“During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.” - Kurt Vonnegut

My Chemical Romance actually started because Gerard Way witnessed 9/11 when he was on a ferry on the way to NYC for his job. He quit his job and got in touch with his old friends to start a band.

The biggest factor in why youth culture and artists did not react to the “war on terror” like they did to the Vietnam war was the government didn’t institute a draft. To say that the US govt learned nothing from Vietnam is untrue. They learned that as long as they don’t institute a draft they can have their pointless wars go on largely unheeded for 20 years.

A lot of people hate Green Day, but even still you gotta give it to them. In a time when barely anyone was willing to make a protest song or even have a slightly anti-war sentiment in their music, they came out swinging with an entire album. And even more surprising it was a massive hit and one of the most influential rock albums since y2k. It wasn’t overly preachy, it was relatable and most importantly it was really goddamn good.

It's sad that the most thoroughly cancelled artist ever may have been the Dixie Chicks for saying war is bad.

Hearing that Green Day was our generation's Creedance Clearwater Revival is a take that I never thought I'd agree with.

Green Day has always been political, anti-government, and anti-authority. Even the "middling" album before American Idiot you mentioned has some of their most political songs on it. They just weren't as angry and as much of a statement as American Idiot was for its time.

Hi Lindsay! Combat Veteran (Iraq) here, I don't know if this helps at all, but no one seems to be asking what WE were listening to in combat. Honestly, it was such a huge array of music genres, spanning from hip-hop to black metal, however, we were super annoyed there wasn't more updated, modern music stating anti-war stances. Total honesty, we almost always listened to 60's music whenever we got ready to go out on mission, especially when flying. And for what it's worth, every single one of us directly hated that Toby Keith nonsense. lol.

Lindsay: Maybe Greenday is good actually? 12 year old me: I KNEW IT!!

Genuinely forgot the nickelback song didn't go "look at this graph".

It's my understanding that "Wake Me Up when September Ends" was originally intended to be about a personal loss in the life of Billy Joe Armstrong, when his father died from esophageal cancer in September of 1982. While it's also about loss more generally, and while the video does go for a slightly more political angle, that's probably the reason why it's not quite the same as "Holiday" or "American Idiot". It's not really a protest song, just an emotional song on what is otherwise more of a protest album, kind of tied into the rest because there's an overarching story being told. The fact that the month repeatedly mentioned in the chorus is the same month when the US suffered a horrific and politically/culturally important terrorist attack is, at least primarily, just a coincidence.

Watching this video got me into Green Day. I come back and watch it every once in a while, I think it's one of her best.

Content warning: That video of celebrities singing Imagine plays from 33:06 to 33:18.

Ok but the fact that Lindsey and Todd are still friends and still collaborating makes me really happy

19:45 Just want to point out that, despite the drummer's views, everyone else in System is still doing good stuff. Serj is working in Armenia and has founded a charity with Tom Morrello from Rage Gainst the Machine, Daron is out there presumably doing Scars on Broadway stuff, and Shavo the bassist is currently making political hip hop with North Kingsley

Radiohead's 2003 album Hail to the Thief wasn't explicitly protest music, but it was definitely about the vibe of living in the unfolding War on Terror.

"What has he said that made everyone so upset?" "Be kind to each other." "Oh yeah. That'll do it." -Good Omens

The celebs singing Imagine makes me want to walk into ocean

Green Day is the most prolific 2000s anti establishment band, it’s amazing they were allowed on the fm/ stations . They were soooo popular and their lyrics were so so aggressive. Nothing but respect

Art is a coping mechanism. It helps us process stuff and cause change. Praising the problem causing us to cope in the first place is like my mother telling me to "stop being so sad" because it's inconvenient to her. It's addressing the symptoms without addressing the reason why it's happening.

"Unintelligible genX caterwauling" might be the most succinct subtitles ever.

Avatar Roku, looking fondly upon Lindsey and Todd, "Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend youtube channels."

I would like to add some information about Pearl Jam's participation in all of this, since you barely mentioned them. Back in early 00's, the band was in an all-time low: they were recovering from the Roskilde incident. Riot Act was (and still is) a very difficult album to listen to. Hard, low, heavy and very depressive at some points. It reflected the state of the band ad that time. Vedder was very critical of the Bush administration, and wrote Bu$hleaguer about him, using baseball references and other analogies. When playing it in concerts, Eddie used to put a shiny suit and a mask resembling him, smoking cigars and doing dances to make fun of Bush -- including in states where republicans were the majority. You can see him get booed in a lot of these concerts, and Eddie just shrugs them off. They were in a low point and still did what they thought was right.

