A theory of mine…


Has anyone else noticed the brain cell-reducing slump in modern popular music? There seems to be a trend here. Think back to the very beginning of modern music as we know it. We had jazz in the Roarin’ Twenties, then we had the desecrated thirties that everyone likes to sweep under the rug and ignore. Next came the baby boomers of the forties and fifties; blues in their purest form, and the beginning of rock and roll that we can never seem to relate back to no matter how hard we try. The sixties melted our faces with LSD-induced ‘psychedelic rock’ that no sober brain will ever be able to comprehend in its full (example: the Doors). Those smoky tunes bled over into the first half of the seventies, but that misled second half is where we really begin to see the down fall of modern rock and roll.
The last half of the 1970s was a running paradox, the strange unknown popularity of disco and the birth of true punk circa 1977. This unlikely parallel shows the gradual tear of time (good music) and space (bad music). Punk was just beginning. It wasn’t good in the likely sense, but it was genuine. They didn’t want you to like them, but that hatred for their audience made them that much more desirable and marketable. You hated to love them and in return they just flat out hated you. None of them could sing, none of them knew what tuning was, none of them believed in personal hygiene. It was one big foul-smelling, out-of-key orgy that only lasted for about 8 years. Nothing but true rock and roll could attempt that and make it seem… attractive.
Disco was, however, the complete opposite. It was poppy not riffy, disco believed in deodorant (I hope), and disco had mirrored light balls rather than dim, smoky clubs. In simpler terms, it sucked. Disco was and is (sadly, I can include an ‘is’ and not be lying) the epitome of all things evil. This began the pop singer era, and triggered the downfall of good music. As one week ended and another began, the fifteen minutes of one has-been was extinguished as the beginning of another triple-octave voice tried in vain to become the only classic disco singer. It was like clockwork. Each week, there was a new voice shrieking from the stage, or the speakers, or however disco clubs made music for that ugly gyration people called ‘dancing’. Here’s an example to clear up what I’ve been saying and sum up this section: Name one disco band that has survived the last thirty years? (silence) I rest my case. Granted, I’m sure it was fun to go to the discos every weekend just to see which permed-up guido was going to catch their aqua-net-advertisement hair on fire, but honestly, I don’t think disco should have survived as long as it did. Bad disco! Now hang your non-existent head in non-existent shame for inspiring 80s pop!
Eighties music, after the late punk, is some of the worst noises I’ve ever laid ears on. Punk seemed to rapidly morph into horrible hair bands that know only three chords, and countless boys dressed as girls. ‘Hey guys! Let’s rat up our hair and put on buttloads of make-up to make girls wanna have sex with us! I know it’ll work! Heeheehee!’. Thus, the birth of butt rock, and the continued downfall of good music. Luckily, from this abysmal era of bad music, bad hair, and even worse clothing, a timeless beat known as grunge decided to jump out from tiny clubs in Seattle and in to the main stream, thus doing a favor to both music and clothing.
This is one of the only eras I am happy to talk about when it comes to main stream music. Grunge saved everyone’s ears from permanent tone-deafness. Sure, its almost impossible to understand what any grunge talker is saying, but you must admit- their deliverance and general arrangement of simple chords is heart-warming and easy on the ears. The same ears that had been previously raped several times by 80s “metal”. Butt rock. Not metal, butt rock.
Of course, when one grungy idol blows his brains out, music decides to lose its way and give in to rap. I don’t understand rap, but what I can decipher from it is that its like some sort of updated disco. Grunge died with the demise of its epic leader, Kurt Cobain, just as psyche rock in the sixties and early seventies died along with the demise of its epic leader, Jim Morrison. Coincidence, or proven theory? Yep.
So as I sit here, basking in the melodies of my mid-nineties rock, I think about how rock, not the entire music scene but a good majority of it, has given in to this “hardcore” stuff. Everyday someone likes to greet me with a new, made-up “core”. As far as the eye can see its hardcore this, grind core that, street core this, ska core that, skate core this, scene core that, emo core blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! I don’t know what any of them really are, all I know is that they all seem to suck about as much as it is possible to suck. None of this hardcore is music. They scream. They play punk-esque riffs. Then another one screams. Good job, you took a simple chord, and a simple drum beat, and added screaming and crying. Congratulations, I am going to go throw up.
And that’s my train-wreck thoughts on music over the last century.