This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
After the National Guard gunned down four Kent State students during an anti-Vietnam war protest in 1970, Neil Young and CSNY wrote, recorded and released the powerful Ohio within two weeks. Those were the days.
Now, the lightning speed of war, coupled with the sluggish inertia and political cowardice of the music biz, have rendered timely protest music nearly extinct. Still, there are options open to those looking for music a tad more relevant than the latest pop-chart inanities. You can’t get much more topical than The Fire This Time, a stunning multi-media presentation by activist Grant Wakefield. Meticulously and elegantly weaving together historical data, archival audiotape, old news reports and cutting-edge electronica soundscapes from the likes of Aphex Twin and Orbital, Wakefield offers a stylish, intellectual and thought-provoking examination of the 1990s Gulf War and how it set the stage for current hostilities. Granted, it’s the polar opposite of easy listening — but it probably beats hearing Noam Chomsky do his thing at a rave.
For more traditional — read: musical — fare, try Peace Not War, a fundraising compilation for the U.K.-based Stop The War Coalition. This eclectic two-disc set collects new and old anti-war anthems from all over the global and musical map — there’s Ani DiFranco’s spellbinding 9/11 post-mortem Self Evident, Public Enemy’s nose-thumbing Son Of A Bush and Midnight Oil’s chestnut US Forces, along with tunes from Massive Attack, Ms. Dynamite, Chumbawamba, Alabama 3 and others. But the indisputable highlight is the dependably outspoken Billy Bragg’s recent gem The Price of Oil, with ripped-from-the-headlines lyrics like, “The Allies won’t approve the plan / But the oil men in the White House / They just don’t give a damn.” Neil couldn’t have said it better himself. Or in a more timely manner.
