Friday, 05 June 2009
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American Idol=American Idiots, Pt. 3 (UPDATED)
The following post has been time-stamped, for which I apologize...it's not a practice of which I'm particularly fond. However, I wanted to post this update as a result of the great discussion that has arisen from this subject, and which expands greatly on the original work. The first part of this series can be found here; the second, here.
Now, title be damned: let’s forget about all that American Idol nonsense, because I’ve come to the part in which I want to talk about the American inability to rock—I mean really rock—and I’ve forgotten how I intended to tie it all together. Besides, I’ve been reading Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and despite having never been into acid (and certainly not being into it now), one need only look at the structure of this preamble to see that the book’s had enough of an effect on me to have jangled my circuits more than a bit. You know, I once heard someone say that every writer spends his career either trying to be Hemingway or trying not to be Hemingway, but I honestly think that Wolfe’s is the more infectious style: all those meandering sentences in which the punctuation is itself part of the show…Allow me a moment to shake this off.
Rock-n-roll was born over a period of time. There was no singular moment of musical autogenesis in which some previously-anonymous guitarist picked up his battered Gibson, and, in the throes of divine (or diabolical) inspiration, strummed out a particularly dirty handful of chords, proclaiming, “I dub thee Sir Rock of Roll!” as his amplifier howled in dismay (although it would certainly be cool if that had been the case). It was an American creation, this bastard child of country-n-Western, rhythm-n-blues, and probably some other things with hyphens flanking the letter “n,” but it was quickly taken away from us. In the 1950s, American rock was defined by a handful of early pioneers (Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Presley, and others), but during the ‘60s, the real innovations were coming from across the pond…from England. The Beatles and the Stones were just the spearhead of the invasion, as they were soon followed by the Who, the Kinks, and as the decade wound down, Pink Floyd (in its original, Syd Barrett-led incarnation), Cream, and Led Zeppelin. American standouts were harder to come by: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys produced what might have been the ultimate in feel-good bubblegum pop, doing so while revolutionizing the art of producing and mixing a rock album, and as the peace-and-love movement of the 1960s rotted from the inside and became darkly paranoiac, the Doors emerged to sing the funeral dirge for the hippie generation with “The End,” “When the Music’s Over,” and “The Unknown Soldier.” Influential as they were, though, the relative handful of American rock innovators were vastly outnumbered by their British counterparts.
Pop and rock had yet to divorce themselves from one another entirely, and for much of the ‘60s, rock remained, in simplest terms, merely the dominant style in American pop. Stateside-born rock-n-roll did its level best to keep pace with daring British imports during the 1970s; that it succeeded at all had more to do with the rise of Southern rock than any other particular rock offshoot. However, in the end, American pop came to be dominated by disco, the first in a long line of quasi-musical fads as vapid as they were inextricably linked to the decades in which they came into being (anyone remember “New Wave?”). By the end of the 1970s, even rock was seen as bloated and pretentious by the music intelligentsia—pop was already beneath their notice by this time—which led to the rise of punk, ostensibly a return to rock’s stripped-down, rebellious roots…but that’s another story entirely.
Once again, I seem to have let myself get mired in the rich history of the genre, and even though I’ve condensed it so ruthlessly as to court charges of criminal negligence, I’ve used up all my space writing about said history. Rather than make you wait any longer for the meat of the piece, though, I’ll just soldier on ahead. Perhaps I can wrap this up in much less space than it took to begin the journey…
American rock is virtually nonexistent in this, the early 21st century. Don’t get me wrong: there are some forms of rock that continue to flourish here. For example, America can certainly smelt some fine, high-grade metal; in a society as economically and socially divided as ours, the youthful hostility at the heart of metal in all its myriad forms is easy to come by (that same sense of rage brought us hip-hop, too, so the next time you hear a metalhead bashing “rap,” remind him that they share very similar psychological roots). There are also a few diluted strains of wannabe-punk that occasionally emerge as temporary inheritors of the rock-n-roll attitude, but they lack the progenitor strain’s honesty and refreshing lack of sophistication. No, there is very little music produced in this country today that can simply be called “rock”…there are no AC/DCs, no Deep Purples, not even any Led Zeppelins or Black Sabbaths.
