The "Woodstock" music and message is alive today. The difference between now and then is [View All]

that then the recording companies and radio were much less centrally controlled by a few mega-corps, and that those corps were less consistent and diligent in preventing populist or anti-establishment, pro-peace, anti-hate voices from being heard via the media they controlled. A bit more short-term profits oriented. The seeking of greater profitability naturally led to consolidation, as the bigger fish continued swallowing the smaller.

Once capitalism evolved to the next stage of monopoly capitalism, its agents began using that power to exclude voices which even raised questions about "the system." That did not stop artists and musical poets from telling the truth about how things are in this world, but it did keep them from getting millions of dollars of hype and publicity and being included on the playlists of the bigger chains. The result -- Disco and MTV and Pop and CW and Easy Listening. Sure, several dissident voices got through and made bucks for the owners, but they were just were just isolated voices in the sea of nonsense noise, and never enough come even close to defining the music and sentiment of a whole era. That is the difference. The corporate TV media aired 1000 pro-Iraq-War "experts" and three "anti." They do the same in music.

So we don't hear the voices of today's "Woodstock" artists as easily as then. They are not silenced, merely stifled.

I've included this link in my sig to help make those voices found and heard more easily. The site is very large but spottily maintained, so re-visits have revealed both new stuff and some killed links.

Take a listen. The difference between now in then is not so much in the music and message as in the ways distribution is being controlled, and, on the plus side, the way we the people can find alternatives that bypass that controlled messaging.

http://www.benfrank.net/nuke/Free_Peace_mp3s.html