Making Curriculum Pop

Cool (not comprehensive) critical piece about protest music ... very teachable.

There’s a tricky art to protest music because it can come off as shrill, preachy, or simple-minded. Artists frequently perform to audiences that already share their belief, so what’s the point in “preaching to the choir?”

But in writing anguished songs such as “What it Means” for “American Band,” Hood found himself inspired by artists as diverse as the Clash and Tom T. Hall. The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” was a hit when Hood was in high school, with lyrics about Iran’s ban on Western music in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hall’s “Watergate Blues” surfaced in 1973 as the Nixon White House was being consumed by political scandal. “I heard ‘Rock the Casbah’ on the radio even though it was extremely political, and it’s still timely,” Hood says.



See also this from David Byrne

and this on #mcpop

NYTLN: Teaching With Protest Music

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