When is the last time an American-made album hit the listener with such power, such potency, that it made you believe you had heard the very first note of a revolution in progress? When Black Sabbath’s titular track first assaulted listeners with its plodding diabolus in musica main riff, the audience knew: change had come. When Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” writhed through the listeners’ collective minds like a sweaty, sinuous Lothario, the audience knew: change had come. When Pink Floyd released The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973, arguably the first (and maybe last) modern rock-n-roll masterpiece, the audience knew: change had come.
It’s been some time since an American rock album let anyone know that change was coming. Innovation in American rock is virtually unheard of, and the establishment is hardly challenged when music has become little more than a product peddled by massive entertainment conglomerates who—as one look at the ledgers proves—represent the very worst the capitalistic establishment has to offer. During the 1980s, the only band fanning the fire of good ol’ American rock-n-roll—until the debut of Guns N’ Roses, then years away from becoming a parody of themselves—was, in fact, a British band: the Cult. During the 1990s, the sullen reaction to late-’80s hair metal, grunge (a musical movement which, to the casual observer, looked like a gaggle of angst-ridden heroin junkies with only passing familiarities with their instruments playing at being “serious artists”), made intermittent stabs at relevance, but its own ill-defined malaise and general ennui were ultimately its undoing.
Does this country even remember rock-n-roll? Do we remember its power, its purpose, its ability to push envelopes and challenge sensibilities? Or has the rock-n-roll phenomenon run its course, fated to drift into obscurity while fragmenting even further into micro-genres (what the hell is the difference between “emo” and “screamo,” anyway?), doomed to obsolescence by the pervasiveness of prepackaged pop music? Is the driving force behind modern music so far removed from the urgency, the immediacy of rock, that we have been left with naught but the pop rubbish peddled by such schmaltz-fests as American Idol? Must we forevermore recoil at the horrific realization that we are both consumers and perpetrators of such pop showcases, circuses of inanity in which only safe, bland contestants are deemed palatable by the unwashed masses, and in which true talents whose attitude and raw chutzpah—yes, chutzpah, and maybe moxie, too!—are ignored in favor of those aforementioned safe choices?
Oh, look…I remembered how American Idol was supposed to figure into all of this!
If you actually read this meandering missive to completion, I applaud your tenacity (and your patience). Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sleep off the effects of this Tom Wolfe novel.
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Comments (35)
I used to ask myself similar questions then I just decided that I am old. I am hoping that by the time my son starts listening to music, I will be fully (or selectively) deaf.
Sadly, all the good music nowadays comes from Scandinavia. Although Anti-Flag is a vice of mine (yeah, I know, they're not rock). Thanks for explaining the disappearance of rock. I was wondering why it was the only bands I came accross from were acts such as Disturbed and U2.
I have read this entire series with great interest, and great respect.
One thing I think you're failing to take into account is the lifespan of ANY kind of popular music.There are a limited number of notes and sooner or later it all has been done.
Most popular music has a life span of 20 years or so (ie the Big Band era),usually less. Rock has had a longer run than most.
As for the lack of American innovation during it's run....I put it down to too many distractions.
An excellent series.Well written and poignant.
Well done.
yup. I hear you.
j.
@Erika_Steele - I have a teenage son. There are days when deafness would go a long way toward keeping me sane.
@Bricker59 - You're right, Brick: rock has far outlived most musical trends. The thing is, though, it did that through constant evolution and adaptation; it just seems like there has to be more room to experiment and innovate! But alas, I'm not so certain anymore.
Tom Wolfe will not let you rest. He will come back on you like a bad burrito.
Music? I know what I likde. I can't explain, and I don't understand the technicalities. I have always thought that there are some truly innovative artists in Rock nands, and heavy metal bands, yet that some bend to the fan base, and some settle into a formula, and some may not have the commanding voice within the group that effects change. I read Eric Clapton's autobiographyand learned of all the bands he was in, and how he recognized talented people who were in the kind of rut that stifles creativity, at least for a time.
I recall Parliament/Funkadelic, and all the really goof musicians, and all the promise that never went very far.
