Music & The Media

Apparently Maddy Costa of the Guardian had some trouble compiling a list of optimistic songs about the media.

As Costa notes, "Musicians do not view the media with respect, admiration or trust. They view its institutions with profound suspicion, partly provoked by an uncomfortable sense of neediness (how else are we to hear about the world - through text messages?), and, possibly, a primeval desire to shoot the messenger who bears ill tidings.

1 It's Good News Week Hedgehoppers Anonymous
2 Sunday Papers Joe Jackson
3 Black Diamond Bay Bob Dylan
4 Six O'Clock News Kathleen Edwards
5 What's in the Headlines Don Covay
6 Reuters Wire
7 Headline Hustler 10cc
8 Piece of Me Britney Spears
9 Evening News Chamillionaire
10 The 4th Branch Immortal Technique

Okay...so it took a while to find ten. Sure didn't take too long to find some negative songs about the media:

1. Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan
2. The Boy on Top of the News - Diesel Park West
3 Here is the News - ELO
4. Wire - Kidney Bingos

5. Mean Mr. Mustard - John Lennon

6. Angry Mob - Kaiser Chiefs
7. News of the World - The Jam

8. And the War Criminal Rises and Speaks - Okkervil River
9. Mr. Reporter - The Kinks

10. Mr. Writer - Stereophonics
11. The Writer - UFO
12. Tornadoes - Drive-By Truckers
13. A Day in the Life - The Beatles

14. Scum - Nick Cave

15. 6 O'Clock News - Paul Simon
16. Station Underground News - King Koba
17. Evening News - Cee-Lo

18. Headline News - Edwin Starr
19. Thunder - It happened in This Town

20. What's the Frequency, Kenneth? - REM
21. The Fall - Mere Pseud Mag Ed
22. Television - Disposable Heroes
23. American Pie - Don McLean

26. Headline News - Mikey Dread

27. World Service - Spear of Destiny

28. Front Page News - Wishbone Ash
29. TV News - Living Colour

30. Kevin Carter - Manic Street Preachers

31. Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television (The Drug of a Nation)
32. What's in the Headlines - Don Covay

33. Headlines - White Williams

34. Pills and Soap - Elvis Costello
35. Radio Radio - Elvis Costello

36. Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon
37. Yesterday's Papers - Donds for the Stones
38. News and Tributes - The Futureheads
39. Float On - Modest Mouse (kind of a stretch)
40. Fish 'n' Chip Paper - Elvis
41. It Says Here... - Billy Bragg
42. Nothing Has Been Proved - Dusty Springfield
43. I'm the Slime - Frank Zappa
44. Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to be Loved) - Bright Eyes
45. Journal Burning Party - David Dondero
46. Revolution Will Not be Televised - Gil Scott Heron
47. Spoking Reporter - Deep Purple
48. Radio War - Iron and Wine
49. The Sun Says - Cock Sparrer
50. Daily News - The Exploited
51. News at Ten - Vapors
52. I Wanna Be Me - Sex Pistols
53. Bad Review - Half Man Half Biscuit
54. Power of the Press - Angelic Upstarts
55. Singalongabushell - Exploited
56. Press Darlings - Adam and the Ants
57. Suffer Little Children - The Smiths
58. Have You Heard the News - Talk Talk
59. Personal Journalist - Sage Francis
60. Opinions - The Fixx
61. The Late Great Johnny Ace - Paul Simon
62. Letter to The New York Post - Public Enemy
63. Make My Funk the P-Funk - Parliament
64. Radio Africa - Latin Quarter
65. More News From Nowhere - Nick Cave
66. Biko - Peter Gabriel
67. Disco-ing Journo - The Trammps
68. There is Nothing Wrong With Hating Rock Critics - Of Montreal
69. Donds for Evening News - Chamillionaire
70. TV Screen - Iggy Pop
71. Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance - Jonathan Coulton
72. Turn It Into Hate - Graham Parker
73. Richard Cory - Simon and Garfunkel
74. Radio Belize - Deep Forest III

75. Live Television - Youssou n'Dour
76. Idiot Wind - Bob Dylan

77. Talking Heads - Motorhead
78. You Never See a Nipple in The Daily Express - John Cooper Clarke
79. Death Letter - Johnny Farmer
80. Wrote for Luck - Happy Mondays
81. Field Day for the Sundays - Wire

82. California - Joni Mitchell
83. That's Entertainment - The Jam
84. News Comes On - Heat and Lights

85. The Morning Papers - Prince
86. Where's Bill Grundy Now? - Television Personalities
87. Welcome to the Working Week - Elvis Costello
88. Soon - The Blue Nile
89. A Lot of Wind - The Fall
90. How I wrote Elastic Man - The Fall
91. Idiot Joy Showland - The Fall
92. The Ballad of John & Yoko - The Beatles
93. It Says Here - Billy Braff
94. Sunday Papers - Joe Jackson

95. Bin Laden - Immortal Technique ft. Mos Def
96. Terror Couple Kill Colonel - Bauhaus

97. Dirty Laundry - The Eagles
98. Five Years - David Bowie

99. Halloween - The Dream Syndicate

100. If You were There Beware - Arctic Monkeys

101. The President's Dead - Okkervil River

102. Have you Heard the News - Neil Young
103. 16 Military Wives - The Decemberists