw, love Another Day in Paradise

I feel like Pearl Jam is one of the big inheritors of this tradition.

I don't doubt that Eddie Vedder cares about and contributes to solving serious issues, but it seems like all the homeless people and troubled teens in early Pearl Jam songs exist as much to set an appropriately grunge-y atmosphere as to raise awareness about the issues.

on the other hand, I doubt the guys from Candlebox really cared about serious issues when they recorded that one song about homeless people, and I doubt the guys from Staind really cared about serious issues when they recorded that one song about homeless people, and...(you get the idea)

it's obnoxious to create art about tragedies because it's fashionable to do so, although it's somewhat less obnoxious if there's some real compassion mixed in there.

I'm not saying musicians shouldn't be allowed to write about serious issues unless they intend to directly or indirectly make the world a better place through their music. songwriters should have the freedom to work with any subject matter without feeling any obligation toward it that doesn't relate to their artistic goals. but it's just crass when socially conscious issues go from being the chosen themes of individual artists to being trendy in the same way that gated drums and P-Funk samples are trendy.

I disagree there. I think part of the reason why people started writing about serious issues in the 80s (and it started way before Live Aid, as some examples in this thread show) is more like they realized they could do it without losing popularity. And because writing either about relationships or nonsensical lyrics becomes boring in the end, some kind of social conscience makes for some variation.

It has to come from the outside though. That is partly where "Another Day In Paradise" fails. Because it is a bit too ("Hmm. I need to find some social issue to write a lyric about"). On the other hand, I feel like Nik Kershaw and Johnny Hates Jazz did actually genuinely care about these subjects. I recall some interview where Clark Datchler of Johnny Hates Jazz was asked about his lyrics, and he responded he didn't think his fans would pay all that much attention to them, but that he still enjoyed writing about social issues because, well, he had those things on his mind)

It has to come from the inside, I mean.

I don't think anything you're saying really contradicts my point though. there's no shame in writing socially conscious lyrics as a way of extending your artistic range, making your music more interesting, and expressing what's on your mind. it only becomes iffy when heavy issues are used as mere stylistic signifiers – as a way of staying relevant and one-upping other artists until the trends change and it's ok to write about cars and partying again. I'm not saying all or most of the artists who started writing about social issues in the '80s are guilty of this mindset. I'm just saying that it's something worth avoiding.

I will admit that I was unfairly picking on Pearl Jam upthread. Candlebox and Staind, however, deserve no mercy.

the bigger and richer an artist gets, the more difficult it is to tackle political subjects without seeming like a preachy dick with a bullhorn. there's something to be said for seeking strong social/political message music out, instead of having it rammed up your ass by a millionaire I guess.

Everybody Hurts and We Are The World

Misread this as Everybody Wants To Hurt The World.

The alternate universe in which Tears for Fears got big with that is an amazing one.

Though you have reminded me, returning to the thread subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxQgRGUnlMA

“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.”

Raoul Vaneigem

Just thought I'd add that for consideration.

"Money go round" is an interesting one.

The chorus
"MGR, MGR, you want to get off but it won't slow down,
MGR, MGR, you just fall from grace as you hit the ground"

.. sets up an interesting subject for the idea that once you enter the ratrace you can never leave it. The difficulties of living an alternative lifestyle, whatever that may mean and so on.

But it seems PWeller had no ideas for the rest of the song, so instead writes lots of verses about current events, strikes and wars.

it only becomes iffy when heavy issues are used as mere stylistic signifiers – as a way of staying relevant and one-upping other artists until the trends change and it's ok to write about cars and partying again.

But, as much as some on ILM may dislike them, I see no reason to deny that, say, Sting, Bob Geldof and Bono are actually very much personally engaged in these questions. Actually to such an extent they are not content just to write about them, they even use their fame and their names to actually involve in organized work to try and make politicians change their minds. It's not about commercial interests for them. So, yes, you can say they are pathetic not to shelve all kinds of luxury like Gandhi did, but while they haven't done that, they aren't known as the most excessive rock millionaires either.

Also, cars and partying and relationships were never untrendy in the late 80s. Stock/Aitken/Waterman wrote about those topics for their proteges all along.

It's not about commercial interests for them.

Be nice if Bono paid some tax once in a while

He does. The Netherlands thing only applies to earnings form their publishing company. Which is still wrong but not the same as paying no income tax.