And I think there have been some musicians who are innovative,but since they don't sing or play the lead guitar, then they sometimes don't get the recognition for contributions that push the envelope.
We get the popular bands on the national stages, but there's alot happening in small towns. Garage bands, if I may call them that, are pregnant wt raw talent; talent that isn't afraid to innovate because they can; because the local fans allow them that freedom.
I've gained insight from your 3 part post, and from Zerowing's post about music.
Excellent, excellent article. I thing you've summed up a broad subject quite nicely.
A few years ago, perhaps around the time that MTV was slowly abandoning the music video, I heard the explanation for the disappearance of iconic artists put thus: real talent costs money and gains power. Disposable artists are much more profitable for the record companies because they don't negotiate expensive contracts. (For that matter, they are also less likely to become influential voices for social change.) So there was sort of a industry-wide movement to shy away from true talent.
There are still some great rock records coming out. Wilco, though perhaps in decline and now putting out generally softer material, recorded a series of great albums, some of which rocked pretty hard. There are definitely some C&W inflections here and there, especially on their earlier works, but there are plenty of great, full-out rock moments and a lot of progressive, experimental sounds. AM and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are personal faves.
Excellent. Though... I am not sure if we are living in the same country. I hear what you are saying in a lot of ways, but I am coming across music that knocks my socks off on a daily basis. A lot of it is what I'd consider true rock... though my true favorites lately have been those who rock but slant towards an alt country or americana feel... but that is just my personal preference. The thing is, you're not going to hear most of it on commercial radio. But commercial radio has annoying car dealership adds on it anyway. I listen to minnesota public radio's the Current a lot. ( can be streamed at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/) And I check out a lot of playlist.com and napster, etc. I'm babbling now. It just hurts my heart to hear anyone sound the littlest bit cynical about the growth and evolution of music these days. Still, fantabulous post.
@MooncatBlue - The fact that one has to go to such lengths when seeking out decent rock music is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about, though: rock used to dominate the pop world. I remember hearing great stuff on the radio as a kid. Now rock, in all its myriad flavors, has been relegated to secondary status. There might still be some great rock being created, but there's so much dreck by comparison...blllechh. Still, I get where you're coming from.
@mysterylad - True, the way you put it. I guess I've never been one to look at the mainstream, though, so I don't have the same disappointments. To me it's not going through lengths though... it's more like the fun sensation you got looking for stuff under rocks as a kid. Well, if you were me, I guess. I might have been a weirdo.
@MooncatBlue - No, I don't think you're a weirdo...I like to dig, too! I only lament rock's disappearance from the mainstream because, historically, rock used to enjoy a prominent place there, and I fear it will rot and die without the fiscal support of the mainstream music industry, which clearly prefers steaming piles of feces to actual music. Of course, in the Information Age, maybe it doesn't matter; people will find the good stuff anyway.
As far as stylistic tastes go, I'm just not hearing anyone pushing the rock envelope the way it was pushed by Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc. I wish my own musical abilities weren't so rudimentary; if I could play the way I wish I could play, I'd rip that envelope wide open! For the time being, though, I'll just have to settle for occasionally rising above my own mediocrity. LOL
@mysterylad - if you think about it though, artistic evolution, main stream or other trend-wise... it's always kinda more cyclical than linear, I think. stuff always comes back.
@MooncatBlue - Good point! We'll discuss this again in 20 years.
@mysterylad - better hope my Buick has a good sound system, then. =0p
@MooncatBlue - OH, SNAP!
Excellent post and well written.
I am not a music expert, much less and expert on our pop culture these days. I am rather out of touch with the modern pop culture and don't even watch American Idol. I suppose there are some talented people out there, but I would rather spend my time doing other things that watching television.
I loved the music of the late 60's and the 70's, everything from Bob Dylan to the Beatles; Crosby Stills and Nash, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,the Eagles, Elton John, Joan Baez, and the list goes on.
There are a few artists that I hear now and again these days that I like (being an old person and all
) such as Ben Harper or Jack Jones. Don't care for the Britanny Spears or the (gasp)Beyonce kind of stuff.
