There’s a postcard in front of me I like. It’s a drawing by cartoonist Robert Crumb depicting three people in old-fashioned clothing playing instruments. They are accompanied by a caption that reads, “Where has it gone, all the beautiful music of our grandparents?” At the bottom is a small but grim answer: “It died with them. That’s where it went.”
I don’t know if I necessarily agree.
I was at the flea market over the weekend, and I made three amazing discoveries: The Beatles’ second album, which I’m listening to right now, a Johnny Cash album from 1959 and a Ray Charles album from 1962 — all on the original vinyl and purchased for a total of $20.
Thus, the beautiful music of our grandparents and parents didn’t die — it ended up at flea markets and garage sales.
Despite that music’s accessibility, however, it’s important to appreciate the metaphorical meaning of Crumb’s cartoon: Most of today’s music basically sucks.
There are some good artists here and there. Personally, I would say the White Stripes make pretty good music. A good portion of today’s music, however, consists of homogenous “punk” rock, homogenous metal, homogenous garage rock and homogenous rap. And don’t even get me started on Kenny G.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, jazz accounted for only 2.9 percent of 2003 music sales. In 2002, Columbia Records dropped Wynton Marsalis because the company wasn’t confident it could sell enough of his records to earn back the $1 million in royalties that Marsalis was demanding, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Meanwhile, Kenny G’s Web site boasts that his plastic cookies of eternal damnation have sold more than 70 million copies over the last 20 years.
Truth be told, anyone who has heard 15 seconds of anything by John Coltrane or Sun Ra won’t be terribly fond of Kenny G, and he is thus a fairly easy target.
Nevertheless, I can’t help but think that overall, music has been declining for a while now.
For example, I’ve noticed that more often than not, even the fastest, loudest and most distorted rock music coming out today lacks the energy of rock and rhythm and blues from the ‘50s and ‘60s, or even that of Billie Holiday tunes from the ‘30s. The reason for this is most of today’s music simply lacks the true emotional depth that, on earlier recordings, turns three chords into artistic expressions. Instead of the anger, pain, sadness and happiness that informed the great music of yore, we have today what could best be thought of as a darker version of “my imaginary baby loves me” blandness.
Connected to the lack of emotional depth is the lack of originality. Even though rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll artists in the past used the same basic song formula, it is still possible to tell Fats Domino from Ray Charles, Elvis Presley from Gene Vincent and the Clash from the Sex Pistols. This is because even though they all played the same types of rock music, all were different individuals and bands with different life experiences. They were playing the music they loved, not trying to sound cool or marketable. They didn’t even have to engage in the genre-bending of ‘70s bands, such as Jethro Tull and Yes.
Music — or any art — is like therapy.
Perhaps we should be encouraging kids to make their emotions into art instead of drowning them with Prozac and Ritalin.
Write to Alaric at
ajdearment@bsu.edu
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