I wish you would have mentioned Rage Against The Machine’s “Testify” which referenced Al Gore being the same as Bush or even Outkast’s “Bombs Over Bagdad” which originally was about The Gulf War but was later mistaken for a Pro-Iraq war song.

"People finally get that 'No, not everyone will live through this, actually. And there is no guarantee that this is for now.'" Huge statement. I love this. Shivers!!

You know, conservatives act like liberals/lefties are the ones who get hyper-triggered, but now that I'm thinking about it BOTH Republican administrations of my lifetime had Eminem investigated for his lyrics.

Okay, I actually really like "What's going on" specifically because it encapsulates a sort of ignorant sense of unease, a vague desire for freedom from a force of oppression most people have absolutely no grasp on, alienation without understanding of that alienation. It resonates with people *because* it's about nothing specific. It's simply about the relatable feeling of everything being wrong.

I feel like we're leaving out the part where Vietnam protest music was young people who didn't want to go to war and Iraq war promotion music was those same people, old now, who wanted (someone else) to go to war.

Lindsay:"Our friends the British, with us at every stupid turn" Me a Brit: That hurt Lindsay that hurt... It's True.... But it hurt

It's weird how the popular consciousness has just forgotten how terrible Bush was. We have a very short cultural memory.

I can’t stop thinking about 12:28 “The US of AyyyeeeeeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeee”

In 2005, Dropkick Murphys recorded "Last Letter Home" in tribute to Sgt. Andrew Farrar, a soldier fighting in Iraq who had requested that his favorite Dropkick Murphys song be played if he died - which he did on Jan. 28 2005. The song consists of letters between he & his family & the last verse is the reading of the telegram sent to his family when he died. It is a major kick in the gut & to me anyway, is one of the most heart-wrenching protest songs out there.

"Our friends the British, with us at every stupid turn", Australians "*sigh*, thank god, she didn't spot us too".

Fun fact: Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw his shoes at Dubya ended up running for the Iraqi Council of Representatives in 2018 and won a seat

I'm flabbergasted Radiohead's 2003 "Hail to the Thief" wasn't mentioned! It oozes protest!

I just wanted to leave a comment to let you know how much this video has done for me personally. Of all of your videos this is my favorite, and this specific video has inspired me in ways that you could probably never know. I’m not lying when I say that my professional career would not be the same with out this silly retrospective video. Thanks for all of the wonderful content you have brought us all throughout your years on this platform, and thank you so much for changing my life.

Excellent analysis as usual, but as a journalist I was slightly disappointed Lindsay forgot to mention a huge factor in turning the public against the Vietnam war effort: it was the first war that was extensively documented in real time, not by propagandist state-sponsored films, but by independent journalism, especially photojournalism. It was the first time the reality of war was brought to light, unfiltered, in all its horror and senselessness. Take a country that's already frayed thin by having hundreds of thousands sent to die in a war nobody really understands, show them a picture of 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc running naked through the streets in the wake of a napalm bombing and tell them THAT's what they're all paying and dying and losing loved ones for... yeah, people are gonna lose their shit.

People forget that after the Iraq war, history was almost completely rewritten, and suddenly the question was always, "Why do you love Saddam Hussein?? Why do you wish Saddam were still in power?" NOPE. Not buying it. That's NOT how the war was sold to us. It was pitched to the American people for ONE reason. Iraq supposedly had weapons of mass destruction. That's why we were supposed to attack them. That lie ultimately caused the death of a half million people. Those weapons were NEVER found, yet somehow history was largely rewritten and we all just sort of "moved on" for lack of any choice. It was bullshit before the war. It was bullshit during the war. And it was bullshit in the years after as we all just slowly forgot about it. It was a massive fraud perpetrated for reasons I still don't entirely understand. By 2005, the public had gradually turned against the war. Cindy Sheehan's protests in summer of 2005 outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX finally got some public attention and the anti-war movement at last gained the traction it should have had three years earlier. Only, it wasn't because it was a bullshit conflict based on lies. Nope, we only turned against it because it was HARD, and because a few thousand Americans died. The half million dead Iraqis counted for NOTHING to us, nor did the fact we were lied to.

i will never forget hearing "Have You Forgotten?" as a kid and being horrified at the lyric about him wanting news networks to play the footage of 9/11 every day.

