Sound of Our Revolution | July 2024: We Deserve Better (2024)

Contributed by Jonny Collins

New Face, Same Problems

Well, here we are. Nearly five years on, and god knows how many playlists on. Yet for the first time in this blog’s and indeed comedy club’s history, we no longer have a Tory government.

It feels… weird. I thought I’d feel more excited. And to Labour’s credit, whilst they have been continuously purging the left of their party, committing to Tory-lite policies, and generally being unpleasant and uninspiring politicians, I am cautiously optimistic about the next few years for a number of reasons.

First of all, credit where it’s due – appointing an actual non-partisan lawyer to be attorney general isn’t something that should come as a surprise, but is a big deal and deviation from history. As is appointing a very vocal prison reformist as minister. And already the party have been making moves to tackle the water crisis, as well as laying foundations to bring the service back into public ownership, or at least to rein in the private CEOs who dump sewage into our water and have the gall to charge us for the privilege. And it looks like they’re finally going to bring our god-awful trains back into public ownership as well.

We’ll see if they deliver on these. But I will admit they have left a good first impression, and are demonstrating potential to actually commit to some meaningful change.

Yet despite that, Wes Streeting seems adamant to continue the Tory’s reactionary plan on puberty blockers for transgender children. To put it another way, Wes Streeting, Labour’s Health Minister, wants to ban life saving medical treatment for vulnerable children. While wanting to incorporate even more private companies to clear the NHS backlog, he is causing a huge amount of concern to anyone paying the least bit of attention to him. And that’s not even getting started on the blasé attitude towards child poverty in not immediately removing the benefit cap that punishes exclusively the poorest children.

Still, it was fun seeing so many of the worst Tory politicians either lose their seats or have their majorities hugely slashed, and the ones who remained watching so many of their colleagues vote shares absolutely decimated, so fair play.

It didn’t feel right doing a celebratory playlist as such, but it also felt a bit passé to just do yet another f*ck the Tories playlist. Don’t get me wrong, that will be a part of this playlist, but I really want to focus on the idea championed by Owen Jones and the “We Deserve Better” campaign.

One of the highlights of this election for me was that we did get possibly the best result we could have hoped for. Labour won a huge parliamentary majority. However, their seats were run close and several of them lost to Independent and Green MPs. I was expecting Labour to win so much of the vote that they barely needed to try for the next five years. Despite their efforts to remove the left from their party, the end result has been the left having a not insignificant voice in Parliament from outside the Labour Party, so not at risk of control by the party machine.

Four Green MPs, Jeremy Corbyn, and four other vocally pro-Palestine left wing candidates won seats, some of them directly from the Labour candidates challenging them. Nine MPs is a small percentage of the commons, but there is also the addition of a couple of shadow ministers losing their own seats in a Labour landslide and a sizable third place for the Lib Dems campaigning on a manifesto that somehow managed to be more left wing than even the Labour party (that’s when you know you’ve gone too far to the right).

But the message sent was unignorable. People rallied around left-wing candidates. The Labour Party can rely on people voting for them just because they’re not the Tories, of course they can – but for the first time in my life time we have a significant left wing opposition to Labour both in Parliament and out. The party knows how many more seats are sitting on a knife edge, and how much they need to deliver to make sure they keep them next time.

So, in honour of this achievement, and to capture the mood more generally, this month’s playlist theme is just that “We Deserve Better”.

The Tories are gone, next to politically irrelevant for the next 5 years, continuing to tear themselves apart with no viable leadership options. It’s going to be a long time before they’re a credible political rival again. It will happen, but it will be a while.

So rather than do the easy thing and just lay back and hope Labour make lasting significant socialist changes, let’s keep yelling about the real issues that matter and what we want to see from the party. Keep pushing for electoral reform, an end to arms sales to the Israeli state, accessible trans healthcare and social policies that allow trans people to exist as their authentic self in a legally recognised way.

We deserve more than just “not Tories” – let’s remember that. Celebrate, have a little gasp for air, but then back to the fight.

You can listen to the playlist here:

1: f*ck Everybody Who Voted Tory – Oi Polloi

Fuaim Catha – 1999 – Oi!

“Yuppies who don’t care about human need
People motivated only by their greed
Selfish, grasping fools who believe the media story,
f*ck everybody who voted Tory!”

This playlist is supposed to be a somewhat nuanced look at the two main UK political parties, and an acknowledgement that the Labour Party, while incomparably the lesser of two evils, hasn’t really made any meaningful changes for the best part of half a century even when they have been in power.

