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| Past Featured Albums |
Desire
Pharoahe Monch
A near-perfect mix of 70s soul and avant-garde hip-hop. Pharoahe Monch crafts deft rhymes about timeless complexities like love, music and race, as well as up-to-date politics like the Iraq war and killer attacks by the NYPD.
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Collection One
Ghost Mice
Earnest, acoustic folk-punk duo from Bloomington, IN. They sing passionate tunes about politics and the personal: love, life, death, activism, sustainable communities, and DIY living.
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War
U2
This early U2 album mixed angular rock, soulful laments, and lyrics about war and suffering into an unforgettable best-seller.
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Millions of Dead Cops
M.D.C.
Ah, speedy, angry, sneering, funny, abrasive, hardcore punk. Lyrics lashing out at nearly all aspects of 1980s American culture. Doesn't get much better.
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Fear of a Black Planet
Public Enemy
One of the most powerful political hip-hop albums of all time. What more can we say?
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20,000 Watts R.S.L.
Midnight Oil
It's kind of cheap to pick a "greatest hits" album to recommend, but we wouldn't want you to miss Midnight Oil's most powerful songs. This bluesy pop-rock outfit from Australia was one of the world's most socially conscious bands throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. They tirelessly sang about environmental protection, aboriginal rights, and
corporate destruction.
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We Came to Take Your Jobs Away
Kultur Shock
Hardcore, metal, and Eastern European folk spin around furiously in this album. Half the band are immigrants from Europe and Asia, and many of their lyrics are a bitterly sarcastic look at the life of hard-working immigrants in the USA.
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The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil Scott-Heron
Militant street poetry by a man making hip-hop before hip-hop existed. The revolution might not make it to television, but damn does it have a funky beat.
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Tribute to the Martyrs
Steel Pulse
Bouncy British reggae that never compromises on its spiritual political message.
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Survival Sickness
The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Mod rock meets earnest political punk. International Noise Conspiracy wants you to destroy capitalism, smash the state, and keep your dancing shoes close.
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60 Second Wipe Out
Atari Teenage Riot
Gotta love Digital Hardcore. Punk meets techno with the distortion turned up to 11. Harsh, metallic dance music coupled with spoken word and yelling about rebellion and anarchy. Not everyone's cup of tea, but certainly worth a listen.
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Let's Get Free
Dead Prez
Militant, conscious hip-hop, heavily influenced by Black Panther philosophy. Sparse beats and rhymes about war, exploitation, and liberation.
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Plastic Surgery Disasters/In God We Trust Inc.
The Dead Kennedys
One of the most provocative, sarcastic and caustic punk bands of all time. Lyrics about fear, conformity, hypocrisy, and fundamentalism. Originally two separate albums, but currently sold as one. Including the classics Nazi Punks Fuck Off and We've Got a Bigger Problem Now (AKA
California Uber Alles).
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Halliburton Boardroom Massacre
David Rovics
Raucous, moving folk rock with an unrelenting message of justice and peace. On this latest album, Rovics sings about war crimes, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war, and resistance to the neoconservative agenda. Rovics makes all of his music available for free
download, but he is asking for folks to buy his stuff or donate some money (with cool free gifts) so he can pay
to personally promote this album. He is also donating a portion of the sales of Halliburton Boardroom Massacre to United for Peace & Justice.
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Featured Album
Toxicity
System of a Down
Nearly schizophrenic in its tone, the album bounces from blistering metal to loving harmonies to bouncy rock. Lyrically, the album melds fury, sorrow, politics, passion,humor and mystery. Fun fact: Toxicity's popular single "Chop Suey" was banned by radio giant Clear
Channel in the days following 9/11.
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Past Albums
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Ozo Live at the Fillmore
Ozomatli
There is something uniquely L.A. about Ozomatli. Named after the Aztec god of dance, Ozomatli very first gig was playing for striking workers at a protest in Los Angeles. The multi-racial band fuses the sounds of many cultures, resulting in infectious party music.
Their new album documents one of their live performances, but you really have to see one of their shows to understand their greatness.
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Some New Songs
Evan Greer
Radical folk rock from Boston. Strummed acoustic guitar and powerful vocals about freedom, solidarity, and dissent. Greer is also a member of the Riot Folk collective, a group of activist musicians who's goal is to "make folk music a threat again."
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The Battle of Los Angeles
Rage Against the Machine
Have we really not recommended a Rage album yet? This raw heat and funk will blow you away, while the militant lyrics will stiffen your spine and throw your fist in the air. One of the most powerful albums by one of the most influential political bands of all time.
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For Blood and Empire
Anti-Flag
Angry punk educators Anti-Flag do it again, belting out tunes about war,
imperialism, globalization, and other threats to mankind.
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Rebirth of a Nation
Public Enemy Featuring Paris
The best Public Enemy album in years. Rebirth of a Nation is in many ways a throwback to their most vital tracks of the past, but with plenty of cutting edge elements. Political dissident Paris is behind the album's music, and rhymes on many of the tracks. Guest appearances are
also made by MC Ren, dead prez, and Immortal Technique. You want this album.
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Voice
1905
Eclectic anarcho-punk that veers from hardcore, to spoken word, to melodic string & vocal harmonies. Lyrics about beauty, conflict and hope. Don't expect to see 1905 at any big venues anytime soon, they tend to stick to tiny DIY shows at activist spaces, people's basements,
and on pirate radio.
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Pick A Bigger Weapon
The Coup
Boots Riley and Pam the Funkstress are back, and they've brought friends. Building on the success of their previous "Party Music," the duo piles on the funk, adds some love and romance to their calls for revolution and does not skimp on the humor. The music comes courtesy
of an all-star band featuring members of Parliament/Funkadelic, the Gap Band, and our own Tom Morello. And there are even a few vocal cameos from Talib Kweli, Black Thought, Silk E, and Jello Biafra.
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Sonic Jihad
Paris
Black Panther Paris is driven and never fails to release albums which are unrelenting. The topic at hand: George W. Bush and the war on terrorism. It’s one rhyme after another about corruption, racism, cronyism, lies and the Orwellian nation we’re sinking into.
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Rafi's Revenge
Asian Dub Foundation
Sort of like Rage Against the Machine meets drum & bass. Funk, dance beats, East Asian melodies, and rhymes about global racism and the war on immigrants.
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Keianh (Psalm 69)
Ministry
Furthering their descent from industrial dance into thrash metal, Psalm 69 dropped like a bomb in the early 1990s. Tracks vary from growls about President Bush I, war, and the life of a junkie, to long scraping dirges about guilt and hate, and explosive junkyard soundscapes.
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The Reality of My Surroundings
Fishbone
One of the finest bands in the history of Los Angeles, sadly, never got the fame they deserved. Fishbone combined ska, funk, punk, metal, with humor, precision, and raw kinetic energy. Apart from being a wild ride, The Reality of My Surroundings is also filled with diatribes
against bigotry and fascism, dismal looks at drug addiction, and the despair of the ghetto. But these dark songs are tempered by the crazed jams about sex, childhood chores, and eventually, hope.
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Home
Spearhead
Soul, hip-hop and folk, marinated in intelligence, righteousness, and real human empathy. The music is smooth funk, and the lyrics are about a return to sincerity, honesty, nature, and taking care of each other. Revolutionary in its own way.
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Arular
M.I.A.
M.I.A. is Maya Arulpragasam, a young Londoner via Sri Lanka. Her debut album mixes the bounce of dancehall with world music and rattling, thumping hip-hop beats. Her lyrics blend playful pop with heavier themes of war, rebellion and the global urban underclass. M.I.A. rose to
fame out of nowhere, relying on internet word of word of mouth to spread her name around the world. More»
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Suffer
Bad Religion
Bad Religion have been playing political punk rock for like 320 years now. Suffer is an amazing cross section of these tunes, short classics that hotly criticize religion, government control, human stupidity, global poverty, and the seemingly suicidal impulse that keeps modern
society on the brink.
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Reinventing Axl Rose
Against Me!
Although they started out as an acoustic band, Against Me! played with the passion and fury of any electrified rock band. Reinventing Axl Rose is filled with these fun, powerful punk/folk songs that become sing-alongs, and then full-fledged anthems. While many of the album's
songs are tales of painful history, or interpersonal conflict, the band also sings about the corruption of money, the suffering of the many, and the need to work together and fight for our needs.
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