This became one of my new favorite channels so quickly

*video of the celebrities singing imagine pops up* Me, aloud: "Oh no don't do this to me"

"Maybe Green Day is good actually?" We been known, Lindsay. Glad to see you cross that finish line

I swear Scorsese is about to clap before they cut away at 13:34.

I was 18 in 2001 and in university. I was a student activist, having come from a union family and was proud to be third generation of my family who marched and protested for peace and social justice. The music my friends and I were listening to in the early 2000’s trended from the punk of our early teens to more political singer songwriters like David Rovics. The re-emergence of a sober and political Steve Earle was also a favourite as he wrote about the war with a view from both sides of the poor and disenfranchised. His “Fuck the FCC” was a direct protest to him being banned by that us federal agency for pro terrorist (ie muslim) sentiments.

I like how you and Todd parodied the weird “territorial about reviews” trope that happened at your... mutual former workplace

Hearing "look at this PHOTOgraph" instead of "look at this graph" like in the vine is so jarring!

Solid examples and references, great pacing, humor, great points and progression in explanations. Quite possibly the best youtube video essay I've seen in a minute

How could you not even mention NOFX in this video!? The War on Errorism was an absolute masterpiece and the ultimate Bush bashing album. Unbelievable

2003: "Being ashamed of our president means being ashamed of our country. Move to France" 2015: "I didn't vote for this Obamanation"

“Big and dumb” is the best way to describe the 2000s

So after going on a recent Todd in the Shadows kick (rewatching a bunch of stuff I’d seen and watching stuff I’d previously glossed over) and going through Lindsay’s recent catalog, I’ve got to say that I absolutely love how Lindsay’s “ringtone” for Todd is a big ol Peter Cetera (Yes, I know it’s Chicago, but Todd specifically loathes Cetera) power ballad.

36:07 ... Yeah... Summer 2020 seems to have been a blip... And now people are back to "waiting for the world to change"

"Maybe Green Day is good actually?" I was today years old when I found out that was not the consensus (at least until the late 2000s albums)

The celebrities singing imagine never fails to give me disgust goosebumps.

I absolutely would agree that American Idiot is our Fortunate Son. I love the whole album

Okay I gotta say though all greatness aside in what this video puts forth....I love that the end of this video was that man who threw his shoe at Bush combined with the theme of King of the Hill.

Man, the Bush years were surreal. There was just this palpable atmosphere of being pressured to not even question the invasion of Iraq, let alone protest. I remember being in a high school history class around 2006 and asking questions about Iraq and why we were there, and literally the kid in front of me turned around in his chair and asked me deadly serious "Do you support terrorism?" It was a weird and crazy time...

Imagine being cancelled for vocally disliking the president in 2020

This video ended up being salve for a weary soul. I remember being really beaten down by the 2000's and the unwillingness to criticize power. Fortunately I had two people in my life who musically helped me through it, Mr Seripar my science teacher who talked and acted like Groucho Marx and my fathe, a UCC pastor/Communist who both showed me 60's protest music. I still remember Mr Seripar handing me a burnt CD of protest music a few days after the US went to war and my dad staying up late with me talking to me about how he burned his draft card and the ways out of a draft if it happened again.

One must talk about the Telecom Act of 1996 which eliminated the cap on how many radio and tv stations could be owned by a single entity in one market. Small radio stations were eaten up by Clear Channel who now had a monopoly on radio and this giant corporation decided what would and wouldn't get played. That's why protest music was not reaching the masses.

The fact there’s always an Irish person in every wave of protest songs puts a smile on my face.

1. The conservative sides dislike of the Dixie Chix was so strong that even in 2010ish my middle school choir teacher strongly encouraged a group of girls not to audition for the choir show with a Dixie Chix song. 2. This video reminded me that I wrote a song in 4th grade about that time a guy threw his shoe at Bush. It was a smash hit in the elementary school and I got in trouble.

This video really fails to touch on the presence of the punk rock scene of the early 2000s. Sure Rock Against Bush was mentioned and American Idiot was talked about extensively, but bands like Anti-Flag, The Unseen, Bad Religion, and Strike Anywhere released some killer albums during this period, and them being punk bands basically requires that awesome music to be in protest.

32:44 Taylor Swift said in her Netflix documentary that all throughout her career, label executives would warn her: "Don't be like the Dixie chicks!" So although the song seems fake, I think it was a really big step for her to finally find her political voice

Ah yes, my two favorite genres, *Unintelligible Gen X caterwauling* and *Incomprehensible Millennial rage*

“Suffering should not be the prerequisite for good and meaningful art” I yelled YES and slapped the table, thank you so much for this

The gem in this list is Count Bodies Like Sheep or “Pet” by A Perfect Circle. She played the remix, but the regular album version is possibly their best song.

