Last month, not long after the Occupy Wall Street movement celebrated its first anniversary, Tom Morello and System of a Down's Serj Tankian rolled out their hard-rocking protest anthem "We Are the 99%."
With its mosh-friendly riffs and chant-friendly chorus, it's a long-awaited return to form by the once (and future?) guitarist of Rage Against the Machine.
Of course, it's also a reminder that in the dozen years since Rage disbanded, no artist has been quite as politically angry despite the one-two punch of the War on Terror and Great Recession. But we apparently remembered wrong, because despite a relatively lower level of outrage, a surprising number of great political songs have indeed emerged from this messy new millennium.
With the U.S. election heading into the home stretch and the debates in full swing, we thought it high time to take a look back at the 12 best examples of politics-infused popular music from the past dozen years. (It's not all abut you, Boomers!)