First thing that came to me.
Ænema!
EMI - the Sex Pistols’ ode to their record company.
Full to the brim of searing contempt and not a little hate.
Two more punk rants against record labels:
Complete Control - The Clash
Rough Trade - Stiff Little Fingers
The aptly named “Marcha de la bronca” “The March of Anger”
Anger when they laugh satisfied
after buying their rights
Anger when they play the moralist
and start chasing the artists
Anger when in broad daylight
they take their hypocrisy for a walk
Fierce anger, my anger,
anger that can be recited
For those who take what is ours
with the glove of concealing
For those who handle the strings
of the universal puppet show
For those who marked the cards
and always receive the best ones
With the ace of swords they rule us and with the ace of clubs they hit and hit and hit…
And continues in that vein.
Written by Woody Guthrie, performed by Billy Bragg and Wilco:
Ah man, good one, I love this song, especially in these times. It gives me hope.
Come Out Ye Black and Tans, Irish rebel song by Dominic Behan.
Pussy Riot: Putin Lights Up the Fires
From the Olympics last year: Gojira - Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)
Oh, I LOVE angry music. I have a whole playlist. My favorite angry songs are:
Family System by Chevelle which nicely sums up my relationship with my mother.
I’m tired of your open mouth
Crawling inside my skin
Endless pain we never quit
The fight within that pride’s begun
Saying it’s too late
What a man’s got, he’ll learn to hate
I’m particularly a fan of the nearly incoherent screaming part at the end:
Just grow up
Wrong!
Wrong!
Wrong!
Wrong!
Then there’s Madonna’s Human Nature, which she wrote as a response to the backlash from her Sex book.
My favorite line there is,
I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me
but I’m also partial to
Would it sound better if I were a man?
And this final one, maybe a bit off the beaten path, but I love the simmering, understated rage in George Strait’s I’ve Come to Expect it from You.
How could you do what you’ve gone and done to me
I wouldn’t treat a dog the way you treated me
But that’s what I get
I’ve come to expect it from you
George Strait is such a gentleman, you know that woman really fucked up.
Alanis was the first to pop into my head also. Second to immediately jump inside there was Rage Against The Machine. I mean, it’s right there in their name! Their remake of Cypress Hill’s I Could Just Kill a Man is a favorite of mine. However, I cannot tell you how many times I headbanged and sang aloud Killing In The Name Of while I processed claims at work.
No, they did not fire me. They loved me. I’m serious! Man, was that a long time ago.
Absolute classic rage song. Love it.
Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma by Melanie Safka, about how she and her material were treated by the music industry:
The Internationale: “Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, arise ye wretched of the earth! For justice thunders condemnation, a better world’s in birth!”
Solidarity Forever: “Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite/who would lash into serfdom and oppress us with his might?/is there anything left to us but to organize fight? When the union makes us strong!”
Steppenwolf, America:
The cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin’ the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can’t understand
America, where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know, we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster
Neil Young, War Song, written for George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign
n the morning when you wake up
You’ve got planes flying in the sky
Flying bombs made to break up
All the lies in your eyes
There’s a man says he can put an end to war
One of these days I’m going to start a thread about one of my favorite subgenres of songs: songs calling out the music industry (many of which would fit in this thread.)
A lot of them I don’t necessarily have proof that’s what they are about, but I have this feeling.
Like Harder to Breathe by Maroon 5, another great angry song.
Incidentally, I started such a thread 9 years ago (omg, how time flies!). It didn’t have very many responses.
Noted! Perhaps we need a revival.