I know it’s been a while since I posted. Planning season, lots going on with the house…you know the story.
Anyway, there’s been a post rattling around inside my head for a few days now, and I gotta get it out there. It deals with one of my biggest frustrations – the lack of good rock music.
Part of me wonders if this is what my Dad must have felt like as Doo-Wop died and the music he grew up on started to fade away. It must have been frustrating to not be able to replicate that great feeling you get when you buy a record you absolutely love, go home and literally wear out the record because you love the song so much. As far as I’m concerned, there have been precious few of those records since I graduated college. Worse yet, they’ve been more difficult to locate.
I think the advent of digital technologies forever altered the way music is put out. But there was one change that I thought would come about that never really did. Whereas when I was a kid, a band could put out an album with only one or two good songs on it and still chalk up album sales, the dynamic is completely altered in the age of iTunes. Now that every song is a single, kids can and do cherry-pick the songs they like and pay only 99 cents a pop for them, rather than blow $10-15 on an entire album and be disappointed when they listen to it all the way through. I thought this would force artists to weed out the weak stuff and give us more songs that could stand on their own. Fat chance.
I think I must have underestimated inertia. I can rattle off dozens of bands that put out a great song and pushed it on satellite and Internet radio and got me interested enough to buy a whole album. Maybe they won’t score album sales with the kiddies, but they might be getting full-album sales from older buyers like me who are used to supporting artists with good tracks by buying the entire thing. Problem is, I’m probably now going to switch my habits because I’m tired of getting burned.
I think the overall problem, though, goes back to weak songwriting. There just aren’t that many artists who can continually and consistently churn out great songs. Mind you, I’m talking about great songs, not great tracks.
There’s another problem. My mechanism for discovering great music has completely broken down. When I was in high school, my friends and I would spend a lot of time listening to music together. We’d cruise around in one another’s cars, or we’d sit around in someone’s basement listening to stuff, and it was a great way to find out what everyone else was listening to and discovering. I recall eagerly anticipating bringing an album that no one had heard yet to the next gathering, popping in a cassette tape and saying, “Wait’ll you get a load of THIS!”
When I was in college, we’d all be going to see new bands every weekend. When I lived in a fraternity house, everyone would have stereos in their room and would be blasting stuff they liked all the time. It was impossible to NOT be exposed to new stuff.
Now that I’m old and lame, I can do two things – 1) Ask my buddies what they’re listening to, and 2) Log on to stuff like Pandora or get Apple to make music recommendations for me. Problem is, the technology just isn’t there yet, and my friends are all stuck in the same ruts I’m in, their mechanisms for discovering new music having broken down the same way mine have. As a technologist, I have some faith that someday, a technology solution will emerge that will help connect people with music they like. But it’s just not there today. Apple tells me I might like AC/DC. Great, I knew that in 1980.
Since 2000, I’ve discovered maybe a dozen albums that I like to listen to all the way through. Here are some of them:
- Coheed & Cambria – Second Stage Turbine Blade
- The Click Five – Greetings from Imrie House
- Creeper Lagoon – Watering Ghost Garden
- Further Seems Forever – Hide Nothing
- Gringo Love Show – Gringo Love Show
- Jack’s Mannequin – Everything In Transit
- Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American
- Mae – The Everglow
- Matt Wertz – Twentythree Places
- My Chemical Romance – The Black Parade
Of the artists listed above, only a handful released anything afterward with strong enough songwriting to carry me through the album all the way through. Coheed drowned in their own concept albums. Gringo Love Show broke up. Mae released disappointing follow-ups. Jimmy Eat World put out albums with a couple strong songs per release, but with junk strewn throughout the rest.
My point here is that I really don’t have too many artists to cling to anymore. When I was a kid, I’d wear out just about everything that Van Halen, AC/DC, Def Leppard, the Police, Pink Floyd and Ozzy put out. Where are those consistently good artists today?
I guess no one wants to slide into middle age and become that nostalgic old fart who sits around dismissing what kids are listening to and comparing it to what was popular “back in the day.” But you know what? I am. I’m hoping technology will save me. Then there’s what my cousin is doing. I can only hope that he and Sandy decide to take Dromedary off hiatus and help us get guitar-driven rock back. I don’t always like everything Cousin Al recommends, but he’s responsible for my finding at least two or three of the really enjoyable albums I listed above.
Screw my MTV. I want my rock back.
There are, of course, tons of guitar-driven rock bands out there who have released decent records, but your overall point is well-taken. I just fell victim to it myself, with the latest Manic Street Preachers record. I’d heard one or two songs from it that I absolutely loved, and when the record finally got its US release this week, I snagged it off iTunes – and was extremely disappointed.
