- The fight against the Adani company’s proposed Carmichael coal mine feels like it has been going on for many years - probably because it has. It’s around ten years since it and a slew of other thermal coal projects in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland were floated.
There has been a lot attention given to the various policies and protests around the Adani mining and coal in general, but not much given to the music about the topic. That’s set to change with the release of a compilation of twenty-three songs and poems called Rock'n'Roll For Blocking Coal, in conjunction with the activist group FLAC - also known as Frontline Action On Coal.
Despite the title of the album, only a few of the tracks would normally be thought of as rock'n'roll songs. There is a fast and furious death metal style track from Kavati -aptly titled Black Lung- as well as a crunching, driving riot-grrrl number from Monkey Grip entitles Sorry.
Also included are a few different styles of spoken word tracks, however, as the promotional material for the album says, these songs are the sound of nights around the campfire and picket lines singalongs. Many “were sung and even recorded at Camp Binbee, the home of the movement to blockade Adani.” So it’s no surprise that many of the tunes are folk-style ballads featuring acoustic guitars and the occasional harmonica - the sort of songs you’d traditionally expect on an album of protest songs.
If that's not your jam though, there's more music to this movement. Stretch Fabrigas break it up with a hip hop track unsubtly titled Adani Stinky Farty and there’s a dance style track which could just become the sort of viral ear worm that every protest movement could do with - Zelda Da with Never Gonna Build That Mine. A catchy, easy to memorise chorus in a dancable ditty. Have a listen and just maybe see how you go with singing along.
I don't think anyone would deny that it's a dark, deeply divided time for the nation. It seems like there are few things capable of bringing us together with that knotted mass of 'the opposition'; those folks selling our future for this week's paycheck. At times like this, music is a vital glue, something to join us together in a way that the endless round of ideological arguments cannot. I'm not saying Rock'n'roll For Blocking Coal is going to have FIFO coal miners dancing in the street with the picketers, but it makes the long road to an uncertain future, seem a little more like the right one.
- Andrew Bartlett.