Neil Young Still Doesn't Get It

This is a little rough still, but I need to head out for most of the day and wanted to get something posted. I think I'm getting my point across well enough, though it could be more eloquent and a little more developed. Consider it food for thought.

Neil Young . . . I love the man's music, and have much respect what he did back in the day, but he does not at all understand the current state of politics or culture. And that blindness has twice in the past 2 years caused him to grossly misrepresent the current state of youth activism and the roll that music in particular can play in driving change in our contemporary political environment. It's a shame.

Earlier this week, at the Berlin Film Festival, Neil Young was quoted as saying:

"I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality," Young told reporters.

"I don't think the tour had any impact on voters."

The tour to which he was referring was his 2006 anti-Bush tour. A documentary of the tour debuted at the Film Festival this week.

As I said, this is the second such comment from Young in the last 2 years. The first came in 2006 when he said:

I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer eighteen-to-twenty-two years old, to write these songs and stand up… I waited a long time. Then I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the '60s generation."

There was a strong response from the Music/activist community in response to this first statement. Singer-songwriter Stephan Smith published a letter in the San Francisco Chronicle outlining the ways in which the corporate media severely limits the reach and career prospects of activist musicians. He followed that up with an excellent article in WireTap describing the work of organizations like Punk Voter and Music for America in organizing the live music community in 2004 and 2006.

Mark Ristaino of Music for America also posted his own response that hits a few important nails on the head:

Though "Living with War" may have been a potent protest album, the truth is that Neil's most recent release comes way too late, and the reasoning behind it is way off the mark. It’s time for older progressives everywhere to wake up and realize the truth. The Youth Movement is here. We’ve been here. And we don’t listen to our parents' protest music.

Many people like to wax poetic about the cultural movement that surrounded the music of the 60s, but the truth is that today’s young musicians are speaking out just as loudly and powerfully as the musicians of 30 years ago, despite attempts by big media to silence their voices. Musicians today understand that it takes more than singing a song to create real change. "Let's impeach the President" is a catchy chorus, but it's no stained blue dress, if you get my drift.

What Neil Young missed two years ago, and what he's missing still today, is that the media landscape and the culture itself have both radically changed since Crosby Stills Nash and Young first voiced their protest through music.

As Mark and Stephan Smith both pointed out, the media (radio, record companies, music television, etc) all actively discourage political viewpoints in music - particularly topical ones. As I've outlined in my article, Who Will Rock the vote in 2008?, back in 2003, when Music for America was just getting started, musicians wanted nothing to do with politics. They watched the Dixie Chicks get tarred and feathered and wanted no part in speaking out. They saw their own tarnished record of civic participation and recoiled from any chance at being labelled "hypocrite."

But somewhere along the way that changed, and in 2004 hundreds of artists - not just P. Diddy and Russel Simmons - took part in a civic and cultural movement to initiate change. They did this not through protest, as Neil Young would have it, but by encouraging participation in the political system. By registering young concert goers and activating their live music scenes at over 3,500 shows in 2004 alone.

But somehow, Neil Young missed that. I guess he didn't go to any of those shows. I guess that sort of engagement wasn't happening at his shows.

There's a reason for that, and it's simple but fundamental. Neil Young came of age, protested, and got famous in a broadcast media era, and that's how he thinks. Imagine one song ringing through the culture, igniting change where ever its melody could be heard. It's a nice image. And maybe Lennon or Buffalo Springfield, or some of those other folks from back in the Vietnam era did achieve such change through the power of a single song that reverberated through a unified, common youth culture.

It seems like a simplistic understanding to me. After all, 1968 wasn't just about protests. The kids that went "Clean for Gene" McCarthy actually organized and registered their peers and went to the polls. Ditto for McGovern's kids in the 1972 primary. Even back in "the 60s" changed happened both within and outside of the system.

Regardless, even granting Young that much, we're in a different cultural space now. Youth culture is not nearly as monolithic now as it was then. There are dozens of niches, and no one cultural artifact - a song, a movie, an internet video clip - will reach all those people. This is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. The end of the broadcast era means the death of the activism models of the past, but it's given rise to new ones as well. Young people are not just consumers of culture and news anymore, they are also producers, putting out their own music and art online, engaging in politics through social networking and the blogosphere - a whole new culture of (peer) production has emerged that is infinitely more rich and diverse than the broadcast culture that preceded it.

We need to find ways to get all of those cultures activated as Music for America and Punk Voter did in 2004, and as HeadCount does today. We need to find ways to make sure that these niche scenes produce dozens of songs calling for change, and that they register their fans to vote. We need to break out of the old mentality that thinks raising your voice in protest is enough. It's not enough, and it's not effective. If you want change, you have to work for it. You have to organize inside and outside of the system. Anything less is doomed to failure.

Along the way, music and culture continue to have a vital role to play. One song may not be able to change the world anymore, but hundreds and thousands of songs by as many artists, supported by fans that are smart and organized can. Neil Young should stop singing laments for activism of the past, and channel his anger and frustrations into aiding these new artists and activism models that are in part following in his footsteps.