Angry new songs to change old worlds

Asian Dub Foundation, Primal Scream's new album - pop has suddenly come over all political again. And the music's pretty good too, as Nicholas Barber discovers

When an Oasis lyric starts to make some sort of sense, you know it's time to sit up and take notice. Admittedly, much of "Go Let It Out" made no sense at all, but the refrain definitely had something to get off its chest: "Is it any wonder why princes and kings/ Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings?/ Ordinary people that are like you and me/ We're the keepers of their destiny." The last Oasis single to comment on anything more political than the pros and cons of Class-A narcotics was "Cigarettes And Alcohol" in 1994: "Is it worth the aggravation / To find myself a job when there's nothing worth working for?" From then on, it was all wonderwalls and not looking back in anger. If Noel Gallagher can top the charts with a republican grumble, change must be afoot.

When an Oasis lyric starts to make some sort of sense, you know it's time to sit up and take notice. Admittedly, much of "Go Let It Out" made no sense at all, but the refrain definitely had something to get off its chest: "Is it any wonder why princes and kings/ Are clowns that caper in their sawdust rings?/ Ordinary people that are like you and me/ We're the keepers of their destiny." The last Oasis single to comment on anything more political than the pros and cons of Class-A narcotics was "Cigarettes And Alcohol" in 1994: "Is it worth the aggravation / To find myself a job when there's nothing worth working for?" From then on, it was all wonderwalls and not looking back in anger. If Noel Gallagher can top the charts with a republican grumble, change must be afoot.

Not convinced? Well, remember that the year 2000 has also seen a number one single called "The Masses Against The Classes", this time by the Manic Street Preachers. Day One's excellent debut album, which came out last Monday, contains a track called "Love On The Dole". And 2000's best-reviewed record so far, Primal Scream's Exterminator, is a seething depiction of a dystopian Britain: "All jails are concentration camps/ All judges are bought/ Everyone's a prostitute/ No civil disobedience," intones Bobby Gillespie on the title track.

These lines might not give Woody Guthrie much to worry about, but Exterminator's burning conviction has already had an influence. Andrew Montgomery, the singer of Geneva, has described the album as "a paragon of virtue among a load of dross". In a recent newspaper article, Montgomery complimented Exterminator's "brave social message, which sets it apart from the introspective bands clogging the charts at the moment. Perhaps it'll jolt people into putting political messages in their music - it certainly had an effect on us."

And there's more. The The's new LP, Naked Self, includes such anti-consumerist tirades as "Global Eyes" ("Market Force is the new dictator/ Manipulator and annihilator"). And albums by Britain's two most subversive bands are due imminently. Tomorrow, Asian Dub Foundation release Community Music, a Molotov cocktail of rap, ragga, rock and techno which calls the Government, the police, the banks and the media to account for their racist self-interest. Then, in April Chumbawamba release WYSIWYG, their first album since Danbert Nobacon emptied a bucket of water over John Prescott at 1998's Brit awards. British pop seems to be at its most dissident since the days of punk.

Meanwhile, just three years after Noel Gallagher and Neil Hannon lent their credibility to New Labour, a crowd of musicians are campaigning for the opposition, ie, Ken Livingstone. Damon Albarn has been supporting his old mucker's candidacy for months - the would-be mayor contributed a droning vocal to Blur's Great Escape album in 1995. Now that Livingstone is standing as an independent, Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers are among the other celebs who have promised to help.

Not everyone sees this as a sign of pop's new-found political conscience. "I think that's got less to do with politics than bigging up the underdog," says John Pandit, the DJ/ vocalist of Asian Dub Foundation. He can afford to be cynical. While a few stars might pal up with someone who seems, for now, to be sexily seditious, ADF have always put their time and money where their mouth is. Formed in an East London music technology workshop for young Asians, they have maintained close links with the project: their new album is named after it. "People have said, 'You can't call your album Community Music, that's just not hip!'" says Pandit. "They say, 'That's not how music's made. New music doesn't come out of voluntary-sector projects. No, it comes out of chance meetings of supremely intelligent but badly behaved boys.' It's all part of the celebrity myth."

ADF's resistance to this celebrity myth is as radical as their music. Instead of seeing pop success as a credit card to buy cocaine, champagne and front-row seats at fashion shows, they are committed to grassroots activism. Their priority is education, education, education, via Community Music, but they have long been involved in other causes, the best publicised of which being their fight for the release of Satpal Ram, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983 after killing a racist attacker. But Pandit reveals that the band will be taking time off from this work to do their bit for Ken Livingstone. "He's now in a boy band with us," he deadpans. "It's like Tom Jones and the Stereophonics. We'll be doing breakdancing and bodypopping and he'll be singing an old Geri Halliwell number. We're calling ourselves High Street Ken."

Does Pandit think that other bands are becoming more political? "I think all things are political," he fires back. "I think the Spice Girls, Britpop and manufactured bands are the definitive Nineties cultural- political statement. How come Britpop didn't have a bhangra band or a reggae band? At least during punk 20 years ago, it was ordinary to see reggae bands touring with punk bands. You never saw Britpop bands taking out African bands on tour: that is political. The Prodigy thought it was cool to call a record 'Smack My Bitch Up': that is political. It's deliberately political and deliberately conservative."

Pandit's memory of Britpop apartheid may be a little skewed - the Prodigy, after all, are half black and half white - but there was a complacency in mid-Nineties culture founded on the belief that London was swinging again and the Tories were hanging on by their fingernails. Britpop's insular, retro leanings were bound up in that optimism. "Shoegazer nation forever looking backwards," sneer ADF on their single, "Real Great Britain". "Time to reject the Sixties' charade."

Now that the Labour Government is two and a half years old, the mood has changed. "It's not just pop groups, it's the populace," says Alice Nutter of Chumbawamba. "There's been a sea change. Bands including us are going with the flow rather than leading. Before, if you said you were left-wing, you were the loony at the bus stop. But now, with all that stuff that happened in Seattle, instead of it being a few loonies who attacked capitalism, suddenly capitalism was seen as being in the wrong and the World Trade Organisation was seen as being shifty and corrupt. And that Primal Scream album: there are lines about Marxism on that. Chumbawamba's problem is we did it before it was part of the culture. We were the loonies at the bus stop."

Nutter believes that young people "don't believe in parliament any more". The resurgence of political pop follows the rise of extra-parliamentary direct action - climbing trees to protest against road-building or kicking in Starbucks' windows to protest against the spread of the tall, skinny latte. "The traditional methods of articulating any form of dissent have been lost," adds Pandit. "The Labour party, the voluntary sector, youth clubs, they've all been lost. People are starting to use other methods and other media to get the message out."

Pop music, then, may have a role to play in politics. But what's just as exciting is the notion of what politics might do for pop music. In concrete terms, a project such as Community Music, which teaches young people how to use recording equipment, could foster a new generation of musicians. To be more abstract, a few political convictions might help the directionless British music scene relocate a sense of purpose. However you vote, it can only be a welcome development if bands start to produce songs which have any kind of discernible subject-matter beyond their own vague dissatisfaction with life. "I'm a bit dubious about the idea that suddenly it'll be fashionable to be political," says Nutter. "That means that in six months' time it'll be deadly unfashionable. But I think it's great that there are bands doing good cultural pop music. When we say politics, it's a myriad of things. It's about the culture we live in. So hopefully bands will write about things that are more interesting than love and self-obsession."