So what better way to start than good ol’ Oi Polloi’s uncompromising Oi flavoured Streetpunk yelling “f*ck everybody who voted Tory”, slamming those who vote for this most heinous of political parties and all the poverty, despair and death their policies cause – in-between samples and thoughtful deconstructions of the conditions that lead to Thatcherism in the first place, and the fundamental shift in the political Labour party that ensures her legacy would continue to run rampant throughout future generations in this country while they play by her rules and continue her fundamental political philosophy.

Oi Polloi are incredibly astute political commentators, and they convey that through catchy, chantable hooks and just pure punk goodness. One of the best bands of the genre of all time, and they always know exactly what to say and how to say it, whatever the situation we’re stuck in.

2: Neoliberalism Kills People – Lowkey

Soundtrack to the Struggle 2 – 2019 – Grime

“If it bleeds it leads, trauma tourists they gravitate
Shock doctrine in effect, disaster capitalists salivate
Privatisation, deregulation and austerity
To zero-hour contracts, exploitation and precarity”

I feel like I’ve been a bit light on the hip-hop in recent playlists, which is a shame as I do consider it probably my second favourite blanket genre of music after punk. So I am thrilled that not only do I get to include some rap on this playlist, but it’s a track that’s completely new to me from iconic London grime artist “Lowkey”.

I’ll be honest, the title sold me on this alone, but then you put the track on. It opens with over a minute of sample from Naomi Klein commenting on the inherent ‘lovelessness’ of neoliberalist ideology, and how that led to the travesty of Grenfell Tower, and many other tower blocks several years on with the same cladding problem as ticking time bombs.

It’s a powerful speech, and a perfect setting of the scene for Lowkey’s 7-and-a-half-minute dirge on Neoliberal politics. When you’re using a speaker as prolific as Naomi Klein as the intro to your own thesis statement, you can be damn sure you’ve got sh*t to say, and oh boy does he. I won’t go too in depth in the interest of brevity, but I think people often forget that hip-hop at its core is as much a form of poetry as it is music, and this track is evident of that fact.

Going from Grenfell Tower to the Peterloo massacre to state visits by then president (and possibly future president) Donald Trump, to quotes from political thinkers and activists like Rosa Luxemburg. This track has everything you need to demonstrate the harm that neoliberalist capitalist politics has done and will continue to do and it is packaged up with such deep and pleasing melodies and beats. Framing the song through the idea that Neoliberalism is “lovelessness”, this song is full of love, but a pained, mournful love of those who have been lost and knowing that many more still will be.

This is powerful sh*t, and mandatory listening for anyone with a passing interest in the sh*tshow of modern politics.

3: Biden – Bo Burnham

THE INSIDE OUTTAKES – 2022 – Musical Comedy

https://shopboburnham.com/products/the-inside-outtakes-digital-album

“How is the best case scenario Joe Biden?”

4: The Crooked Man – Merry Hell

Blink… And You Miss It – 2011 – Folk

“Criminals in Pinstripe suits
Pecking the flesh from our Backbones”

This is a song all about bankers being evil and profiting off others’ poverty and financial hardship.

The 2008 crash feels like a distant memory now, but its aftereffects are still rippling through political discourse and ideology. Rishi Sunak has a background in banking – and indeed profited a lot off that disaster at the time, long before he became an MP. He spent most of his two years in power finding ways to give his wife more money and contracts, not to mention all the crooked Covid deals he made as Chancellor.

Tories fundamentally exist to make money for themselves, at your expense. For all the critiques I have of Labour and Keir Starmer, I don’t think you can boil down their motivation to the same thing. So kudos for not being the absolute most crooked piece of sh*t you could possibly be, I guess. Dishonest, uninspiring, genocide apologists sure, but not financially crooked at least as far as I can tell so far. That’s an improvement, well done.

5: Old Blue Witch – Fit and the Conniptions

Old Blue Witch – 2017 – Folk

https://fitandtheconniptions.bandcamp.com/album/old-blue-witch

“The Iron Lady’s bastard child is still in Number Ten
And the hospitals are closing and the libraries are gone
In other news…
Some old blue witch is dead.”

Carrying on the folky vibes with this classic from Fit and the Conniptions. As much as you all know I love a “Thatcher is Dead” song. But the fact that we’re moving ever closer into our fifth decade of Thatcherite politics, privatisation has led to toxic drinking water, unaffordable transport, crumbling infrastructure and cuts have led to some of the highest child poverty rates since war time, yeah no, Thatcher isn’t dead. Her ghost is possessing every single neoliberal-ass party leader and media pundit in the country, and continuing to control and destroy the state to this day.

