It has never been a requirement of protest music that a song literally instruct us to "look what's going down." If a song can make that work, cool. But it wasn't a requirement in 1967 and isn't a requirement in 2016. We don't seek instructions in the music of, say, BEYONCÉ or KENDRICK. We seek sound and feeling and rhythm and aesthetics and mood. We don't need instructions to know what the artist is trying to say. We didn't need instructions from the ROLLING STONES or MARVIN GAYE either, even if once in a while they gave them to us anyway. If we hear it enough on the radio, or YOUTUBE, or in the air as we walk down FIFTH AVENUE, we'll get it... THE RINGER's ROB HARVILLA wonders what cultural protest will look and sound like in the DONALD TRUMP era, and I can't help thinking that to some extent we already know. Turn on the radio. Fire up YOUTUBE. Dance. As the election made clear, AMERICANS didn't just start feeling angry last week. The anger is longstanding and deep, and it informs a good deal of great pop music in 2016, both sonically and emotionally. On the surface, Harvilla, whose piece is very much worth the read, is thinking in terms of KANYE WEST or DIXIE CHICKS moments or GREEN DAY concept albums, and someone will deliver something like that. But he's smart enough to not wait around for that to happen. "Your chosen spirit guides," he writes, "might address your despair, obliquely or directly; they might offer pure escapism, eschewing despair entirely. Anger, joy, whimsy, resilience. Whatever works, or whatever might." He finds his particular protest on this particular day in a 12-year-old TED LEO song, which probably didn't make a lot of people's protest-music roundups in 2004, because protest music, and protest moments, never sound quite like what you expect them to... But speaking of Dixie Chicks moments, here'sCUMULUS programmer CHARLIE COOK's handy guide to how to use your power as a radio programmer to stifle political dissent... Also, how about that A TRIBE CALLED QUEST album?... MOSE ALLISON used his laconic wit to protest things big and small—or just make fun of them—in songs that straddled and/or obliterated the lines between bebop and blues. I know hardcore jazz fans who discovered rock through him, and hardcore rock fans who discovered jazz through him. His death on Tuesday, at 89, makes it four distinct American music treasures lost in a week. I'm begging for mercy, even if I don't know the meaning of the word... RIP also HOLLY DUNN and MIKEY BORENS.