Tunes From The War On Terror

If you’ve kept up with the news recently then you’ll know today was the day that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry on his part in the 2003 war in Iraq. Clearly whether or not Blair’s “judgement call” itself was right or wrong its outcome can be described unequivocally as a ‘royal balls up’.

Today then, in the interests of being topical, we ask whether music offered any solace from George and Tony’s adventures in Arabia or if Reverend & The Makers were as good as protest music got.

Exhibit A

I wonder whether Green Day would have quite had such success if they’d named their seventh studio album US Nincompoop or Texan Silly Billy? As it is they, more than any other band, chimed with a growing sense of disaffection for American incursions abroad. It wasn’t very clever (see:“Sieg Heil to the president Gasman”) but it did make them massive again for the second time in their careers. Could the UK do any better?

Exhibit B

The short answer is ‘no’. The slightly longer answer is ‘noooooooooo’. Not only did the washed up former Stone Roses frontman decide a full four years after the war in Iraq that now was the time to stand up and say something. What he actually came out with was about as politically charged as a picture of Tony Blair with a schoolboy penis daubed on top. Leave the empty sloganeering to the real pop stars Ian…

Exhibit C

If Madge and IB have anything in common it’s that their political epiphanies coincided with the lowlights of their careers to date. After Madonna’s flagrant criticism of the invasion of the Iraq war, the title track from her American Life LP debuted at number ninety on the US Billboard Hot 100. Having realised that Americans don’t take kindly to being told what to do, pop’s longest running chameleon instead found success again by donning a far too revealing pink leotard and cavorting around to the sound of old Abba samples.

Conclusion

So after a thorough and in no way deliberately selective investigation, it seems the results of the Iraq War weren’t for the best whichever way you look at them. Oh well! At least we’ll be able to forget about the whole thing in a couple of months when the notoriously progressive Conservative Party come to power….