Peter Hammill's 1988 album In A Foreign Town was mostly about Issues and it's one of the worst records he ever did. So the theory checks out here. Although saying that, the record's badness is more to do with the 80s production job than with the lyrics. I wonder how much of the dross in this thread is only dross because of 80s production values, rather than the lyrics.

I've cited this before:

Like, you get Big Country who go to Moscow and say to people, "Do you get the message?" Well, WHAT is the message? The message is that they're promoting a new album. But you're not supposed to say that, or you're accused of being cynical...But you're supposed to think that the total aim of what they do is to make a sincere statement about world peace. There are some far more sincere things you can do about world peace. -- Neil Tennant, 1989

A lot of late 80s production did indeed sound horrible. In the first half of the decade, there was still a level of adventurousness, trying out new electronic equipment etc. In the late 80s, however, everything was stale, synth technology didn't develop much beyond the dominant Fairlight/DX7 (and those who used the latter even tended to overuse factory presets) and things actually wouldn't be much better until first the house/techno producers and later the likes of Pet Shop Boys and Erasure took a step back and started to use older technology again. (This until Nord Lead and some others came up with synths that were influenced by the old technology)

X-Post, but then Neil Tennant has always been eager to defend disco over rock, and his quote may as well be an attempt to defend disco's blatant sellout approach, and disco's tendency not to care about the world or write about social issues at all.

A bit like American conservatives trying to bury the messages the likes of Michael Moore and Al Gore carry by questioning the fact that they do indeed make a lot of money from their movies.

xpost Tennant said that the same year as he sang It's Alright though, which is a great record with a clunky, vague lyric about, well, world peace (and two years after the anti-Thatcherite Kings Cross and Shopping) so I think the rhetoric of a band like Big Country bothered him more than the lyrical stance.

Tennant has indeed been writing a lot more socially aware lyrics than most of the people he is a fan of, but I guess he feels like defending them as well (although of course, if disco includes R&B, Janet Jackson released "Rhythm Nation" the same year - an album with lyrics about enviromental issues, poverty, civil rights and more.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy - socially aware lyrics were at their worst during the PSBs' imperial phase so there was a lot to be irritated by.

I love the fact that Chris Lowe's so militantly republican that he even refuses to eat any biscuits from Prince Charles's Duchy Originals range.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy

Yeah.

In fact this single (1991) is the perfect riposte to the post-Live Aid period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyUeIX-2dbw&feature=related

Tennant looking a lot like Malcolm Tucker from the Thick of It in that video.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy

Brave of him to pick on Big Country in 1989, when they were on their way down the pan and basically no-one really gave a shit about them any longer. Stuart Adamson was probably one of the less pompous guys of those years, always seemed to be really sincere and modest. I assume his background was pretty solidly working class, certainly their lyrics always took the side of the little guy in whatever situation they were writing about. Guess Tennant didn't want to upset Bono?

Er, I think he did want to upset Bono

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt2j79pca7c

Guess Tennant didn't want to upset Bono?

What [rock critics} basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It 's this thing where British – or in U2's case, Irish – groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches [his voice rises] and it's reviewed as a serious thing because DYLAN PLAYS ORGAN on some song and B.B. King playso n some throwaway pop song "When Love Comes to Town" that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It coudl bein Starlight Express if you ask me.

...We hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's totally stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976. To me U2 are a dinosaur group. They're saying nothing but they're pretending to be something. I think they're FAKE.

"little guy" is patronizing fyi

Okay, fair enough on the Bono thing! 'Little guy' was just lazy shorthand for the soldiers that come home in boxes and the men who get laid off at the steelworks. That was the POV that Adamson was writing from and I just don't see that as a particularly pompous thing to do.

The intentions are noble! The music is ugly. Tennant would go further: the noble intentions reflect the artist's narcissism (i.e. LOOK AT ME DOING THIS NOBLE GESTURE).

I love Pet Shop Boys, and I think they make great and intelligent and sophisticated pop music. But when Neil Tennant puts on this "anti rockist" stance, he is just being pathetic.

well, it's really more that he's being what he is decrying, which is kind of funny

I guess this is supposed to cover 1986-1990, which means all the stuff in response to the Gulf War such as "Voices That Care" or that Sean Lennon "Give Peace A Chance" thing would not qualify, although I should just post them anyway since more than half of the videos here are not between those 5 years.

yeah but geir posted all of those, don't encourage him to post more