http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-05-17-protest-songs_x.htmBy Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY
Initially, music's response to the war in Iraq stirred little more than sounds of silence.
Today, outraged artists are mouthing off in songs that don't stop with appeals for peace, love and understanding.
Let's Impeach the President is one of the incendiary titles on Neil Young's Living with War, a potent set of songs slamming the Bush administration. It opens in Billboard next week at No. 15 after selling 60,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Paul Simon's Surprise, landing one notch ahead with sales of 61,000, includes the tune Wartime Prayers, which observes that "people hungry for the voice of God hear lunatics and liars." It's Simon's highest chart ranking in the SoundScan era. Opening sales for both are considered substantial for veteran acts shunned by radio.
Younger artists also are finding that politics and profits aren't mutually exclusive. Pink's I'm Not Dead, which has sold 327,000 copies since April 4, features an eloquent but scathing indictment, Dear Mr. President.
Pearl Jam's self-titled album, which entered at No. 2, has sold 365,000 copies in two weeks, partly on the strength of World Wide Suicide, a ferocious swipe at leaders who "tell you to pray while the devil's on their shoulder."
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