In the last post, I dealt specifically with metal. Of course, it isn't entirely true that all American bands are boring (because there are quite a few I enjoyed from the 90s and beginning of the 2000s), but the output of American music by and large took an enormous plunge: Even my cousin earlier wrote about bands he enjoyed (although a few he mentioned were of British origin, he did mention Metallica) being currently awful.
At my birthday party, one of my very good friends talked about the length of current songs. Now, my sister earlier than that defended song length as a staple of a certain genre, but I would have to agree with the friend that it may be a sign of our dwindling attention span. Maybe I am already skewed because in my view, any song less than 5-7 minutes long is extremely short. But even before I started listening to Prog, my satisfaction usually rested at 4 minutes as a decent length, and I remember feeling that even Linkin Park's songs were too short, and they were around 2:30.
But on the subject of song length, I think what's happening may be reciprocating. That is, the industry is producing artists and songs that are shorter and that people are listening to them. Many of the industry's target demographic don't really have a choice of what to listen to, and the only option left to them is to either force themselves to enjoy the auditory rape or go back in time, which explains why there are so many little kids running around saying they listen to bands from the 60s and 70s. Not that bands from that era are bad in any way (I happen to really enjoy listening to YES and Pink Floyd), but it's kind of anachronistic: How could these kids possibly find out about The Grateful Dead?
I think part of the problem is how new artists are produced, and we need to look no further than American Idol and Disney. I happened to actually like watching American Idol, except that it seemed to prove me right. There are people on the show who can actually sing and have actual talent, but there is an enormous discrepancy: The discrepancy exists between talent and marketing; to clarify, the best performer may not win, hence why Adam Lambert lost to Kris Allen last year, and Crystal Bowersox lost to Lee Dwayze this year. As it happens, Kris Allen and Lee Dwayze are exactly the same artist: Little scruffy kids with an acoustic guitar, annoying nasally voice, and zero stage presence. However, it is also true that Adam Lambert managed to land a record contract. The interesting thing is that at the end of AI, the records that are actually released by the winner(s) are pretty awful.
Let's move on to Disney. Two words: Miley Cyrus. She started off in a Disney sitcom in which she has a "rock star" (term used extremely loosely) alter-ego called Hannah Montana. Soon the two personalities became one, and Disney milked the cash cow for all it was worth. It also helps that her father was responsible for "Achy Breaky Heart." And then she displayed the depth of her ignorance when she went on to insult Radiohead.
The problem is that all of these franchises at least appear to be artificial and manufactured. They are signed and then have songs written for them, and they don't often really express any ideas at all (see also: Justin Bieber, who doesn't know that German is a language)
There are two redeeming pop artists in the United States, however, and they are Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga. As annoying and nonsensical as Lady Gaga is, she at least is classically trained and able to compose her own music.
You know what else is fun? Rap. Let me tell you a story. In the old days (circa 1980s), rap used to mean something. Scholars rejoiced at the new medium's giving voice to an oppressed minority, but then late in the 90s something amazing happened: The record labels went fishing for the next big thing and caught themselves gangsta rap, from which they were able to exorcise its relevance and turn it into a remarkably successful marketing ploy (see Sprite, Nike, Boost mobile). Only the most repulsive aspects of the original genre remained: Blatant misogyny, hedonism and violence. The plight of the inner city was abandoned when the rappers were featured on MTV Cribs.
Much like everything else, to find the cream of the crop, one needs to go underground, overseas, or in the past. A few decent rappers remain, and they are Overseer, Del the Funkee Homosapien, and Danger Doom. I prefer Del.
"Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?" Sometimes the indie scene isn't too much better than the corporate nightmare of Z100. Take, for example, Insane Clown Posse, whose song Miracles is the most poisonous piece of putridity that only perpetuates the worst possible Philistinism. The following line proves my point, and is the source of a large Internet phenomenon: "I don’t wannna talk to a scientist, ya’ll motherfuckers're lyin' and gettin' me pissed" That's the worst America has to offer in a nutshell.
It would be unfair, however, to claim that the record industry is not the same everywhere. French pop sounds just as repulsive as American pop, and the chavs' broken English in Britain are almost more repulsive than their American counterparts (see Lady Sovereign). But it's strange to me how it is easier to find good bands overseas than it is in my own country, where one would think they would be more easily available. It doesn't make much sense, because if the recording industry is the same absolutely everywhere, then I should have the same or even more limited access to decent bands in Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands. Unless, metal is simply more widespread in Europe than it is here.
What about Evanescence or Marilyn Manson? It is quite evident that Evanescence's debut album was excellent, but much like a lot of bands, their second album was cliched and quite uninteresting. The brains behind the band, Ben Moody, has since abandoned Amy Lee to her fate.
Marilyn Manson's latest album, Eat Me, Drink Me, had almost zero cultural relevance, which is sad because a few weeks ago I read the lyrics from Holywood, and they were absolutely beautiful. While I couldn't listen to him again, his lyrics are often among the best I've ever heard in domestic music, even if they appeal just to alienated middle-schoolers. MM remains one of the two most intelligent metal artists in the United States, the other being Trent Reznor.
I focus mostly on pop in this essay simply because it is the most widespread genre in music today, much like how first person shooters were biggest during the Halo Era (between the release dates of Halo 2 and a few months after Halo 3), and few examples in either genre have anything truly relevant to say. Much like the way another cousin described Ecstasy, they are simply "brain candy": They may make you feel good, but they don't do anything for you.
I'm not trying to say *all* American music is boring or not worth listening to--that would be a grossly inaccurate generalization, and there are many, many examples that even I know of that would prove me wrong were I ignorant enough to make that claim, but I will absolutely postulate that what is emitted from popular radio stations today by and large is uninteresting and not worth listening to.
It's kind of funny about contemporary pop. There is one band in particular I want to mention in its defense, but it turns out they're British, and their latest album absolutely has something very deep and insightful to say--in fact, I would never in my life expect a counterculture band to say what the Gorillaz have said in Plastic Beach.
Part III: What happened?
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