As rock grew increasingly more mainstream, people began to question its relevance in taking anti-establishment and anti-war roles in pop-culture. As war began to commence in the Persian Gulf, there was a sudden lack of material. Was this a sign of rock becoming the mainstream? Was it because war was starting to normalize itself again?
An article written by Richard Harrington for the Washington post on March 20, 1991 seems to think it was a matter of timing. The article cites Lenny Kravitz’s and Sean Lennon’s effort of joining celebrities together to sing John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance” and Randy Newman’s “Lines in the Sand.” Harrington says, “’Voices That Care,’ described by USA Today as ‘an all singing telegram to U.S. troops,’ may be returned to senders since the trrops are already heading home. It was rushed to radio in late February, but the record wasn’t released until this week (Harrington, Online).” Certainly this is an odd scenario: the war was too short and musicians were too slow to say anything about it. But there was still comment to go around: Randy Newman’s “Lines In the Sand” took a sarcastic angle to look at the monotony of war. “The blood of these children/Stain on the land/If they die to defend some/Lines in the sand (Newman).”
I’d like to offer my own conjecture to this as well: as hip/hop was coming into fruition through the late seventies and eighties, a new form of music was ready to take over alternative culture – to represent a historically marginalized group of people. N.W.A. was hitting the airwaves with stories of police brutality and hip-hop artists like Public Enemy were representing a new form of alternative expression that represented the black experience in America. The musical fight against the system was ready to be passed down to a new genre of music. Out with the old, in with the new.
Primary Source:
Lines In The Sand by Randy Newman. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.
Secondary Source:
Harrington, Richard. “GULF WAR SONGS, OUT OF TUNE.” The Washington Post. WP Company, 20 Mar. 1991. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.
WAR MUSIC 