Has the crushing weight of living in a globalist, capitalist western society got you feeling down? Well, do we have just the solution for you! Introducing: anti-capitalist pop bops! For the low price of a Spotify subscription, you can get a little pick me up as you spend your day working for someone richer than you!
Rina Sawayama – “XS”
Was there any doubt that this would be the first listing? One of the best songs of 2020 was a calculated attack on the cost of capitalism, from its drive of climate change to the extreme wealth disparities between the rich and the poor.
Revolutionary Lyrics: “Gimme just a little bit (more) / Little bit of (excess)”
Passion Pit – “Take A Walk”
The 2008 Great Recession was an eye-opening disaster for the millennial generation, as Wall Street executives vacationed through a crisis of their own making and a self-described progressive President failed to take on the full breadth of the corruption. In the face of all that dread, Michael Angelakos narrates the life of a man who loses it all but falls prey to the capitalist system that exploits him with an ignorantly blissful tune.
Revolutionary Lyrics: “I watch my little children / Play some board game in the kitchen / And I sit and pray they never feel my strife”
Carly Rae Jepsen – “LA Hallucinations”
The Canadian sweetheart doesn’t hate California – at least not anymore – but she’s no fan of it here. The excessive wealth displayed by the world’s rich and famous in LA, and the profiting of the media off of running celebrities into the ground, is enough for her to declare to need to be “shaken” from a capitalist nightmare.
Revolutionary Lyrics: “No shop can fill me up / There’s a little black hole in my golden cup, so / You pour, and I’ll say stop”
M.I.A. – “Borders”
M.I.A. gives a nod towards world communism, with a query that get’s straight to the point: “Borders / What’s up with that?” She questions the purpose and existence of borders that are used to divide humanity when there is much to be gained from the uninhibited circulation of culture and ideas.
Revolutionary Lyrics: “Borders / What’s up with that?”
Nine Inch Nails – “The Hand That Feeds”
No anti-capitalist playlist would be complete without representation from the rock genre, which often screams dead in the face of tyranny and corruption. The group blasts the Judeo-Christian Bush administration for launching a war for oil across majority Muslim nations, a critique of American imperialism and culture at large.
Revolutionary Lyrics: “And behind it all there’s a price to be paid / For the blood / Which we dine / Justified in the name of the holy and the divine”
Listen to the rest of the playlist below:
