Musicians Speak Out About Barack Obama
Artists Share Opinions on America's New President, 2009's Economy
Apr 21, 2009
National unemployment rates continuing to rise, corporate CEO's absconding into the night with their stockholder's retirement money, and seeming political tomfoolery are just some of the lighting rod issues musicians are using their celebrity to speak out about in 2009. Often characterized as "Un-American" during the Bush era for using celebrity as a platform to spread political belief, under new President Barack Obama, that climate appears to be changing.
"I am optimistic, as long as these right-wing conservative a--holes don't try to ruin things for people," says Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong speaking to Spinner.com's Steve Baltin in April 2009, "There's a different crisis every week; natural disasters, corporate bailouts, people losing their homes, unemployment. It's desperate times right now for a lot of people." Those hard times are echoed in this month's unemployment numbers with California leading the way with 62,000 jobs lost.
Groups Making a Difference
One such group bent toward the steadfast maintenance of optimism is Musicans for Obama, a grass roots movement of artists that worked on the President's 2008 campaign and still blog and hold fundraising events. "We are a group of people who are concerned about the direction the country and world is moving toward," the group's profile states on their website. This concern had a galvanizing effect on the youth and ultimately the outcome of the 2008 election.
Emily Saliers, of the Indigo Girls, spoke with Marissa Moss on behalf of Musicfordemocracy.org in March 2009 saying, "I think anytime any young artists get involved in politics it's a very good sign -- it's a sign that they are inspired, and I think that so many young people got involved with the Obama campaign because they had hope after having despair for so long. Whenever anybody gets involved in politics its always exciting for me because we take for granted our freedoms and our abilities to affect change through political activism. People are believing, and that's always a good thing,"
Music and Politics
Of course, political angst and general frustration make for good songwriting. Green Day have the much anticipated follow-up to the award-gilded American Idiot, in 2009's 21st Century Breakdown, which will descend to the hopeful masses on May 15th. Fans not lucky enough to have already heard the first single from that album, Know Your Enemy, can check out a good 90 seconds of the track on the band's Myspace page.
"it's the first African-American in office, so that's totally a progression." says Armstrong, "And that does give you faith in the idea of America -- it can be a progressive country and we can dig ourselves out, because that was a bold statement. We dug ourselves out of George Bush by putting this new intelligent human being into office." Hopefully the numbers, whether financial or political, begin to reflect the brewing optimism that Obama has brought to America's table.
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