Eminem and Green Day smarties: American pop stars attempt to inspire youth voters: musical messengers of hate and apathy get on the Fahrenheit 9/11 bandwagon and sing about American "idiots" voting for deceitful presidents

Catholic New Times, Nov 21, 2004 by Din Yalonen

Rapper Eminem ditched misogyny, and punk rockers Green Day abandoned apathy to join the ranks of old "fogies" like Steve Earl and Bruce Springsteen to try to oust U.S. President George W. Bush, and to challenge American apathy.

Rapper Eminem has expressed his anger towards ex-girlfriends and his mother with enough rage to entice fans to violence, some argue. I agree with this view, but what I like in his current well-timed release of a new single called "Mosh" is that it openly raps about Bush's lies about the war in Iraq, and about the need for his audience, young potential voters, to get out and vote against him.

Nothing subtle here.

How many albums does Eminem sell? They are in the millions, to be sure, and we will soon see if his angry fens have made the leap with him to democratic responsibility. In a recent Rolling Stone article, Eminem openly admitted to never having voted, but has become outraged by the loss of life of poor, young Americans dying for a war that is a lie.

Backtrack for a moment to March 2003. The American pop country Dixie Chick, Natalie Maines, makes a comment in London.

"Just so you know," Texas native Maines says on stage, "we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." She also mentions that George W.'s foreign policy is alienating the rest of the world.

As a result, the Chicks were penalized by radio monopoly owner Clear Channel and banned from airplay. Jeff" Perlstein, co-founder of Indymedia, has determined that the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled Clear Channel to grow from owning 40 radio stations to 1225 stations across the country by 2003, when limits to ownership were relaxed. The company now boasts 100 million listeners.

Rumours have it that over 100 songs have been banned for their "anti-patriot" ideas. It is common knowledge that John Lennon's "Imagine" has also been banned.

Now it's 2004 and everyone is singing the anti-Bush, anti-U.S, foreign policy tune. Just as John Lennon sang "Give Peace a Chance" 10 years after the 1960s, as journalist Hunter S. Thompson once pointed out, Eminem is now calling on teens to go out and vote and "disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president."

Green Day, who never really followed in the footsteps of their punk forefathers, The Clash, in doing musical public service announcements, are singing top 40 punk anthems about "American Idiots" on their new CD of the same title. "Well maybe I'm the (expletive) of America, I'm not a part of a redneck agenda ... Don't wanna be an American Idiot / Don't want a nation controlled by the media," sings Billie Jo Armstrong on the title track.

Considering this last line, I tried to find out what "Big Brother," Clear Channel, thinks about playing one of America's top-selling teen groups. They can't ban everyone, or nothing will be left to listen to.

Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earl, R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Pearl Jam, John Mellencamp, Dixie Chick Emily Robison, Dave Matthews, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt all joined in a common cause to rock George W. Bush out of the White House on the recent "Vote For Change" Tour.

"We're here to raise our voices loud and clear," said Springsteen. "We want to change our government."

There were also demonstrators at these concerts reported to have held signs reading, "Saddam-Aid 2004," "Tunes For Terrorists" and "Shut Up and Sing."

On Sept. 29, Green Day scored its first number-one billboard record on the U.S. pop charts, selling 267,000 copies the first week in stores. Though it seems plausible that Clear Channel would ban the song from their paylist, I found no evidence to suggest they had, and it seems as if the album is selling just fine, even if it had been banned from radio.

The hope was that this once seemingly dysfunctional art form called pop music would inspire enough disenchanted youth voters to mosh their way into the voter's booth and change their country. Not this year.

However, as a diehard, high-flying, guitar-flinging music fan, I'm proud of the American 'good-ol-boys' (and gals), who are singing for their country and I'm going to tip up my plastic cowboy hat until Mr. Springsteen finds himself "banned in the USA."

Din Yalonen is the singer of The Soles and a visual designer in Toronto.