So yeah, party, celebrate that we don’t have a Tory government for the first time in many of our adult lives. But this isn’t the end of the fight, far from it.

Until Thatcherism has no trace in modern politics, and until the Tories are electorally wiped out and irrelevant, they are still a threat. Unless the Labour party actually follow through on their promise of change, in a decade’s time we’ll go right back to square one. Possibly even further behind.

6: We Can Afford It (The Single Payer Song) – Joe Messina

Rageonomics – 2020 – Folk

https://joemessina.bandcamp.com/album/rageonomics

“Give me healthcare or I’ll cut off your head
I’m just kidding, but you should be dead
The streets will run red with the blood of Republicans
If I don’t get to see a doctor”

So much folk, I am so sorry. This little ditty I found as a part of my healthcare playlist back in 2023, and it jumped to mind due to each of the first two verses calling out both Republican cruelty and Democratic uselessness, and its delightful incorporation of blunt cheery profanities. This is the tone of a man who is f*cking done with healthcare discourse.

Healthcare should be a human right, that’s the end of it. Private health insurance is evil, the American model is f*cked. Make healthcare free or bitches are going to start rioting. (It’s us, we’re bitches).

7: Centrist – Slightly West

Fearmongrel – 2023 – Punk

https://slightlywest.bandcamp.com/album/fearmongrel

“It’s so hard to choose
Between human rights and power abuse
I’m gonna have to shut up
Cuz I’ve got money to lose”

Finally a break from the folk! Slightly West make discordant grungey punk with cutting and opinionated political messages. What’s not to love?

This one felt appropriate as a critique of centrist ideologies. Often self-labelling themselves as “sensible” and “the grownups”, this is the tack Starmer took to win his landslide. Credit to him, it worked. But when the so called “progressive” party is pandering to the kind of people who genuinely thought that Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn were just as bad as each other, when one made several overtly racist remarks, compulsively lied, showed disdain for people and used his constituents as a tool for power and not as people he was chosen to serve, and the other was a nice dude who made jam, lived to help and campaign for people, not just his own constituents, and thought that “hey, maybe asking me hypothetical questions about whether I’m going to launch nuclear missiles that will decimate all life on earth is a nonsense when we have kids starving in the streets, schools falling apart and medical waiting lists ballooning in size”. Yep, just as bad as each other, I mean how do you even make a decision here. Guess I’ll flip a coin.

f*ck centrists honestly.

8: Illusion of Choice – The Best of the Worst

Illusion of Choice – 2020 – Skacore

“How can we pick between
Two sides of the same old rusty coin
This isn’t the change we need
They’ve got us picking teams
Divide and conquer just won’t work on me”

Continuing on the punky angle with some more Ska influence hardcore now. The Best of the Worst are a band I’ve been slowly getting into the last four years or so, and this track was my introduction to them. Released around the 2020 election, they captured the frustration and despair of the progressive side of the American electorate, and anyone who didn’t want to have to choose between cartoon fascist villain and doddering old centrist for the hundredth time.

Intense brass noise and a wall of hardcore riffs deliver a statement of such political frustration, making this one of the definitive election anthems of all time.

9: Never Trust a Tory (Pokemon City Limits) – Onsind

Anaesthesiology – 2013 – Folk Punk

https://onsind.bandcamp.com/album/anaesthesiology

“Never trust a Tory, or a Tory in disguise,
You can see it when you look them in the eye”

This song is called different things on streaming and the album, so soz for the confusion.

What is there to say? This is one of the all time great anti-Tory anthems of our generation. Onsind are lovely lads, and here is a very earnest tale with a message of times changing but some wisdom remaining relevant through the ages. And Never Trust a Tory is a mantra that I don’t think is ever going to go out of date. If anything, it’s more relevant now than it ever has been prior.

I particularly like the choral edition of “Never trust a Tory, or a Tory in disguise” – as yes, we are rid of the named Tories, but there are indeed plenty of closet Tories working within the Labour party. That’s not even mentioning Reform or Lib Dems, or SNP or really any of the major parties. Be vigilant to Tory propaganda and Tory people, as they won’t be telling you anything good, correct, or worthwhile.

10: Would You Be Impressed – Streetlight Manifesto

Somewhere In The Between – 2007 – Ska Punk

“I had a dream last night where everyone was trying
Subconsciously I knew it was a lie
And when I woke I knew it was time to pray
To make amends before the end, before my judgement day”

I don’t think I’ve ever had any Streetlight Manifesto on these playlists, that’s a shame, they’re f*cking good. Along with Faintest Idea and King Prawn, they’re probably the band that really cemented Ska Punk as a genre I loved and not just one where I liked a little bit of.

