Monthly Archives: August, 2011

MTV has announced it will be adding a new category for videos that featured a positive social message or raised awareness of issues that are important to today's youth for this year's Video Music Awards show. The new category, called "Best Video With a Message", is in recognition of the many artists that have come out recently with gripping videos that centered around key issues for many young people today, and spoke out against bullying, discrimination against gays, and promoted self-empowerment. Some of the socially active artists have been Pink, who recently came out with a powerful video "F***** Perfect", which dealt with female self-empowerment, and Rise Against did "Make it Stop (September's Children)", a video speaking out against gay teens being bullied at school.

Stephen Friedman, MTV's president, said in a statement, "During the past year, we've seen a remarkable number of artists use their music to explore deeply personal experiences and issues they were passionate about to create powerful videos that resonated with and inspired millions of their fans." The videos that were nominated are:

Eminem and Rihanna - "Love the Way You Lie"

A video that illuminates the pain and perils of domestic violence.

Katy Perry - "Firework"

Celebrating the spark and originality in all of us.

Lady Gaga - "Born This Way"

Mother Monster gives birth to a world free from prejudice, judgment and self- doubt.

Pink - "F****** Perfect"

Pink lets out a cry of reassurance for anyone who's ever felt less than perfect.

Rise Against - "Make it Stop (September's Children)"

Rise Against reminds LBGT teens pushed to the edge that "It gets better".

Taylor Swift - "Mean"

Taylor cautions negative naysayers that being mean gets you nowhere.

To check out the videos and to VOTE for the best "social activist" video, go the MTV website by clicking here.

NukeFree.org's Harvey Wasserman, who has been closely working with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash, blogged the other day about "MUSE2 gathering" (Musicians United for Safe Energy); a musical concert to promote safe energy and to raise funds for victims of the Fukushima disaster. The concert reunites Raitt, Browne, Nash, CSN, the the Doobie Brothers, Sweet Honey in the Rock and John Hall from the first MUSE concert in 1979.

Wasserman mentions how "Music has been a unifying, empowering force for social movements for decades", and how it was present in the labor struggle, the civil rights struggle, and during the 1960s social revolution. The first MUSE concert was held in 1979 after the melt-down at Three Mile Island in 1979. It was a 5-night concert at Madison Square Garden in New York. It featured Springsteen, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Peter Tosh, and the 7 bands mentioned above.

Read the Blog below, and for more information please visit Nukefree.org and Musicians United for Safe Energy website. Below you will find a clip of the 1979 "No Nuke" concerts held in New York.

Green Music Returns to Confront Atomic Power
by Harvey Wasserman
(From: NukeFree.org)

Amidst a life-and-death struggle to finally shut the nuclear energy industry, the power of green music flows again this Sunday. 

It's also pouring over the Internet, as the historic all-day MUSE2 gathering is staged at the Shoreline Amphitheatre south of San Francisco, re-uniting Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Crosby-Stills-Nash, the Doobie Brothers, John Hall, Sweet Honey in the Rock and many more who'll sing to benefit victims of the Fukushima disaster and promote a green-powered Earth.

The concert runs from 3pm through the evening Pacific Time and comes as the nuclear power industry desperately seeks federal funding to build new reactors while fighting a tsunami of citizen opposition demanding the shut-down of aging radioactive power stations.

Music has been a unifying, empowering force for social movements for decades. The labor union movement used it during strikes and solidarity marches. It was at the heart of the most powerful campaigns for civil rights. A whole generation's demand for peace in Vietnam got electrified with rock and roll.

And yet another round of citizen activism against nuclear power has been put to music from the grassroots and the sound stage, including that of Musicians United for Safe Energy.

(Photo cedit: Kevin Winter)
MusiCares, an organization that is part of the Grammy foundation which "provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need", honored Neil Young with their "Person of the Year" award for his philanthropy work and musical legacy. Neil Young and his wife Pegi opened the "Bridge School", an "innovative organization educating children with severe speech and physical impairments", and hold benefit concerts every year to raise funds for the cause.

Many artists showed up to pay tribute to Neil Young and MusiCares, from Sheryl Crow to Elton John, and performed some of his biggest songs. The concert was filmed last January in LA, and is currently playing on VH1 Palladia in HD. It will also be available on Blu-ray DVD soon, and proceeds from the sale will go to MusicCares for their work in helping musicians in times of financial and medical distress.

For some great pictures of the event go here, and here is a video of Lady Antebellum singing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".