Popular Music and Human Rights

Popular music has long understood that human rights if attainable at all involve a struggle without end. The right to imagine an individual will the right to some form of self-determination and the right to self-legislation have long been at the forefront of popular music's approach to human rights. At a time of such uncertainty and confusion with human rights currently being violated all over the world a new and sustained examination of cultural responses to such issues is warranted. In this respect music which is always produced in a social context is an extremely useful medium; in its immediacy music has a potency of expression whose reach is long and wide. Contributors to this significant volume cover artists and topics such as Billy Bragg punk Fun-da-Mental Willie King and the Liberators Hedwig and the Angry Inch the Anti-Death Penalty movement benefit concerts benefit albums Gil Scott-Heron Bruce Springsteen Wounded Knee and Native American political resistance Tori Amos Joni Mitchell as well as human rights in relation to feminism. A second volume covers World Music.