Is the Politics of Rage Played Out?

• Author: Powers, Ann
• Position: Music and politics

Music with a message battles on, though it's no longer in your face

Rage Against the Machine's contemporary anthem "Guerrilla Radio" mobilized action for action's sake. "It has to start somewhere," singer Zack de la Rocha mutters in the song's stirring chorus. "What better place than here? What better time than now?"

The time may have passed by. Though "Radio" earned a Grammy this year, de la Rocha split with the rap-rock group last fall, citing inner turmoil that had "undermined our artistic and political ideal." The remaining trio said the Grammy was "a nice way to go out." The Machine's breakdown sounded like the end of an era of rock activism.

The band had been the most visible to embrace political action, from its antiwar songs like "Bulls on Parade" to its protest concert outside the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Its success amid the Top 40's hip-hop booty-shakers and teen-pop hamburger shillers gave hope to anyone convinced of pop music's ability to raise social consciousness.

Now it and its radical movement have lost their loudest and most compelling voice in de la Rocha. Musical activism isn't dead, though, it's just different, as evidenced by artists from Pearl Jam to the Indigo Girls to Mos Def.

These artists raise their voice at the machine, if not rage against it. Sure, the focus is scattered, the voices are dissonant, and the levels of involvement are wildly mixed. But musicians are choosing issues, from veganism to prison reform, and addressing them not just in song but in activism beyond the stage. This doesn't necessarily mean writing chants for the masses, as Rage did, although that's great if it happens and the music rocks.

The goal now is more practical: to use the platform of music to slip in radical perspectives, to steal the spotlight when possible. This means something different for a major star like Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder than it does for a subcultural hero like hip-hop's Mos Def. What unites these activists is a realistic attitude, which asks everyone to simply get involved.

ROCKING THE BOAT

The Indigo Girls are an example of the thriving side of activist rock. Extremely supportive of causes ranging from gay and lesbian liberation to the rights of indigenous Americans, the folk-rock duo nonetheless records mostly love songs and uplifting ballads for Epic, a major label. Yet even as the Girls work within the corporate music industry, they maintain a position of relative independence. "I see...