20 Rock + Metal Songs With Social Messages

Music has the power to move people. It also has the power to move them to action. For generations, artists have infused bitter experiences of discrimination, abuse and war into their songs, from Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” to Pussy Riot’s “Putin Will Teach You How To Love.” All genres have their socio-political anthems that ring through time, but it’s especially common in rock and metal music.

The horrible reality is that we live in a world where there are always multiple human rights atrocities taking place at the same time. Right now, civilians are being bombed in the Gaza Strip, Uyghers are being detained and tortured in Chinese internment camps and Ethiopian and Eritrean troops are blocking critical aid from reaching the starving people of the Tigray region. In the United States, we only just recently saw a police officer convicted on murder charges for the wrongful killing of a Black man — for the first time.

READ MORE: 13 Heavy Songs We’ve Definitely Cried To

Here are 20 Rock and Metal Songs With Social Messages that confront these and other monumental injustices in America and abroad.

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