"Battle Fatigue": 2006 Pop Music Showed Increasing Political Consciousness About Iraq War...

"Battle Fatigue": 2006 Pop Music Showed Increasing Political Consciousness About Iraq War...

"I was a lover, before this war." Those are the first words sung on TV on the Radio's "Return to Cookie Mountain," one of the most widely praised albums of 2006. Whatever the line means within the band's cryptic lyrics, it could also apply to the past year's popular music. Thoughts of romance, vice and comfort still dominated the charts and the airwaves. But amid the entertainment, songwriters -- including some aiming for the Top 10 -- were also grappling with a war that wouldn't go away.

Pop's political consciousness rises in every election year, and much as it became clear in November that voters are tired of war, music in 2006 also reflected battle fatigue. Beyond typical wartime attitudes of belligerence, protest and yearning for peace, in 2006 pop moved toward something different: a mood somewhere between resignation and a siege mentality.

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