Some of the tightest compositions and musical arrangements in any modern music, intensely emotive lyrical themes and brash onslaughts of Ska Punk goodness making some of the darkest possible songs sound like riotous parties.

This track isn’t overtly political as such, although it focuses on the core idea of “How would you feel about the world if you were looking on as a disinterested third party, like you would a reality show?”

How would you feel about the way the world is run, about the decisions being made, the way you react to them and your own actions? I don’t know many people who can honestly say over the last forty to fifty years that they are impressed with the way this planet is going, and those who can I don’t trust.

This track is taking shot at apathy. I think most people broadly know everything is sh*t, but you’re so ingrained and used to it that you just let it pass you by. This track challenges you to separate yourself from it and really critically look at things and turn that apathy into righteous rage and a desire for change.

I’m not impressed, are you? Thought not, now let’s make ourselves heard.

11: See You In Hell – Common Sense Kid

Maybe This Is A Midlife Crisis? – 2021 – Punk

https://commonsensekid.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-this-is-a-midlife-crisis

“They claim the past is better
Wear a flag like a sweater
But it doesn’t make sense to me”

Throwing back to this Common Sense Kid track all about the ideology and rhetoric of Jacob Rees Mogg and similar tory MPs. Did I say MPs? I meant, former MPs.

Raw punk in every sense of the word, self-taught musicianship during lockdown (if I remember correctly), and now one of my favourite Punk acts working today. Everyone should be taking notes from this guy.

12: Secrets of the Forge – Dreamslain

Forge of Rebellion – 2024 – Progressive Metal

https://dreamslain.bandcamp.com/album/forge-of-rebellion

“All over the world you will hear our call
To reforge the world and this time include all
No more be divided by borders of land
Who you choose to love or colour of your hand”

This is maybe a tad tenuous a link for this theme, but I have been obsessed with this track ever since we had Dreamslain on our stream to preview their new album (which is 10/10 btw).

Secrets of the Forge is Progressive Metal in every definition of the term. It has the typical structure and length of Prog. The lyrics and themes are progressive. Creatively the band is made up of a drummer, organist (is that what you call an organ player? Idk, but I refuse to look it up, I am part of the problem) and guitar & vocals, with all three instrumental components taking lead throughout parts of the songs to create one of the most cohesive and balanced metal albums I’ve ever heard. Nothing fades into the background; every component is so expertly crafted and performed to create a near perfect listening experience.

Lyrically, Secrets of the Forge is your typical call to action for an oppressed people over fascism, dictatorships, and corrupt rulers – and is a drive to reform the world into something undivided by borders, and free from bigotries against race and sexuality. In the context of this playlist, I really like that message and motivation. The song uses more feudal and fantastical aesthetics, but the sentiment is as applicable today as it ever was.

It’s a nice reminder that we should be striving to reform the way the systems are, not just put someone who isn’t as overtly personally corrupt in charge of the corrupt and oppressive systems.

13: Give Us Something Worth Voting For

Update Your Brain – 2016 – Indie Punk

https://thetuts.bandcamp.com/album/update-your-brain

“They say they’re gonna do this and that
They say they’re gonna change the world
They don’t care about ordinary folk
The system is a joke”

I knew this one had to be on here. The Tuts encapsulate the core issue with the last UK election, and upcoming US election. There’s just… nothing worth your vote.

I very nearly didn’t vote because the only person who bothered even sending us campaign materials was the Labour candidate, who was so boring, uninspiring, and regurgitating party rhetoric in a way that didn’t scan and felt AI written, that even if I agreed with all of their policies I’d be reluctant to contribute to their electoral win. We did get material from Reform, Green and Worker’s party – but they cared so little about this seat that they didn’t even send us the details for the correct candidate for the constituent area we’re in, instead the ones for the next constituency over.

I did end up voting in the end, not that it mattered as Labour won with a huge majority in our area. But given the low voter turnout rate we had, I do not blame people for being too apathetic to bother, as I very nearly was too.

Apathy isn’t great, and does lead to just even less care being taken towards our needs, and we’ll get into that in a few songs time. But at the same time some, responsibility needs to be taken by the parties themselves.

Even the parties I broadly agree with did not run a very inspiring campaign, at least not nationally or in my area. There were local exceptions. There were great candidates up and down the country that I wish I could’ve voted for, but they were mostly independents or outliers from their party machine.

