I Will Survive: The 10 Albums That Will Get Me Through the Nightmare Years

From Wilco to The Flaming Lips to Charles Mingus to The Roots, a soundtrack for survival in tough political times.

By Geoff Aung, Columbia University

I think a lot of us felt like we had lost our grandmothers in early November 2004. We walked away rather traumatized, we dressed up for the wake, and we all stopped by the casket and walked away dispirited. If you asked me then how I envisioned the next few years, I probably would have responded with a cathartic shriek and a detailed description of Dante’s Inferno. But winter is starting to fade to spring. Ask me the same question now and I will be able to offer you a different, more hopeful and decidedly less hysterical answer. So, today, I offer a tone parallel for the next few years. These might not all be the typical political protest records one would expect. But what follows is a soundtrack for survival. Sing along.

10. Achilles Heel Pedro the Lion

Though it might take Alberto Gonzales to make him admit it, Pedro frontman David Bazan is a born-again Christian who plays indie rock. I swear. Even more surprising, the combination works: Achilles Heel is a solid album. Progressives, take note: Utah + Sonic Youth = effective strategy for change. On the other hand, let’s not push it too far.

9. A Ghost is Born Wilco

In a manner roughly akin to that of a high-school age male, Wilco goes through a new phase every few minutes or so. A Ghost is Born finds the band in a post-y’allternative-experimenting-with-jamming phase. (Aww, how cute.) In many ways, the album is a bit of a come-down from the mythological heights of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This album feels roughly like the onset of an ice age. Oh, how we sympathize. Plus, it defies the rule that requires country artists to be gun-slinging war-mongerers.

8. Blonde on Blonde Bob Dylan

There’s something about being stuck inside of Mobile that seems very familiar to today’s political context. One of Dylan’s laundry list of classics, Blonde on Blonde strikes a less confrontational pose than, say, The Times They Are A-Changin’. Nevertheless, it exhorts listeners to get stoned, and that’s gotta be worth something these days (unless its actually referring to a well-known Biblical passage.)

7. Mingus Ah Um Charles Mingus

Though not often recognized as such, I humbly submit Mingus Ah Um as one of the greatest protest records of all time. The track “Fables of Faubus,” directed at the governor of Arkansas who tried to block integration at Little Rock, only scratches the surface of this jazz genius’ rich history of political activism. Where have you gone, Charles Mingus? The nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

6. Surfin’ With the Ventures The Ventures

There’s nothing like a little 60’s surf rock to aid your political blues. Ever since Gerry Lopez carved a place for surfing in mainstream American culture, the long-haired, bare-footed surfer has been an iconic symbol of resistance to the corporate cubicle culture. Find your own resistance to Red politics in the salty breezes of The Ventures’ guitars.

5. Hail to the Thief Radiohead

For once, Thom Yorke grants musical access to the plebeian masses: The title says it all. Hailed upon release as a highly political album that would welcome back fans of Radiohead’s style of yore, songs like “2+2=5” satisfy the former and reject the latter. It doesn’t quite shout into the wind like 1995’s The Bends, and it may blow fewer minds than Kid A, but this complicated album still expresesses heartfelt uncertainty and fear. It stands as an eloquent indictment of reductionist politics.

4. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots The Flaming Lips

Please, Yoshimi, don’t let those robots eat me. On the surface, this flawlessly produced masterpiece is a concept album about the Japanimated resistance of one small girl to large, pink robots – a little sill and pedestrian, no? Wayne Coyne manages to turn the story line into an opportunity to extoll the idea of finding love in the face of certain death. Escapism at its best, or a fervent call to renew the ties that bind? You decide.

3. Things Fall Apart The Roots

As an urban tribute to Chinua Achebe’s classic work, this poetic piece of protest set standards that more recent singles like “The Seed” just can’t live up to. Things Fall Apart is a warning from the streets against apathy in life and music. As an urgent reminder that “the ghettoes are red-hot,” The Roots’ best album to date combats your not-uncalled-for suspicion that critical voices have no place today. That said, it came out during the Clinton administration.

2. Deltron 3030 Deltron

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien and Dan the Automator make a rapper/producer duo that has yet to disappoint. As the latest full-length collaboration between these two giants of the underground, Deltron 3030 sketches a radical vision for a “post-apocalyptic world order.” Fitting. “3030” espouses an escape-to-space aesthetic that recalls Sun Ra and George Clinton, while “Virus” issues an anarchist(ic) call for the destruction of the existing corporatist society through a widespread computer virus. Trust me: He is totally out there, but if he is anyone’s, Del is one of ours.

1. Born in the U.S.A. Bruce Springsteen

rom the exultant opening chords to the closing small-town ballad, Born in the U.S.A. bleeds American. Springsteen, today’s foremost working class hero, captures a homespun idiom that may be one of the few remaining strands that has the potential to unite Reds and Blues. As a prayer for the future and a tribute to the past, treasure this album. And remember who played at Kerry’s last rally in Ohio.

What music drives your politics? Campus Progress’s David Halperin offers his own Top 10 on the blog. Check it out, and reveal your own picks.

Illustration: Matt Bors