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Tag: political songs

  • ADULT. Captures Real World Dystopian Tension on Kissing Luck Goodbye

    ADULT. Kissing Luck Goodbye Album cover

    Maybe the best place to start talking about Kissing Luck Goodbye is at the end of the latest album from ADULT. Just when you think “Destroyers” is done, an electronic swoosh gives way to what sounds like traffic noise. Then, Nicola Kuperus’ voice reappears, singing, “We pay the price for those in power/Exploiting you, exploiting me/Consuming you, consuming me.” 

    I’ve had an advance copy of Kissing Luck Goodbye for a good minute and have now listened to it enough times to be somewhat haunted by the album’s finale. Listening to “Destroyers,” I think about how we’re literally paying the price for those in power every time we go to a store or restaurant and notice how things are ever-so-slightly more expensive than they were the week prior. We are being exploited, by politicians, by Big Tech, by virtually every corporate entity. We know this and, yet, it seems like there’s no way to stop it. 

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  • Depeche Mode, Fontaines D.C. and War Child: The Wars Change, But the Protest Songs Remain the Same

    Photo of antiwar protestors in front of Los Angeles City Hall on March 7, 2026 (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    Protesting outside City Hall, March 7, 2026 (Pic: Liz O.)

    As the Santa Ana winds whipped through Los Angeles, downtown protestors clung to signs that read, “Invest in peace not the Pentagon” and “War crimes don’t hide sex crimes.” A string of activists spoke on the steps of City Hall. They led us in a run of chants all of which could be summarized in one point: end the wars. 

    Before walking to the Saturday afternoon protest, I listened toHelp (2), the War Child compilation album that came out on Friday, for the second or third time. On it, Depeche Mode covers “Universal Soldier,” written by Buffy Sainte-Marie in the early 1960s. It’s a striking condemnation of war made all the more ominous when performed as a dark, synthpop song. Listen closely and you might swear you hear jets in the background. Even if you’re only playing the song in the background, you can’t miss the resignation in Dave Gahan’s voice when he delivers the closing line, “this is not the way we put the end to war.” 

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  • Best of 2025: The Year in Political Songs

    Utility box in Los Angeles with graffiti that reads "Free Palestine" on top and "Fuck ICE" in the center (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    The vibe in downtown Los Angeles for 2025. (Pic: Liz O.)

    For the first of Beatique’s Best of 2025 lists, I wanted to highlight political songs for a very specific reason. Politics aren’t brand safe. You’ll risk alienating the people who disagree with you. You might scare off the companies who would otherwise want to work with you. Blah blah blah. But, at a certain point, if you’re someone with a platform, be it music, art, film or writing, you will need to ask yourself, “Am I a brand? Or am I a human being who actually gives a shit about what’s happening in the world?” Hopefully, the latter is the answer. 

    Particularly in this moment, we need artists who are willing to be outspoken. For every semi-anonymous person (or bot) chiding you to “stick to the music,” there will be many more motivated to say, I’m against this too. Some might go to a protest, or write their local representatives or get involved with activist group. Maybe music can’t change minds, but it can prompt the quieter people to raise their voice. And, maybe, years from now, kids listening to the 2025 throwbacks will hear that there were people against genocide and fascism and exploiting workers and everything else that’s coming to a head right now. That said, much respect to the eleven artists on this list. They are by no means the only people making political music in 2025, but they made the songs that have been in my personal rotation. In keeping with an egalitarian theme, this list is not ranked. 

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  • David J Sings of History Repeating in New Protest Single, “ICE Too Cold to Thaw”

    David J and Shepard Fairey "Ice Too Cold to Thaw" press photo by Angel Enciso.
    David J and Shepard Fairey seen here with copies of the “Ice Too Cold to Thaw” vinyl and print. (Photo: Angel Enciso)

    David J was in Asheville, North Carolina for a gig when a protest erupted right under his hotel window. “I was woken up early in the morning with the sound of it,” the L.A.-based musician says on a recent video call. “I just went down to the street and joined in.”

    The event provided a spark of inspiration for J, who was already troubled by what he had been seeing in the United States. “Just being amongst that community there, just really good decent people speaking out against this authoritarian horror that’s being visited upon us, that was the galvanizing moment,” he says. Lyrics for what would become “ICE to Cold to Thaw,” the recently released single from David J and the Resistance, began to take shape. 

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  • Bob Vylan Rages About Our “Sick, Sad World” on New Single

    Bob Vylan Sick Sad World single cover

    I’m trying to tell my friends about Bob Vylan. 

    It’s late. The club has ended and I’ve been in the DJ booth all night, so I’m both exhausted and loquacious. We’re talking music and the conversation jumps from Fontaines D.C. to Kneecap to Bob Vylan with a hundred different asides. My mind is a jumbled reflection of my Instagram feed, which is how the English duo came up in conversation. My friends don’t know too much about Bob Vylan, but they’ve been high on my timeline for months, so I get into the whole story about the Glastonbury incident and how they don’t have a tour visa for the U.S. now. It’s all documented in this story from The Guardian, but the details sound particularly absurd when you’re recounting them aloud. Then again, just about everything in the news sounds more absurd out loud these days. 

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  • The Smooth Socialist Soul of the Style Council

    Style Council vinyl including Introducing the Style Council mini LP, My Ever Changing Moods, The Internationalists (Photo: Liz Ohanesian)
    My tiny collection of Style Council vinyl (Pic: Liz O.)

    I was holed up in a hard-to-find shady corner of Grand Park, watching the crowd and taking nearly illegible notes during the Fighting Oligarchy rally when the familiar opening notes of a song caught my attention. Style Council? It was “Shout to the Top,” I knew that for certain before Paul Weller’s voice came in with the first verse. But, here? At a political rally in the U.S.? 

    That’s weird, I thought, but whoever added the song to the playlist deserves some props. “Shout to the Top” was a good choice, thematically appropriate with the lyrics, “and when you’re down on the bottom/there’s nothing else/but to shout to top.” Still, your average American has little-to-no-idea who Paul Weller is. They might have heard “A Town Called Malice” or “My Ever Changing Moods” somewhere in their lifetime, but they probably do not know that both come from the same guitar hero/fashion icon— the Modfather, as he’s often called—  and that he also has a treasure trove of songs about class politics. 

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