The music of the 60's and 70's reflected the revolution of the times back then. A lot was happening; Viet Nam being one of the most devastating.
@mammaquiet - As should be obvious, my favorite era is the '70s, but most of my favorite artists from the period began writing and recording during the late '60s. What a great era for rock-n-roll!
You raise an interesting point when you mention Viet Nam. Bear with me for a second...
Modern youth faces challenging, confusing times. The (unwinnable) war in Afghanistan...the (unlawful) war in Iraq...economic hardship...the widening gap between the religious and irreligious segments of the population...the fear that education is no longer the key to success...an environment in crisis...human rights abuses the world over...the lingering stench of a presidential administration that may have been a collection of war criminals and profiteers, followed by an administration that may turn out to be incapable of delivering the meaningful "change" it promised (thus begging the question, "Is the system beyond saving?")...the media's penetration into our everyday lives...
There is a LOT going on right now, too...so where is the modern reaction in music? Where is are the modern protest/awareness songs, which (if they existed) would be analagous to the protest/awareness songs of the Viet Nam/Watergate/civil rights era of the '60s and early '70s? Certainly nowhere near the pop mainstream, that's for sure.
Disco was a feel-good reaction to awareness music; tired of deep music that was musically and lyrically challenging, the pop audience gravitated to meaningless sounds that celebrated hedonism and self-interest. My theory is that pop music has become stuck in that role, and in his comment above, distractedbyzombies raises an excellent point, one that suggests an explanation as to how it got stuck there: it may well be in the music industry's best interest to keep the music simple, generic, and not in any way challenging.
I wonder...when gangsta rap first emerged, was it really the violent content to which critics were reacting, or were they just unsettled by the fact that an increasingly-popular form of music was drawing attention to the horrific conditions in the gang-infested inner cities? I also wonder...is it any coincidence that grunge, the last form of mainstream rock to address any meaningful issues, didn't actually do so within the music, instead focusing on existential nonsense and saving its activism for heavily-marketed media events? Was grunge the point at which social issues and music were finally divorced from one another?
Heavy stuff to contemplate.
@distractedbyzombies - Mark, that bit about the industry having a vested interest in "keeping it simple" is pure gold, and has come to factor heavily in my evolving ideas on this subject.
i dig your response to mammaquiet. and the updates. see. all about evolution.
I don't have an answer. I do know that the men of my generation were being drafted into a war they did not believe in. That affected us deeply. I also know that 1967 was the Summer of Love, and Woodstock happened in 1969. There was an awakening all over the world, a "peace and love" revolution, if you will. There was an awakening and an awareness during those years, and I have not seen anything like it since.
I wonder if modernity has quashed the scene, with its iPods, and TV, and radio, and all the techno-instant-ness? In my youth, let's say in the 50's, information came by word of mouth. Concert venues were scace. The radio wasn't very progressive. TV was Lucy and Desi, December Bride and a host of old radio personalities doing the same old Amos and Andy, Bob Hope, Milton Berle on TV that they'd done on radio.
Slowly, the kids of the 60's and 70's began to demand concerts, and air play, and with that proliferation came a need for bands to expand their repertoire, to be inventive. The British invasion, so-called, really put the pressure on.
That was then, this is now. We are inundated with noise of all kinds, music of all kinds, opinions of all kinds, with a head phone in one ear, and a text book open, and a laptop open, and the other ear trying to hear the conversation of whomever is sitting across from us at the bistro, and the mind boggles, juggles, boggles some more, and becomes immune.
We have lost our general, basic, should-ought-to-know history, so is it any wonder than if something innoventive came along that many of us might not be paying enough attention to recognize an ":Sweet, Jesus!. Listen to that will ya?" moment.
Karaoke, jukeboxes, smoke and beer and increasing decible levels drown the sensibilities, as they numb the brain to cognitively connect something new and different from same-o, same-o.
This is bleak! But where are the garage bands, the kids with a pawn shop amp and a battered guitar? Where are the lyrics that aren't some variation of other Rap that is played to the same basic Johnny 1, 2, or 3 note hynotic drone?
We have killed Rock. We have about done ourselves in with our own ennui.