Our system is a f*cking joke, and Labour won purely because the Tories f*cked it. 2028/9 Labour better give us a reason to vote for them again, otherwise they may let the Tories back in. Or, worse, give Reform even more unchecked political power.

Thus far, I’m not convinced they are doing this. Please prove me wrong.

14: Gandhi Mate, Gandhi – Enter Shikari

A Flash Flood of Colour – 2012 – Electronicore

“Yabba dabba do one son, we don’t want your rules
Who you fooling son, we’ve got all the tools
We need to build a whole new system
To correct these flaws”

God I’ve spoken about this song so many times, there isn’t much more to add, other than that this largely acts like a soapbox for Rou Reynolds to rant before dropping into one of the filthiest beats of the 2010s. It turned a generation of closeted trans girls into raging socialists, one of whom would go on to found this very project. So really this is their fault that I’m writing this here right now.

Also, any song with the line “Yabba dabba do one son” is objectively the greatest piece of art in the universe. I will not be contradicted on this issue.

15: Change – Black Stone Cherry

Between the Devil & The Deep Blue Sea – 2011 – Hard Rock

“It’s been too long
If it’s comin’
I wanna know where the change is coming from”

Black Stone Cherry are hardly who you think of when you think of radical transformative progressive politics. And I know very little about their own political leanings, so don’t take this as specific endorsem*nt of that.

But with this one slightly embarrassing Butt Rock anthem, they have managed to craft a non-partisan call for change and express frustration at politicians who promise that change and deliver nothing. It’s a cry about just wanting to know where this change is, and that’s a frustration I think a lot of people can relate to.

Certainly, now with a new new Labour government, and at the time of this song’s release, halfway through Obama’s presidency, possibly the biggest drop off from excitement to disappointment of any politician in recent memory. There were more milquetoast people who we didn’t expect to do much and somehow did even less, but Obama was a rare case of someone who people had high transformative expectations of, and yet did very little in the grand scheme of things.

So yeah, even something as non-specific and radio friendly as Black Stone Cherry have managed to capture a very earnest and real feeling of political frustration here, without really alienating anyone. For that alone, this felt like an essential pick.

It also does go kinda hard tbh, my musical credibility is going down the drain but idc, Black Stone Cherry unironically rock.

16: We Love Your Apathy – Skunk Anansie

Stoosh – 1996 – Alternative Rock

“I have the information
(that) keeps you from knowing me
I abuse you, as you watch me
And you always vote me in”

To close off this playlist, I wanted to touch on the feeling of apathy as it has come up a few times, and more specifically my own feelings of it.

This is completely understandable. Objectively, none of the major political parties were really pushing anything resembling inspiring campaigns. But it is worth being aware that apathy is one of the right’s best electoral tools, along with divide and rule.

The right wing universally benefit from this idea that all politicians are fundamentally the same and as bad as each other. They know that they’re only so popular, but they dominate electorally by convincing you the other guys are just as bad, so might as well stick with the guys you know.

This is of course a nonsense. I really want to stress the nuance that whilst I am wildly unenthusiastic about the Labour party, but there is no universe in which they are just as bad as the Tories. What happens is the Tories come into power, drag everything further to the right, Labour follow a few paces behind, regain power, and maybe a light breeze might nudge them half a millimetre to the left, then the Tories take power again, and continue where they left off, maybe a couple of steps back just to warm up the people for their policies again.

So Labour are always preferable to a Tory party – but only in that the Tories of 2010 are technically preferable to the Tories of 2019.

I like this song a lot as it personifies the right-wing politicians who benefit from voter apathy the most, goading and mocking the listener as she has her musical villain song explaining her devious plan. And it’s an important thing to be aware of. Voter apathy is a legit feeling, but do be aware that by definition, the right-wing media want to push this on you. It’s very hard to get a lefty to vote Tory, but it’s very easy to get a lefty to not vote at all.

And this is on Labour to make us want to vote for them, don’t get me wrong. But also be aware of any external factors that are pushing this apathy onto you, as it may be being triggered deliberately by disingenuous outlets.

Also, after Black Stone Cherry it’s nice to finish with a rock song that I’m not low key embarrassed that I like. Skunk Anansie are great, and no one talks about them enough, superb band.

And that’s the list, hope this gives you some catharsis in this… vague shrug of a time.

If you enjoyed reading this, why not check out our upcoming shows in Manchester here: https://www.outsavvy.com/organiser/blizzard-comedy

Or if you’re not in the Northwest of England very often – you can catch our online shows here: Twitch.tv/blizzardcomedy

See you next time!