If it had been intentional, it would have been a brilliant strategy - take an early lead and shit on everything to slow everyone else down.

I know a lot of people who have danced along to “Beds are burning” and have no idea what the song is about, even though it’s not exactly subtle.

Or the Dixie Chicks.

Or my favourite band, Die Ärzte - they realised that being subtle wasn’t good enough, so they had to directly tell a good portion of their audience that they didn’t want Neo-Nazi fans, which they did in an awesome song called “Schrei nach Liebe”, which starts with “Du bist wirklich saudumm” - “You’re really fucking stupid”, and has the lyrics “Deine Gewalt ist nur ein stummer Schrei nach Liebe” - “your violence is just a mute cry for love” and “Weil du Schiss vorm Schmusen hast, bist du ein Faschist” - “Because you’re scared of cuddling, you became a Fascist”.

Agreed about They don’t really care about us, but Man in the Mirror is more personal. Black or White has a certain political slant, and Earth Song has a very direct message.

Let’s look at some other musicians who might have a claim to “most famous ever”: Elvis was not really political - if anything he was pro-establishment.

Mozart and Beethoven however were very political. Beethoven scratched out the dedication to Napoleon in the Eroica when Napoleon made himself an emperor. Previously Beethoven had been a major supporter of Napoleon because he was pushing enlightenment ideals. Mozart was less directly political, but The Marriage of Figaro was very subversive at the time (which I know from the movie Amadeus, but apparently that checks out).

The Beatles didn’t start out political, but they became more so over time.