Rock N Roll is Dead (And We Like It)

It's true. In the shower this morning I realized music has been rotting away miserably at its core for years. I woke up humming "Emotional Rescue", thinking that the Stones needed to rescue themselves. There have been several turning points, in my mind, that led to this demise: the death of Jimi Hendrix, the death of Jerry Garcia, the death of John Lennon, and the rise of the "bubble-gum" hip-pop industry in the late 80's and early 90's. Honestly, the last great musical wave was Punk; it was nasty, hard, political and meaningful. It was raw and uncontained. Now, even punk is pop and marketable, i.e. Blink 182.

We are now Pavlov's dogs, conditioned to three minute ditties with formulaic rhythms and sounds. Are any of these artists mildly distinguishable from one another?. The radio pounds these artists into your head, MTV and VH1 have the videos and interviews on loop, media campaigns staring the artist selling their new jeans, their new perfumes, a new clothing line, hit puree, and, presto, another faithful listener, another consumer. And, let's be real for moment, what do these pre-pubescent boppsters and mid-life crisis cronies have to say about life, about anything? Nothing. Everyone's talking about their ass, how lovely it is, condensing emotionally crippled ballads in a chorus of three and four word emptiness. It's a disgrace. Of course, this raises larger questions of how we, as a society, are being conditioned to feel and think about the world we live in; in other words, helping to contain our emotional responses to situations and the world around us.

I'm sure you are asking, "Well, what do you listen to?" Good question. Just about everything: Jazz, Jam Band, Rap, Bluegrass, Blues, Acid Jazz, Funk, Punk (Rancid/Flogging Molly/Dropkick Murphy's..Etc), Electronica, Classic Rock (Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, The Talking Heads...The list goes on and on.) (And, yes, I know they are a bunch of old and out-of-the-way white radicals, but, hell, everyone has to start somewhere) I leave County music out because it is void. And, seriously, it's not even country anymore, it's Pop-Country. Furthermore, it's ethnocentric and, dare I say it, full of misery and self-loathing. Folks, that's why people created the blues, to let others know how they was feelin', and it sure as hell has more soul and creativity. Do I feel that everyone should listen to subversive elements from the mainstream? No. It's matter of taste for each person, taste which is highly questionable, but for God's Sake can we demand more innovative music please?

If what we have on the radio today is the evolution of music, if this is what music is to become, then I, for one, am opting out. It's time to de-evolutionize music. It's time that we took back music from the record companies. No more formulas, no more Idols, no more making 400 percent profit on CD's and downloads. The time has come to feel music again, believe in music's healing powers, music's communicative powers, not just its capital value. This nonsense pushed on us today is not music; it's simply musical advertisements. Rock N' Roll is dead, and we like it.