And yes, I have noticed that while indie rock continues to grow in popularity, there’s something missing from it: guitars. It seems that everything out there is acoustic or synth-based; otherwise its this new trend toward whiny, sappy emo-screamo-pseudo metal that my son listens to.
So thanks for the consistent props on the blog and the whole concept. The reality is that, yes, we are strongly considering reviving Dromedary, as a digital-only entity. I’m currently exploring options for distribution and digital marketing (boy, it would be great if I knew someone who could help me crystallize some of my ideas in that area). If I find viable solutions for both, then you’re likely to hear some new music.
You know, with guitars.
Yeah, the Manic Street Preachers thing will join the rest of the detritus on my iPod, occasionally coming up on shuffle to remind me that one song can get someone to buy an album.
Hey – If there’s a way I can help you, you always know I’ll do what I can. I have great respect for what you did and will reiterate what I said at your 40th – You’ve got the money, you’ve got the time – now it’s time to go back and take another stab at it.
BTW, the Polvo record is growing on me. Not one of those instantaneous classics by my estimation, but it’s growing on me. Thanks.
Totally agree. I think about this a lot. As far as consistency, probably being a sell-out here, only Radiohead comes to mind to me…every album has a better than 50% balance of great songs.
I think part of the problem, too, can be illustrated by your Do-wop example; it gave way to electric folk and blues music. peoples’ tastes either evolved to the new genres or they suffered from what we’re suffering from. In this, case, I feel like rock…and the reactions we had to it growing up (“check this out!”) has been deposed by hip-hop. Not the “hip-pop” crap that’s out there. But certainly artists like Jay-Z who have more than a decade of consistent sales results and entire albums of great songs…yes I consider them songs because they’re “street poetry” that capture the artist’s history and feelings succinctly and in their own language.
But I also tell you…I can’t really get enough of The Black Keys these days, either; especially when I need a dose of raw, under-produced garage guitar. It’s like eating a peanut butter & jelly sandwich after a week of dining on haute cuisine…sublime in it’s simplicity and lack of pretense.
My 2-cents.
I tried really hard to get into Radiohead, Steve. There are a lot of people I know whose musical tastes I appreciate who swear that they’re putting out compelling stuff. Unfortunately, I just can’t get into it. Neither can I really get into hip-hop. There are a lot of classic hip-hop songs I like, but I can’t even follow a lot of the new stuff.
I am going to check out the Black Keys, though. Thanks for the reco.
Right this minute I am streaming the new Flaming Lips album “Embryonic” via http://www.colbernation.com/home
For the Pink Floyd side of your tastes this might work… Certainly worth streaming – I’m digging it…
Sometimes, you have to go backwards to move forward. For example, Have you ever listened to “Red” by King Crimson?
Have you tried Morphine (the band)? Not a guitar to be found, but a brilliant trio of albums in the 90′s “Cure for Pain” “Yes” and “Like Swimming” Happy to put together a compilation disc for you.
Spos,
This is what happens in the cycle (if you will) of music appreciation.
- the music you enjoyed “gradually fades away”..
- you begin to “learn to like” some of the “new stuff”….
- but, you still listen to “the old stuff that faded away” and will forever be indebted to it.
- you retire to Florida and find a group or form your own band (with cousin Al) that plays “your music that faded away.”
Your “Rock is now back”!!!!!!!!
Dad
While I agree that there seem to be less and less rock bands that can even hope to compare to the greats of the past, much of it has to do with lack of exposure. Rock just isn’t played on the major radio stations or on MTV anymore (except for a precious few – U2, Radiohead, Coldplay, Green Day, etc.), and movies use classic rock or modern hip-hop for soundtracks.
The death of the album has definitely had an effect as well, but this is nothing new – back in the Doo Wop and early Rock days there weren’t really albums- people bought 45s with B-Sides. It wasn’t until rock really took off and singles were longer than 4 minutes that full albums became the norm. The re-focus on the single is what is driving sales again.
That said, there are still a lot of rock bands that put out good album after good album. The Hold Steady, Arcade Fire, King Khan, The Black Keys, and Queens of the Stone Age, just to name a few.
A good place to find new bands is actually Amazon’s “listmania!” and “So you’d like to…” sections located at the bottom of an album’s page. They are lists made by fans of albums, bands and songs that you might like if you like the album you’re currently on.
There are also a million blogs out there dedicated to exposing new and good rock music that might otherwise go unheard by the masses.