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OK, some pedant might argue it's now Saturday morning, but I maintain this it's Friday night until the sun comes up ; )
I usually miss the #FridayNightJukebox, but this week's theme - #TruthTellers - is just to juicy to ignore. I could post hundreds of songs on this theme, but I've narrowed it down to 10. With a focus on songs by kiwis, and artists not posted by anyone else yet.
How has nobody already posted 'Raupatu' by Alien Weaponry (unless I missed it)?
'Five Word Headline' by Supergroove:
https://piped.video/watch?v=cscCBzpMJ44
These guys are known for their light-hearted party songs, and the occasional mournful ballad (Sitting Inside My Head). But this B-side skewers the cynical motivates of the corporate news media, in a way that would make Jello Biafra proud. It's also a powerful and original piece of music.
'Smash the State' by Dead Viscous:
https://piped.video/watch?v=H2yA2cKfvzA
The responsible uncles of the Welly punk scene, circa the noughties. I was at the street party where this video was filmed and the cops were just as ignorant and violent as they come across in it.
I had totally forgotten until I rewatched it that I appear in this video a few times. I'll leave it as a fun game for the viewer to guess which one is me : )
'Chains' by DLT, featuring Che Fu:
https://piped.video/watch?v=4dBTLZqO2T0
Somebody posted 'French Letter' by Herbs, which reminded me of this track, in which French nuclear testing in the Pacific is also a major theme. It was a big single from DLT's sadly underrated album The True School. Speaking of #TruthTellers, the instrumental track Black Panthers is another favourite of mine from that album.
'Suit, Suit, Kill, Kill' by Wendyhouse:
https://piped.video/watch?v=Md-wF1KbvaA
When I was a teenager in my first band, our guitarist dragged us along to an art-punk performance in the public art gallery in Logan Park. This was a major turning point in my life. Wendyhouse were simultaneously the weirdest and most political band I'd ever heard or seen. One of the members gave me my first anarchist zine, effectively beginning a life of activism that eventually brought me here.
'Burn it Down' by David Roviks:
https://piped.video/watch?v=-dlhJlhixf4
Every time I heard some crypto-conservative representationalist calling for the state to police "hate speech", I think of this song. About an incident where indigenous activist Rod Coronado was arrested for giving a speech promoting environmental Direct Action.
"And, hey, who knows, by the time you have a chance to blink
Whether you're a criminal might depend on what you think"
'Sign the Dotted Line' by Tall Dwarfs:
https://piped.video/watch?v=eApUIH3jxjQ
It was hard to pick one track from Weeville, it's one of my all time favourite kiwi albums. It takes aim at ruby- racing-and-beer culture, yuppies, the neoliberal coup known in Aotearoa as Rogernomics, and more, but with tongue firmly in cheek, and some gorgeous low-fi songwriting. What More or Ozone or even Bodies were also candidates. The whole album is well worth a listen.
'Let's Lynch the Landlord' by Dead Kennedys:
https://piped.video/watch?v=AyCLcUv7RK8
Speaking of tongues firmly in cheek, DKs had an ability - almost unique among punk bands - to visciously savage capitalists and conservatives with a whimsical sense of fun, rather than a permanent scowl. As house prices and rents have shot through the roof over the decades since this song's release, it's only become more and more relevant.
'Oil' by the legendary Formidable Vegetable Sound System:
https://piped.video/watch?v=h__qCy4GhSM
'Permaculture: A Rhymer's Manual', released in 2013, has a song for each of David Holmgren's 12 #permaculture principles. Oil takes on the deadly serious topic of Peak Oil and industrial society's suicidal addiction to burning fossil fuels, and turns it into a whimsical chap-hop track imploring us to "use and value renewable resources and services", as Holmgren put it.
'Yell Fire' by Michael Franti and Spearhead:
https://piped.video/watch?v=YQ5phcEsRw4
If I was surprised that nobody has posted DKs (that I could see), I was even more surprised that nobody posted a Spearhead track yet. Although I did see a track from Michael Franti's earlier group Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, a homage to the DKs song 'California Uber Alles'. Franti has been one of the loudest and most consistent #TruthTellers out of the US, with both his music and documentaries.
OK, I know I said 10 songs, but honestly, with so many epic #TruthTellers still unmentioned, how can I not throw in a couple of bonus tracks?
'Permanent Holiday' by Mike Love:
https://piped.video/watch?v=fU7hZ3smj0g
You've probably seen this. I'd be surprised if there's anyone with net access of any kind who hasn't. But I just love the impassioned cry for people to reject the "corporate Babylon" and its "manipulation games", and the incredible musical talent on display by both musicians.
'The Perverted Dance (Cut the Balls)':
https://piped.video/watch?v=80X0pbCV_t4
This is Slovenian satirist Klemen Slakonja's hilarious homage to his countryman, the eccentric Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Even if you're completely unfamiliar with Zizek's work and the talking points the song parodies - which have become online memes in themselves - the video is worth it for Slakonja's bang-on mimicry alone. Plus the flash mob breaking into the Cut the Balls dance? Gold.