Phones happened.

You getting old, so you only get to know mainstream artists, and indies cannot get popular because of how the internet centralizes things, and avoids making indies have real world experiences together and gain traction.

Hacktivist is one, but there a lot more on https://www.ongoinghistoryofprotestsongs.com/2025/06/08/30-b...

The long tail says we're not at the mercy of radio; we're still allowed to listen to the ones you know. I went to a certain CSNY song the other day and the comment section was full of people from 2026.

Here are two classics I like, plus a bonus track:

"Coat of Many Colors" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYAdKXzGtcY

"This Land" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnHx3yVuf4

"Stop and Bust a Move": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYNSSkOOTBk

I'm with you. Who is today's Rage Against The Machine?

Controversial opinion - old pre-internet protests were mostly authentic and pursuing something good (whatever that meant in every case).

Today - they are mostly designed, sponsored and organized and about hating/suppressing the enemy side, virtue signaling, not achieving good and genuine self expression.

And those rare that are authentic (like current Iran revolution) are carefully and deliberately muted.

Such intentions can’t produce any great art for obvious reasons.

It's not popular in your bubble. Protest-music still exists, it sometimes even gains some attention, but they can't compete with all the big professional feelgood-products and the social-slop. And I assume, the platforms have now more political filters, making it even harder to spread. Political content seems to have significantly dried up on certain platforms, since the orange king reigns.

Apparently Ice-T did a recent performance where he changed the lyrics to "Cop Killer" to say "ICE Killer". It's something I guess.

https://atlantablackstar.com/2026/01/10/this-shts-been-too-l...

The mainstream pop music scene is largely (but not entirely) devoid of authenticity, and you need authenticity to make protest music. Mostly what gets made is optimized for commercialization rather than actual communication.

To a degree, this has always been true. Even in the days when protest music got mainstream attention, most of the music wasn't of that sort. I do think it's much worse now, though.

However, there is a lot more protest music being made than you may think. You just have to look past the big names and -- even better -- go see small artists performing live.