Later that year, Steven Van Zandt invited in much of that same group, plus luminaries from Rap and R&B, to protest apartheid in South Africa. In 1985, Bob Geldof assembled the first Live Aid concerts, which featured many of the Amnesty Rockers alongside the most iconic names in Rock and Roll. And their makers took it further - past the FM dial and past MTV - into action. This was what post-Thriller radio sounded like. We were not so innocent anymore.Īmnesty Rock was not Folk music. And Henley - the drummer with the perm and the voice, who nobody thought of as particularly political - suddenly showed up with an Amnesty International button and admitted what the Yuppies knew but didn’t want to say: the old fight was over. Neil and Lou, meanwhile, kept their critiques local and sharp. Similarly, there was the short step from Springsteen’s earnestness and Mellencamp’s heartland hamminess. That being said, there was a strong through line between the African rhythms that Paul Simon borrowed for “Graceland” and the freakish, irrepressible ones that Phil Collins introduced on “No Jack Required.” From there, it was not a long jump to the Caribbean beats on Sting’s “Dream of the Blue Turtles'' or to the artsy, robot funk on Peter Gabriel’s “So.” Musically, these albums were united less by style than by purpose. It was “Amnesty Rock” - a term we never actually used but intuitively understood. It was wildly eclectic and deeply empathetic. For half a decade, the CD racks in nicer suburbs looked like this:ĭuring those years, a new genre of Rock music was born.
Hell, even Don Henley - who never seemed to have any real opinions about anything - suddenly had big ideas. Just as the Boomers were turning forty, but right before Generation X had discovered their angst, we received a string of indisputably prestigious albums from indisputably righteous men: Collins. For whatever reason, we were no longer content with rich, talented and famous men simply being rich, talented and famous. We asked these guys to help diagnose our collective ennui and to prescribe solutions. With jobs and suburban homes and families, what was there really to be upset about? And, even if we were upset, without JFK or MLK, who would we turn to?Īccording to the radio and MTV and Rolling Stone magazine, there was only one answer: Rock stars.
It was 1985 and - on TV at least - the world was white, clad in colorful polo shirts and ready to party.Īnd yet, even for those white people in polo shirts who were ready to party, there was a longing. We literally had “Money for Nothing.” So, if you just squinted and looked straight ahead and ignored all the other stuff - racism, sexism, crack, AIDS, poverty and famine - things looked pretty darn good. Disco was dead and Punk went underground.