I’m a guy approaching 60, so I’ll start by saying my perception may be wrong. That could be because the protest songs from the late 60’s and early 70’s weren’t the songs I heard live on the radio but because they were the successful ones that got replayed. More likely, it’s because music is much more fractured than what I was exposed to on the radio growing up. Thus, today, I’m simply not exposed to the same type of protest songs that still exist.
Whatever the reason, I feel that the zeitgeist of protest music is very different from the first decade of my life compared to the last.
I’m curious to know why. My conspiratorial thoughts say that it’s down to the money behind music promotion being very different over those intervening decades, but I suspect it’s much more nuanced.
So, why are there fewer protest songs? Alternatively, why I am not aware of recent ones?
The music industry and how the money works now are fundamentally different than how it was back then so keep that in mind while you’re wearing the tinfoil hat
There’s protest music, but it’s also different than back then. Now most of it exists in the more marginalized communities like the queer or poc space, as opposed to the mostly white hippie movement for example
One bigger name that comes to mind now is Kendrick Lamar.
https://www.complex.com/music/a/j-mckinney/kendrick-lamar-alright-protest-song
It’s easy to get stuck in a music bubble. You have to work to find new music.