Do you think there’s no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. Every month, I listen to it all, then select the best that relates to that month’s political news. Here’s the round-up for September.
1. EDDY MACK - SON OF AN IMMIGRANT
US rapper Macklemore called for a "free Palestine" from the stage while supporting pop megastar Ed Sheeran on September 4. His speech, along with his politically-themed set, sparked a petition from the Israeli American Council. Jewish billionaire Robert Kraft refused to let Macklemore play at a stadium he owns and rallied other stadium owners to do the same. Sheeran - who claims to be politically neutral despite supporting multiple leftist causes in the past - announced he was dropping Macklemore from the tour. As a result, all of Sheeran's support acts dropped out to protest against Macklemore's cancellation. On the same day Macklemore kicked off the controversy, US-Jordanian rapper Eddy Mack released his new album, which opens with the pro-Palestine song "Can't Cancel Me". Days later, he posted a photo of himself with Macklemore, who then announced his own "Free Palestine" tour. LISTEN>>>
2. ANYX - STARLINK
World leaders walked out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations in New York on September 24 as he defended the genocide of Palestinians. On the same US visit, he had been due to meet the world's richest person, Elon Musk, who placed a satellite in orbit for Israel last year. Meanwhile, Musk blasted a new documentary about him, which features the mother of one of his children saying he told her "lasers" from his Starlink satellite network would help get Donald Trump elected in 2024. It came after Berlin artist ANYX released her debut solo album, Starlink, which slams Musk's satellites. On September 24, Musk's fellow Trump-supporting, artificial intelligence-pushing billionaire Larry Ellison said he was using force majeure to protect his new data centre from protesters. Days earlier, Portuguese band The Black Wizards put out their new LP, which skewers such moves. LISTEN>>>
3. THE LINDA LINDAS - GOTTA GET OUT
Three days before his force majeure move, Ellison cleared another legal hurdle when his family was allowed to take over Warner Bros and its Trump-resisting news network CNN. The decision came after Trump banned CNN and other unfavourable news networks from the White House on September 18. The same day, US blues musician Seasick Steve released his aptly-named album, The Last Season of America. On its title track he sings: "Whoa, have you come to see the last show? It's the last season of the America that we know." That followed the new LP from The Linda Lindas, whose protest songs went viral in 2021 after they started their band as schoolgirls. On its single "Blood On Our Hands", they take aim at Trump's wars, climate vandalism and tax-dodging "big beautiful bill" with the words: "I don't care about your wealth, I don't care about your tax breaks. Nothing big or beautiful about a fascist state." LISTEN>>>
4. NEIL YOUNG & THE CHROME HEARTS - SECOND SONG
Legendary rocker Neil Young, whose 2025 song "Big Crime" also called Trump a fascist, released his latest Trump-bashing LP on September 18. On "Soon I Might Be Going", he blasts Trump's destruction as he sings: "Soon I might be going, so I wanted you to know, the sun's sure hot today in Canada, wherever people go. They're looking at the sky like they're waiting for a change. The clouds that used to pour the rain are billowy and strange. Yeah, that's the way I see it and I wanted just to say, people like you and me are feeling different every day. President was on TV, says everything is golden. He's tearing down the old White House, those days were never olden. The bears are trying to hibernate but can't find where to go. 'Cause everything is different now just like a TV show. We have to take it as it comes, as some are like to say. But you know, and it seems to me, that's not what's right today." LISTEN>>>
5. BIG NOTER - SONGS IN THE KEY OF WRESTLING
Racist politician Pauline Hanson, who has been making headlines by importing Trump-style politics into Australia, inspired students to walk out of class in protest again on September 17. The move came after she sparked outrage by calling Aboriginal people "the most primitive race on Earth". Yet in the aptly-named book Indigenous Australia for Dummies, Aboriginal professor Larissa Behrendt says because Aboriginal people had achieved social cohesion and sustainability "some would argue that Aboriginal cultures are 'advanced' and some other modern cultures are 'developing'". The same sentiment is found on the debut album by Big Noter, the hardcore punk band of Yorta Yorta rapper Briggs, released the day after the students' protests. On it, guest rapper Chuck D from Public Enemy praises Briggs' people for "trying to teach new Australians the meaning of civilisation in the face of white supremacy". LISTEN>>>
6. TOM MORELLO - EVERYONE GETS EVERYTHING THEY WANT
Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who also guests on Big Noter's LP, released what he called his "first solo rock album" a week later, as fascism continued its rise worldwide. On "Date Night", written with his 15-year-old guitar-shredding son, he sings about three Dutch teenage girls who murdered Nazis: "We killed them in the ditches, we killed them in the streets, we killed them in the forests, in the fields, and on the beach." But the highlight of the album is "Unconquered", his collaboration with radical Irish rappers Kneecap. On it, Morello brings would-be Mars coloniser Musk back down to earth with the refrain: "Let the rich go colonise Mars. I prefer the gutter, looking up at the stars." Kneecap then pull in climate-wrecking politicians with the words: "From the warmest of summers to cold winters, the hold of power is becoming thinner: Message From West Belfast to Westminster." LISTEN>>>
7. THE MARY WALLOPERS - PADDYWHACKERY
Also sending a message from Ireland to England are Dundalk folk punks The Mary Wallopers, on their raucous new LP, released the same day. On album opener "Crowns of England", they sneer: "The butcher's apron wavin' in the fragrant London smog, just makes me want to go beyond a-workin' in the bog. For all the crowns in England, I couldn't quench my thirst. I wandered back to Dundalk town, the place that quenched it first." And on album highlight "The Big Mixer" they tell how the kind of abuse Robert McAlpine’s construction firm meted out to Irish immigrants working in England in the 1930s continues today. "Peter, he fell from the scaffold," they sing. "They had him replaced in good time. Computers scan barcodes in Tescos, space rockets shoot into the sky. Breakin' your back for the bosses, to put enough food on your plate. By the time that you've paid off the landlord, there's just a few pennies to scrape.” LISTEN>>>
8. THE PROCLAIMERS - YOU MAY OFFEND
That anti-English sentiment boiled over into action on September 14, when nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland signed a joint agreement to break away from Britain and rejoin the European Union. The Scottish view is voiced loud and clear on the latest album from chart-topping twins The Proclaimers, released three days earlier. On "But It Is" they note how Britain's moral authority collapses under scrutiny, singing: "We say that's not who we are but it is. When did we decide to aid a genocide? We say that's not who we are but it is. Causing hunger, following warmongers to the deepest pits of hell. We talk of barbarism like we left it in the past, while we elect malignant scoundrels, each one as bad as the last." Served up with the help of Manic Street Preachers guitarist James Dean Bradfield and the Manics' producer Dave Eringa, the LP is about as catchy as protest music gets. LISTEN>>>
9. POKEY LAFARGE - RENT MONEY
Pokey LaFarge takes aim at the rent-seekers closer to home on his impeccable new album, Rent Money, released on September 11. On its title track, the unique blues-folk artist croons: "First of the month, so it’s time to pay the rent, that’s how the money’s spent. Here come the landlord, knocked upon my door. So I gave him all my dough, that’s where the money go. The man got to get his paper, he’s not a giver, he’s a taker. What can you do, what can you say? Nothing today, hey. The good Lord giveth, the landlord taketh away." On "Work", he berates the exhausting toil to meet those bills and on "Stick Together" suggests unity as an answer. Two weeks after the LP's release, Australian media said Gen Z Aussies were living with their parents in record numbers after being priced out of the property market. Yet the same media continued to attack the government over its minimal policies to reduce house prices. LISTEN>>>
10. EMPRESS OF - DREAM HOUSE
Even if you're eventually able to afford a house, it could go up in flames due to climate change. That's the message on the new album by Honduran-American synth-pop artist Empress Of, written after her family home burned down in the 2025 California wildfires. The album, titled Dream House, is about the rebuilding of that home. On its opener, “Wild Storm” she sings: “I lost myself in a wild storm. I’m home, left you all alone.” But most of the record is determinedly upbeat. “My dream is about to get true,” says the interlude “Welcome to the House”, and "Blue Light" promises "good things are coming". All the more cruel, then, that its release on September 18 came just three days before California declared a state of emergency as an El Niño weather system "supersizing before our eyes" and "literally off the charts" raised the threat of "damaging storms, widespread flooding and mudslides". LISTEN>>>
[Mat Ward has been writing for Green Left since 2009. He also wrote the book Real Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Country and makes political music. This year, Mat Ward released his latest album, Dissident Ditties.]
Want to get this column every month? Just email [email protected] and I’ll add you to my monthly email that includes a link to this column here at Green Left. Yes, I want to read this column every month.
Read about more political albums.
Stream our new “Best protest songs of 2026” playlist on the evil green platform, Spotify or transfer it to a streaming service of your choice. This replaces the previous “Political albums” playlist, that was getting too big at more than 700 albums.