The bad boys are often the sensitive – those who feel the pain of the world. They don’t do “what everyone else does” because they don’t understand why it has to be. And they often welcome the exclusion they get for it: “If you have a black list, I want to stand on it,” as the socially conscious songwriter (and big clash fan) Billy Bragg once sang. Here are 15 true revolutionaries for which the only place was outside from where you look inside.
Plastic People of the Universe
The members of the Czechoslovak Plastic People of the Universe took rebel music as a question of life and death. Created from the oppression of the Prague Spring 1968, the band was forced to underground by the Czech government. Named after a Frank-Zappa song, they worshiped the Velvet Underground. In 1976 they met the writer and expectant political leader Václav Havel, shortly before members were arrested as dissidents. Havel inspired her resistance, who said: “We never make progress if we don’t risk our butt as these kids.” Exhausted in 1988, they dissolved – a year before Havel cited the velvet revolution.
Fela Kuti
The Nigerian band leader Fela Kuti was so obliged to his political beliefs that he founded his own republic and explained independence. He called his style Afrobeat and rejected his “slave” name Ransome. Instead, he chose Anikulapo – “the one who carries death in his pocket”. After the album Zombie in 1977, 1,000 soldiers attacked his municipality, the Kalakuta Republic. The building was burned down, kit and colleagues brutally beaten, his mother pushed out of the window – she died of the injuries. Fela brought her coffin to the army headquarters in response. A later album was called Coffin for Head of State.
Elvis Costello
“I want to bite the hand that feeds me”, sang Elvis Costello in “Radio Radio”. But this song was not allowed to play this song on Saturday Night Live. Invited as a replacement for the sex pistols, he broke off “Less Than Zero” and got into the forbidden song with the band. Consequence: “SNL” ban over a decade. “My calling is to be a nuisance,” he said. Instead of only using punk, he switched between country, chamber music and more. Unlike the nihilist scene, he also sang Nick Lowes Hippie anthem “(what’s so funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”.
MC5
“Kick out the jams!” – Battle of the late sixties when the counterculture became political. MC5 from Detroit connected hard rock with free jazz. Manager John Sinclair, inspired by the Black Panthers, founded the White Panther Party and let the band appear with uninvited rifles. In the protests for the Democratic Convention in Chicago, overshadowed by police violence, they were the only band that occurred for eight hours. After three disappointing albums, the group fell, but its reputation as a radical rocker and punk pioneer remains.
Peter Tosh
Bob Marley sang from “Rebel Music”, but the true rebel at the Wailers was Peter Tosh. “Get Up, Stand Up/Stand Up for Your Rights” wrote. He called “Downpressors” oppressor. When Iceland boss Chris Blackwell rejected his solo album, Tosh called him “Whiteworst”. His messages were clear: Equal Right, no nuclear, Legalize it. The latter he represented by smoking a joint in front of politicians on stage – the police beat him into custody. In 1987 he was murdered in his house during a robbery. “I’m like a stepping razor,” he warned – “dangerous”.
Sinead O’Connor
The unforgettable remains, as Sinead O’Connor torn on Saturnday Night Live on October 3, 1992. Their protest was for the concealment of abuse in the church. Two weeks later she sang Bob Marley’s “War” with a Dylan tribute-the audience booed. “Don’t let yourself get down,” said Kris Kristofferson. “I’m not,” she replied. O’Connor rebelled against role models: bald head as a statement against objectification, use for gays and lesbians, refusal, to appear. “I don’t want to cause trouble – it just happens.”
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain wore a shirt for the Rolling Stone cover in 1992: “Corporate magazines Still Suck.” He questioned beliefs – own and strangers. At school he made friends with a gay boy and endured the hostility. Later he worked with Nirvana publicly for LGBT rights. It became famous, he spoke about bullying, abortion rights, injustices-and at the same time hated his band’s mainstream status. “The worst crime is to fake,” he said – and thought to be guilty of it.
Victor Jara
The songs by Victor Jara, Chilean folk musician, were considered so dangerous in 1973 that they murdered him. Salvador Allende supporter, he was captured after the military coup, tortured, his hands smashed. The guards forced him to play guitar – instead he sang “we will win”. He was then shot. His body was on the streets of Santiagos. Months later, Dylan, Seeger and Ochs honored him in New York with a benefit.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Like his cousin, the TV preacher Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis grew up in a strictly religious household. He flew out at the Southwest Bible Institute because he played a piece of gospel in the boogie-woogie style. That determined his life between sin and redemption. His biggest hits, “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin ‘Goin’ On”, were partially banned because of sexual allusions. His career collapsed when his marriage to 13-year-old cousin Myra Gale Brown became public. “The Killer” turned to country music at the end of the sixties. “When I go to hell,” he said, “then I’ll play the piano there.”
Public enemy
The voice of Chuck D and the sound attacks of his colleagues achieved exactly the reaction they wanted: society avoided public enemy. Her song “Fight the Power” became an anthem thanks to Spike Lees Film Do The Right Thing and attacked American icons like Elvis Presley and John Wayne. As early as 1988, a single “Rebel Without A Pause” was called a musical uprising for Chuck D: “I could die tomorrow,” he said when he heard Hank Shocklee’s final mix. With Flavor Flav as an unpredictable sidekick, Chuck often remained the role of the “group supervisor”-also when inclosing to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Steve Earle
Steve Earle is an uncompromising country traditionalist and at the same time a left one in the spirit of the old folk scene by Greenwich Village. He said about Townes van Zandt: “The best songwriter in the world – and I stand with cowboy boots on Bob Dylan’s coffee table and say that.” After 9/11 he polarized with “John Walker’s Blues”, which showed the “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh human. He supported anti-war protests, Occupy Wall Street, spoke out against the death penalty (“Ellis Unit One”). In “The Other Kind” (1990), in the middle of his drug addiction, he sang: “There are those who break and bend/I am the other variety.”
The Clash
“If you don’t think about people, God and law, you don’t think about anything,” said Joe Strummer. Unlike the nihilistic sex pistols, The Clash relied on political activism. Her debut single “White Riot” did not call for the racial war, but a youth uprising against the ruling class. With London Calling (“Spanish Bombs”) and especially the Sandinista triple album! (named after Nicaraguan revolutionaries) they widened their view of the world. “You Grow Up and You Calm Down and You’re Working for the Clampdown” – an appeal not to lose ideals. Strummer lived until his death in 2002.
Sex pistols
In 2006 they were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – and canceled in a cynical letter: “We don’t come. We are not your monkeys.” With Never Mind the Bollocks they formed punk against the hippie culture of their youth. Johnny Rottens opening line “I am the Antichrist/I Am Anararchist” from “Anarchy in the UK” became a fanal. In “God Save the Queen” he insulted the monarchy as “no human being”. To do this, he wore a Pink Floyd shirt with the addition “i hate”. When the Pistols fell apart in San Francisco in 1978, Rotten said goodbye: “Have you ever had the feeling of being fooled?”
Johnny Cash
His mother warned him of weapons – he sang that he shot a man “just to see him”. Already in the Air Force his first band was called “The Barbarians”. More than any other country star, Cash understood the life of outsiders. His concerts in Folsom and San Quentin made it clear: prisoners are not monsters, but people with mistakes. The legendary photo with the middle finger raised was taken in San Quentin, in response to a request from the director. Decades later he used it in a billboard display, produced by Rick Rubin, as a message against the country establishment.