Welcome to the DFH Freaky Friday weekly music series
Because Team DFH operates more or less like a herd of cats, we’re here at roughly 9PM Eastern, every week. So take off your shoes, plop down on that beanbag chair over there, let your hair down, and get some groovy on. |
Play this one (track #20) now to set the mood as you start reading :)
"If there ever was a time, it would be now, that's all I'm sayin'
If there ever was a time to get on your feet and take it to the street
Because you're the one that's getting played right now by the game they're playin'
So come on, meet me down at Zuccotti Park"
“No successful protest movement in our nation’s history has existed without a great soundtrack"
-- Tom Morello
"99 Artists, 99 Tracks, for The 99%". Not all of them are protest songs, but many are. As for the artists, there are well knowns and there are unknowns. The diversity of the music, the artists and the topics is amazing. It's available in a 4-CD package, with or without a t-shirt from the
MusicforOccupy.com site. It's also available on
Amazon.com and
Barnes and Noble's site and other outlets. The best price I've seen is the $9.99 (what else would the price be?) from the MusicforOccupy site that I linked above. Proceeds go to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
As you might expect, it's not exactly 99 tracks. The number of tracks on the CD version is different than the number of tracks on the digital download version and there are some extra cuts and a hidden track. My copy (I bought the CD with t-shirt version for $20) has not arrived yet but what I have listened to so far has me really excited. I haven't seen or heard anything of this magnitude for decades. Something's happening here.
Rock and Roll, Jam Bands, Hip Hop, Reggae, Jazz, Flemenco, alternative, underground indy, French, Dutch, Spanish, Brittish, and of course Folk songs, this compilation is all encompassing and is the definitive compilation of "Protest Music" of modern times.
Amazon.com
In the News
L Magazine:
LTV: Interview with Occupy This Album! Producer Jason Samel
On September 20, 2011, Jason Samel was wandering around Zuccotti Park when strains of music drew him in. Earlier that year he had been fired from his corporate sales job, after which he began an insurance company with his father. However, after witnessing the convergence of folk singers, rastas and the famous Occupy drum circle at Zuccotti, Samel, a musician himself, decided his new task was to document the music. He forgot about insurance, then set about producing what is now Occupy This Album!
Mother Jones:
Occupy This Album: 99 Songs for the 99 Percent
Like Zuccotti Park last fall, with its mashup of sometimes discordant messages, the wide mix of sounds on Occupy This Album can sometimes make your head spin. On Disc 2, for instance you'll hear a punk-rock song by Anti-Flag followed by a reggae jam followed by a ditty by Jill Sobule that wouldn't be out of place on the soundtrack to Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
But what the album lacks in musical cohesion, it makes up in star power. Other big names range from Ani DiFranco and Joan Baez to Tom Morello and Girls Against Boys. Michael Moore even sings a Dylan song. (Tomato-meter: Rotten). Though the quality of the tracks is uneven—Yo La Tengo's offering sounds like it was recorded by a dying horse in a glue factory—there are still enough knee-slappers to occupy your iPod for an hour or two.
The Nation:
Occupy This Album
There are also numerous more obscure musicians featured, which, as Music for Occupy explains is part of the point of the album: “We look to give voices and opportunities to artists who support our vision; specifically artists who most have never been heard before, and have many troubles making it in today’s industry because their message is just not “Pop” enough. We look to team up socially conscious known and accomplished artists, with other artists that could use a light shined on them by those same artists.”
Reviews
Editorial Review on Barnes & Noble:
The list of artists who contributed to the four-disc Occupy This Album, a sort of "soundtrack" to the Occupy Wall Street and 99% social movements, is pretty amazing, including tracks from Yoko Ono, Debbie Harry, Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, Third Eye Blind, Toots & the Maytals, Yo La Tengo, and Devo, among many, many others., All Music Guide
A review from
AltPress. Go and look at the "My Picks" box just to the right of the review article for sampling of their favorite picks. It will give you a sense of the album in a short period of time.
Occupy This Album
Despite the obvious problems with continuity and flow (not to mention the general concept of time, as in the amount of actual time it takes to comb through 99 tracks), there’s still a lot of good music on Occupy This Album. Unreleased tracks by Mogwai, Our Lady Peace, Yo La Tengo And The Lost City Rumblers, Thievery Corporation and Ani DiFranco are the gems for diehard fans to unearth from this mine of seemingly endless protest music. Filmmaker Michael Moore’s version of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’”? Well, not so much.
Entertainment Weekly
Occupy This Album (2012)
Like the movement it's supporting, Occupy This Album is massive (99 songs over four discs), eclectic (original hippies Joan Baez and David Crosby sit cross-legged next to noise-mongering weirdos Mogwai and UNKLE) [ ... ]
Zuccott Park. September 24, 2011. Photo credit: joanneleon
Songs on Sound Cloud
You won't find much on YouTube labeled with "Occupy This Album" yet. But a number of them are on
SoundCloud.com and some of the songs are out there on YouTube and tagged with the artist's name. I'll post some of those below these Sound Cloud tunes.
Some of you might remember Matt Pless from the globalrev livestream late at night when the occupiers used to have long chats with their viewers and would bring the occasional singer or musician over to play on camera.
Matt Pless - Something's Gotta Give - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Joel Rafael - China Basin Digs - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Deborah Harry - Safety In Numbers - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Mogwai - Earth Division - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Ani Difranco - Which Side Are You On? - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
One of my favorites so far.
Jay Samel - Smile (Stand Up and Sing) - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Our Lady Peace - Fight The Good Fight (Acoustic Version) - Occupy This Album by Occupy This Album
Zuccott Park. October 1, 2011. Photo credit: joanneleon
Songs on YouTube
Lloyd Cole - The Young Idealists
Immortal Technique - Rich Man's World (1%)
Occupation Freedom
My Pet Dragon - "Love Anthem" (Brooklyn, NY)
Thievery Corporation - Unified Tribes
Girls Against Boys - Cash Machine
Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) - Worldwide Rebel Song @OccupyLA
So, there is a relatively small sampling for you to give you an idea of what Occupy This Album is all about. What do you think?
Now... it's time to party! Please share your thoughts and your favorites, your songs and videos from the Occupy movement over the past months, or whatever else you'd like! After all, we're easy and we're eclectic if you bring it, chances are we'll like it.
It's Freaky Friday! Bring some tunes, whatever you got! Feel free to comment with just a song-link and your thoughts, or try for the embed, for however long that works for us. Either way, we're just chillin' here, so c'mon and join in.
Here's HOW: To add vids in comments: Click on "share"; then the "embed" button; change the size of the video graphic too, so when it posts, it is smaller. Use 300pixels in the custom parameters (last one on the right) under the embed code. {h/t joanneleon}
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