Rock Has Lost Its Soul

I've commented on numerous occassions that there were no quality anti-war songs or albums with a few notable exceptions such as Green Day and System of a Down. The reason was a sort of McCarthyism if you listen to Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament talk:

"Neil Young isn't breaking ground," he says. "You expect it from Propagandhi. But the Dixie Chicks? That's a revolution. Natalie Maines took an anti-war stance in the run-up to this atrocity, and it cost her big time."

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament believes post-9/11's air of McCarthyism stifled rock's rebellious nature.

"The country was going to hell and nobody was saying anything," Ament says. "There is some solidarity out there now."

Now I'm a Pearl Jam fan, but I think a lot less of Ament when he feels that rockers have to wait for a coalition (down with unilateralism!) to join them before writing anti-war songs.

Where is the backbone that led bands like the Dead Kennedy's and Black Sabbath to break new ground? Rock and roll was once about individualism and experimentation regardless of the backlash. Now it's about waiting for others to join before you have the balls to write anything that has a whiff of dissent.

It's not McCarthyism as these scrubs think but the deep-seated fear of losing money or poor album sales.

Rock and roll is not about that and these people are pissing on the graves of Ronnie van Zant who wrote Saturday Night Special--a strong anti-gun song, especially for a band whose southern audiences had a few problems with the content--and Jimi Hendrix by whining about it.

Stephen Stills had serious huevo's writing this song in 1966; too bad that nowadays money trumps morals.

Ronnie van Zant photo borrowed from this site. Thanks bro.