Was on an Eminem binge and just happened upon your channel and this video. I watch a lot of KZfaq and this is hands down the best video I’ve watched this year ❤

punk has always been stereotyped by hollywood and media as "crazy unhinged angry teens destroying everything in their path and being super mean to poor innocent capitalists" when in reality the message behind our music is to literally stop war and hatred lmao

I think there's another key thing to mention in this context: Rage Against the Machine broke up in 2000, just before the election.

Sad she didn't mention David Bowie (Or even 99 Luftballons) Also, I'd argue that SOAD's song "Deer Dance" is a better example for this. "Circumventing circuses lamenting in protest To visible police, presence sponsored fear Battalions of riot police with rubber bullet kisses Baton courtesy, service with a smile"

The tube offered me up this again tonight. This still needs to be seen!

As a non American that doesn’t really remember when this all happened, this was really interesting to watch

“During the Vietnam War, every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”

Lamb of God’s “Ashes of the Wake” was a game changer for me. Lyrics, aggression, and even clips from interviews hit so hard. Different from other music in the lineage.

Two albums that really encapsulate this time period are, American Idiot as already mentioned, and Thursday’s 2003 major label debut War All the Time which, at least for me, eclipses Green Day’s release in how it expresses the feelings and urgency of emotions that this time brought forth while also touching on peripheral issues that surrounded the band and the general public during the war on terror.

One of the most interesting things about this topic that I was hoping would get brought up was the importance of the "emo" subculture, particularly for youth - and I'm using that term in terms of the general pop culture understanding of it. Yes, I know that "emo" is a misnomer and we could argue about semantics but I'm referring to the trends present in groups like Evanescence, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, etc., aka what the mainstream generally terms as "emo." You brushed on it a little with the MCR shoutout, though I DO get why you didn't get into it - it wasn't necessarily outspokenly political stuff as a brand. However, I think it's worth noting that there's a reason that scene got so big: most of its audience consisted of kids who were too young to vote but nonetheless had to bear the consequences of a truly boneheaded administration's shitty decisions. There were a lot of kids who had no memory of any kind of perceived "threat" on this scale and the coverage was EVERYWHERE. There was no avoiding it. So if the country genre consisted of proud, jingoistic pronouncements of how you Can't Let The Terrorists Win, the "emo" subculture that rose in the early-to-mid-2000s consisted of wearing your heart on your sleeve, being unrepentant about your anger and your pain, and so on. A lot of it was definitely more personalized, very focused on stuff like relationships, but the overtones of disillusionment a lot of those acts carried was very much a real thing with kids and teenagers in that era (especially among closeted queer and mentally ill youth, who didn't otherwise have much of a mainstream outlet). A lot of those bands and groups were heavily influenced by Green Day's "American Idiot" - visually, sonically, thematically, and so on. How many of the big albums that "emo" bands released in the early-to-mid-2000s dealt with the subject of death, impending doom, an anger about things they felt they couldn't change, or coming to terms with the fucked up and broken parts of yourself - aka the general feeling that plagued practically everyone in that age bracket. There was no escaping that there was a war happening; it was in the news every day. But "emo" allowed a young generation to mourn the fact that it would shoulder the consequences of a war that literally nobody wanted. Maybe it's because of the memories of what that felt like that I can still find all those songs and bands relevant now, when the personal and the political have become even further intertwined. I know I'm not the only "emo" who went back to these songs after the 2016 election. I went off on this huge tangent, sorry! But I wanted to thank you for saying what I've been saying for years - that Green Day is Good, Actually, and they're still very outspoken against political establishments they don't care for. Any "sellout" that promptly turns around and uses that cash to criticize a powerful administration and punk even harder is the furthest thing from selling out, in my honest opinion.

It’s really strange how my brother was so into Green Day, and Nirvana, etc., and now he’s a HUGE republican! I’m like: “did they teach you nothing???”

"Wake me up when september ends" is song I seriously can't get enough of .

