Rock and Roll’s origins coincide with one of the most aggressively rapid periods of social change in the history of the United States. This is no coincidence. During the late 1960s popular music gained the power to unite people under tumultuous periods of duress. It proclaimed that the times were “a-changin'” and that we would, indeed, overcome. These messages of hope struck chords in the ears of the rising radical left to such a degree that at one time it seemed possible that a Bob Dylan song could free a man from death row.
As Matthew Herbert proclaims on his newest project, “Everything’s Changed,” the climate for protest music since the 1960s has become stigmatized by something even worse than the common tag of “idealistic.” It has become cheesy and almost pass
