Music as a Revolutionary act.

The word revolutionary carries a handful of aesthetic and political connotations. For me, it’s the image of a protestor, probably in black bloc, with a molotov cocktail. They take that signature petrol bomb pitcher stance as they hurl it towards a riot line any photographer’s dream shot But really, the word can and should mean so much more than that. In a society where everything, including the very act of protest, is commodified (thank the Jenner x Pepsi collab for that one), sometimes the most revolutionary thing you can do is be earnest and exist in a community intentionally.

“I should like this movie.” “I should listen to this song.”

When I started this article, I had written about 500 words on the history of Appalachian coal miner’s union songs. I talked about the Coal Wars, the Battle for Blair Mountain, and the musical tradition that accompanied it After all, “There is Power in Our Union.”

Certainly, it’s protest music, but it feels limiting to cap it there. In a world of constant performance, music offers us a unique opportunity to be vulnerable. We should embrace it

Music is one of the most human things we can do When surrounded by systems that seek to dehumanize, whether that be coercive apparatus of the state or even a shitty boss at your 9 to 5, playing and listening allow us to assert our own humanity. In the words of the late great John Coltrane: “You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.”

Bands like IDLES capture what is a perhaps a distinctly contemporary malaise with the trite politics of selfidentified radicals I don’t think I’m alone in resonating with Nadia C’s “Your Politics are Boring as Fuck.” The simple fact of the matter is, we as a generation can look back upon the cooption and failure of nearly every radical movement that came before us. It’s fucking exhausting. The problems are all the same, but the playbook is exhausted.

IDLES’ 2018 Joy as an Act of Resistance in many ways answer Nadia’s call to make to make politics and

Modern life under capitalism is a series of atomizing rituals beginning with the facsimiles of social interaction fabricated by the likes of Zuckerburg and Musk, and ending somewhere between a job interview and a retirement that may never come for some of our generation.We live isolated lives and force ourselves to perform as students, employees, and even friends and families. This performance extends to the point where we perform to ourselves. We try and train our brains like Pavlov’s dog, foaming at the mouth for cheap serotonin and conformity.

All music can be protest music in a world like ours There’s always something to be outraged about and something to break down over What really matters isn’t what some guy in a University of Toronto music magazine tells you it is, it’s what helps you through the complex task of existing in the 21st century. It’s barely a question of politics or protest It’s a question of joy or misery.

Note: The song “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizket is the culmination of Mountain Dew’s marketing efforts and the military industrial complex. Thus it shall never be a protest song. Fuck you, Fred.