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Music is an important part of contemporary youth culture and the 1980s revived an age-old tradition among anarchists. Indeed, there has often been a love affair between art and anarchism, and this has also been the case with some music.
Of course, the characteristics are always hard to define. What some people call "music" is only "noise" for others. Furthermore, music cannot be reduced to a simple anarchist dimension. But if there are military marches and religious hymns, why should one reject the possibility of an anarchist music?
Music has often been associated with protest movements, but rebels are not necessarily anarchists, because they do not reject every form of domination. However, anarchist ideas may appear anywhere, sometimes in spite of the songster's intentions, or even because the audience interprets the text in that spirit.
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If the text may have anarchistic overtones, intentions, etc., what about the music itself?
It may qualify as such when it accompanies anarchist events, like during the protest movement against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 2000. But there are other possible ways of understanding music in an anarchistic spirit. John Cage writes:
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The anarchist marching band
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Art may be practiced in one way or another, so that it reinforces the ego in its likes and dislikes, or so that it opens that mind to the world outside, and outside inside. Since the forties and through the study with D.T. Suzuki of the philosophy of Zen Buddhism, I've thought of music as a means of changing the mind. I saw art not as something that consisted of a communication from the artist to an audience but rather as an activity of sounds in which the artist found a way to let the sounds be themselves. And, in being themselves, to open the minds of people who made them or listened to them to other possibilities than they had previously considered.
Cage conversation with Bill Womack (1979), in Richard Kostelanetz, ed., Conversing with Cage, New York: Limelight. 1988, 42
The selection presented here is debatable, therefore. Nevertheless, one can reject the argument that commercial music cannot be anarchistic. Certain songs have been censored or rejected by commercial firms until someone in the business found out that their publication was profitable.
In the 19th century, anarchist satirists were very present in French and German cabarets, but in the 20th those singers were long forgotten when in the 1980s Punks, Rockers and others appeared in addition to the folk singers. Indeed, such a type of rebellion was so ignored that the single word "anarchy", mentioned by groups who were not even anarchistic, suddently became a catchword and an invitation to discover the philosophy behind the motto.
For a long time, however, "anarchist" bands and singers reacted to events by expressing protest, indignation and denunciation, Then, after the eighties, times changed, commercial music marginalized all groups that were not mainstream, unions were crushed and radical and anarchist politics had to change.
Today, in the 21st century, a few "anartists" realize that reaction and denunciation is not enough. They also have to be proactive and offer positive views of an alternative world and lifestyle. Also, other forms of expression and possibilities are also springing up, such as carnival and street theater, and music can now be downloaded through the internet. New worlds are coming into sight.
The people, groups and music presented here have their limitations, of course. A large part of the information was gathered through the contributions of David Brown, at Recollection Used Books, but the mistakes are only mine. And I have probably omitted important figures. But the study of this encounter is a rather new field, which we hope will engender some original research.
Any mail and suggestions are welcome. You may write to me 
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