Hell! I should have become my mom and pop by this time in my life. Trying to get them to listen to Buddy Holly or the Stones was next to impossible. I should be them, rejecting anything new. But, I'm not them, and I'm hungry for kids to pull the plug on their iPods and actually listen to each other, to something they can experience together. I'm hungry for someone to hear you play. When Zerowing discusses Wagner in light of Meat Loaf, I want the kids of today to listen and appreciate the difference and to effing understand the antecedents, as they revel in what they hear today, so they can appreciate something that is unique should it come along.
Rock isn't a one person invention, and I'd love it if kids could hear scott Joplin, or Louis Armstrong in the 20's and 30's, or Art Tatum, or Bix Beirderbecke, or Gene Krupa, or Ella and Frank to see how their breath control allowed them to BECOME instruments; an extension of the band, breathingalong with the trumpeter or the rombonist. effortlessly.
Some where along the line we had to go through Bill Monroe and Jimmy Davis. Somewhere we had to go through Les paul, Roy Brown, Churck Berry, Erline Harris, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker - not to mention gospel,Chicago blues, boogie-woogie, folk and swing, picking out a riff here and a note there to form something called rock, even if on the fringe rather than the leading edge.
The artists of today may not be much brighter than the fans, picking up from someone else and essentially replicating, rather than tweaking and experimenting.Some of the best G-dam music is on the net, indy bands and solo artists, and singer song-writers - none as yet polluted by the big lables and the gawdamighty dollar.
Here's the crazy guy talking now. I want Obama to blow the lid off this country by reaching out across the waters to other cultures. As Britain once led American Roll N Rol, I wonder what's happening in Accra, or Belarus, or Tel Aviv, or Mumbai, or Sao Paulo. I want to exchange people and music and culture. I want to see what the comparative New Kids On The Block ar doing in the dusty streets of Quito where the rondador might be the new rock instrument, or in Kiev where a balilaika might be the infusion that's considered Rad, and brilliant, and precis to the score.
That's it. I'm done.
No I'm not! What are you doing to get outside the groove, the box, the ennui? Write that damn river concerto or opera. Stretch, even if you have to take the route of Richard Dreyfus in Mr. Hobbs' Opus, and work on it for 20 years.
I have to take a nap now.I wore myself out.
@jrmaxwell - You wore yourself out with frakkin' awesomeness!
I would love to see what kids are coming up with in other nations. A couple months ago, I watched a documentary called Heavy Metal in Baghdad, about (wait for it...) an Iraqi heavy metal band trying to write, practice, and gig in war-torn Baghdad. The music was terrible, little more than a crude replica of early Metallica, but the spirit underneath it...the desire...the longing. These kids could barely play, but they loved what they did. It was very rock-n-roll.
You're not going to let me leave the river idea unfinished, are you? LOL!
@mysterylad - I watched a generation of Black musicians and Black comedians do more for the Civil Rights movement than all the politicians put together, even MLK.
We're either hardwired, or highly atuned to hearing and appreciating music, I dream of Bono or Willie or Perelman or Steven Tyler or Gene Simmons or Yanni, or Sir Mick and non-Sir Keith, or someone touring the world and walking the streets of Baghdad or Bangkok, and just stopping by to play a short gig with the street urchins, or the locals down at the coffee shop. Hell, Bela Fleck, Lucia Micarelli, or Allison Krause. We need ambassadors like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to once more take America on the road with music as the greeting card, instead of bullets.
No, I won't leave the river alone, nor will you. The trick is not to let it consume you, but for you to absorb it, and when you're sated and satisfied (which never really happens in art that someone is fully satisfied) you can release it, give it freedom, give it wings. You'll do it because it IS hard. You'll do it because it's orgasmic, the ultimate high, a love affair with a mistress of the only kind that a wife will tolerate to be under the same roof.
@mysterylad - Thanks. I'm reading this whole thread with much interest. Glad you bumped it.
By the way, Mike, I finally purchased a replacement power supply for my functional drum machine. >:) So I can actually program now instead of trying to tap out live tracks with my fingertips.
It's going to be an interesting summer. And an interesting 2010, at 33 years of age.