This has made me realize Protest music has always been apart of the world and somewhat mainstream and has made me question its absence in the recent years. I guess it all started in the 2000’s

That Michael Moore Oscars clip showed some interesting shots of the following people: - Adrian Brody eventually won his Oscar that night and kissed Halle Berry. - Martin Scorsese directed a short film called "The Big Shave" in 1967 which has been referred to as "...a metaphor for the self-destructive involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War." - Louis Gossett, Jr. co-wrote the anti-war song "Handsome Johnny" with Richie Havens. - Amy Madigan and Ed Harris sat in protest during Elia Kazan's Lifetime Achievement Oscar because he gave up names to the HUAC. - Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford did "Ally McBeal Goes To the Kessel Run" - Richard Gere is banned from China for that "Red Corner" movie and for his association with the Dalai Lama. P.S. Lindsay, you are awesome!

im surprised nine inch nails was completely left out of this, given that they werent allowed to perform at the MTV awards in 2005 because they wanted an image of george bush to hang while they played "hand that feeds" which was about him....also leaving out Nail's album: Year Zero, Linkin Park's entire album: Minutes to Midnight, no honorable mention of even maroon 5 chiming in with their anti-bush themed song: makes me wonder was also surprised the biggest influential protest band of all time left out when talking about the 90s: Rage Against The Machine 👀

“The Rising” is an exceptional album, one of the best of the last 25 years

Growing up with Green Day in school, I am happy they were one of the few bands in the 2000s that inspired me. They went against the grain as I did with both Afghanistan and Iraq and with Bush. They actually had the balls to call out the BS that was Bush’s Wars.

I will have you know that "Incomprehensible Gen X Caterwauling" practically defines my music tastes. It's also really hard to deny the subtitles speak truth.

There's a danger of falling into a nostalgia trap when you look at 60's protest music. Its over-represented in the music from the era that we still listen to today because it was generally more meaningful and hard-hitting than the generic pop that was around at the same time, and because the themes correspond to much-studied historical events. The reality is, there was an awful lot of apolitical, escapist music that was around at the time, and was generally more popular. It's not really fair to compare 2000's mainstream commercial pop to Creedence Clearwater Revival- there was an awful lot of mainstream commercial pop around in the late 60's as well, and also a few very successful nationalistic, pro-war songs- e.g.'The Ballad of the Green Berets', which was a US number one record for 5 weeks in 1966. Creedence infamously never had a Billboard number one record. Likewise, there were actually quite a lot of anti-war songs released in the 2000's if you look away from the mainstream, usually in genres that are known to be angry and political anyway- e.g. punk, reggae and hip hop. My personal favourites are probably 'Worlds Apart' by Texan punks ...And You WIll Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, which is just furious and disgusted, and 'Day After Tomorrow' by Tom Waits, which is just utterly heartbreaking. Neither of them remotely bothered the top 10, but I remember Waits' sing 'Day After Tomorrow' on the Daily Show, which was absolutely huge at the time.

They aren't super popular, but Fugazi released a stellar anti-war album in 2001. But yeah, you didn't see music being used to rebel or express rebellious sentiments nearly as much in the early 2000's when compared to the 60's-90's (90's cause Punk and hardcore music and all that)

22:07 Did we all forget about Fack, where he sings about shoving gerbils his ass in four part harmony

"I'm losing to a bird!" "Hal, it's about cats." "We'll put a boot in your ass." At last, the trifecta is complete

Gen Z kids who were alive during the Bush era and 9/11 but don’t remember any of it watching this video: write that down, write that down! In all serious, this is a really well done video and I really appreciate how thorough and informative your videos are!

Lindsay yet again I'm blown away by your excellent videos and amazing reflections!

"The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage, But it's made by millionaires who are nearly twice your age" - *Porcupine Tree - "The Sound of Muzak" (2002), lyrics by Steven Wilson*

For people who know their history and the "That Guy With the Glasses" Era, this intro is simply gold.

Jesus how f*cking cathartic 12:03 is. The first time I saw it I had to pause for like 5 minutes to laugh, cry, and process.

I know I'm 3 years late but dang! missed mention of radiohead's hail to the thief!

I once heard Billie Joe Armstrong say in an interview that When September Ends was inspired by the death of his father. I find it sad to think about how many people in the early 2000’s could relate to a song about losing a loved one.

"Murder is a crime unless it was done by a policeman" .... damn that's a little too relevant rn

I can't believe there's no mention of Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails.

Should've touched on early country music protesting for workers rights, especially considering country got co-opted by the pro-war right around the time you're discussing.

It would’ve been great to talk about Gorillaz’ Demon Days. It was an entire allegory of the Iraq war that was both commercially and critically acclaimed AND by a virtual band whose whole premise was parodying the 2000’s talent show era of music