Monday, October 26, 2009
Rage Against the Machine
A host of prominent musicians spoke out on Saturday against the use of music to torture detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo—long after revelations first surfaced of the government’s tactic of blasting rock and pop songs during interrogations. The protesters included REM, Pearl Jam, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Jackson Browne, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, T-Bone Burnett, and David Byrne. A few musicians, like Morello and Reznor, had complained previously about their music being used as part of harsh interrogation techniques. But many others had not.
Andy Worthington, who wrote on the subject last year, discovered in 2008 “a generally indifferent industry, in which some of those whose music had been used were indifferent (Bob Singleton, for example, who wrote the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur, another music torture favorite), others (Metallica) were ambivalent, and others (Drowning Pool, for example) were positively gleeful about it.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Musicians (Finally) Say No To Music Torture (by Andy Worthington, The Public Record)
A History of Music Torture in the “War on Terror” (Andy Worthington)
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