Protest music?

This is a particular bugbear of mine. I often go off on these jags on 'how come Dylan/ Young/ fill-in-a-name have to write protest songs forty/thirty/twenty years after they first started? How come no one's interested in doing that any more' and then descend into a foaming rant in which the words 'sellout', 'wankers', 'greedheads' and such can barely be made out before J kindly leads me away from polite company into a darkened room and my favourite straitjacket.

But I digress.

The point is, it's not that simple. Read this.