A Music Rant from the Past

I used to write for this e-zine awhile ago and someone there posed the question to me, "Does pop music suck?" So, I composed this piece for the magazine. I stumbled upon it today and thought that I might post it because it might still have some relevant points, I have nothing new to say today, and I wouldn't mind bumping my apparently confusing bobblehead doll posting off of the main page.

None of the names from the original article have been changed since this was written, so some of the content is a bit dated. The article is probably about six years old right now and it is interesting to see some of the references are still popular, some aren't, and some new ones have taken their place.

So...here you go. A warning: It is very long, dense, and very musical reference-heavy. But I think it has some stuff for people to gnaw on and might create a nice debate in the comments section.

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises."

William Shakespeare, "All's Well That Ends Well"

Looks like the Bard was a fortune teller in the ways of music. Pop Music. The phrase itself used to be something that was strived for. Everyone from Elvis to the Beatles to the Crazy World of Arthur Brown wanted to be a pop star. Look at the phrase again: pop star. You don't have to be a linguistics expert to be able to decipher that the "pop" is actually short for "popular." Who doesn't want to be popular? Or a star, for that matter? What's the point of actually making music if the only people who will listen to it are your upstairs neighbor Maxine and your ultra-bored, eye-rolling drunk friends around a beach bonfire? Well, now, it seems that not very many artists out there want to be considered pop. What was once a lauded and elusive bourgeois title is now the musical equivalent of having the mange. So, what the hell has happened in the last 50 years?

Easy. Music fans.

Music fans, particularly uneducated ones, are the scourge of the earth and what will ultimately lead to the only viable music being Yanni, John Tesh, and that little girl from Scotland or Ireland that yodels or sings opera or something. Why, you ask? Because they create the labels that pigeonhole artists and they BUY the crap that's out there now. So, basically, there are two types of fans. We'll lump them (like they like to lump everything else) into two categories:

The High Brow and The Low Brow

The Low Brow music fan is almost worthy of pity. They don't know any better and follow the rest of the faceless masses to places like Sam Goody, Strawberries, and Tower Records and pay insane prices for CDs by artists like the Backstreet Boys, Third Eye Blind, Lou Bega, and Santana. They are easily pleased and entertained and make up the section of the music buying population that purchases "pop." They can often be seen bopping their heads in the car, saying "ohmigod" a lot and trying to get the chain from their locket which holds a picture of Justin Timberlake from N'Sync out of their braces.

The High Brow music fan is worthy of much more derision. As much as I liked the movie High Fidelity, John Cusack's character and his fellow record store cronies (penned by Nick Hornby) are the epitome of the High Brow music fan. They like bands and artists that no one has ever heard of before. They are very unwilling to "share" their music and they spend time frequenting corner record shops and places that sell still-in-the-package Charlie's Angels cards right next to the first Bauhaus LP. They wear mostly black, drink a lot of coffee, and smell like Tums.

The Low Brow fan is, of course, looked down upon by the High Brow fan for liking pop music. The High Brow fan is looked at confusingly by the Low Brow fan for liking music that doesn't really sound like music at all. Ironically, in all the post-Nirvana hub-bub, what was "alternative" (which I always assumed was a label that meant "alternative to the norm") is now quite ordinary and popular and what was once considered "pop" is now "alternative." How do you think those mid-to-high brow music assholes would like it if you called Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Nails "pop?" The only "alternative" now is stuff like Gene Pitney and Mel Torme. Who would have thunk it? Check out the charts today. Those who pooh-pooh the charts should note that it is the person with $17 in their hand that dictates the labels we put on music, so listen up. The charts are riddled with harder-edged funk/rock/rap crapola like KoRn (though they aren't actually all that bad) and Limp Bizkit (they are), harder-edged rap and R&B acts, corporate-fabricated bands and artists like the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, adult contemporary stuff that makes me want to put my own eyes out with red hot pokers, and those contemporary country artists that are only contemporary country artists because they look smoking in those country outfits. Guess what? That stuff IS pop. You can't sell seven million copies of your album and not be considered "popular," hence "pop." Sorry Marilyn. Sorry Fred Durst. Sorry DMX. Sorry Billy Corgan. Sorry Jessica Simpson. Sorry Faith Hill. You are all POP. It's not a terrible thing, but don't shun what you are, even if you aren't entirely to blame.

But let's look at Shakespeare. The expectation that failed was first paved by all the first main rock and roll artists. Granted, Elvis is a thief (but still the MF'ing King), but he marketed music that was before considered unmarketable because of America's racist attitudes. Elvis started off alternative. He could only be filmed from the waist up. Ed Sullivan wanted nothing to do with him until he realized he was losing the ratings war to that toad Steve Allen who blasphemously dressed Elvis up in a tuxedo and had him sing "Hound Dog" to a real canine. Side note: Allen is a bastard and directly responsible for what has come to be known as Fat Elvis, Las Vegas Elvis and Fat, Bloated, Lying Dead on the Bathroom Floor With My Pants Around My Ankles Elvis. May your hairpiece give you fiberglass splinters.

Expectations were high slightly before, during and after Elvis. Everyone with morals and taste were still listening to their outdated Andrews Sisters records when Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard came to town. These guys were the epitome of alternative. Now, they are looked upon as pop. And their offspring are just a notch below...a trend that would continue to today and the completely abysmal state of pop music. Some were decent. Elvis bore Tom Jones. I like Tom Jones. Chuck Berry bore the Artist Formerly Known as the Guy Boinking Vanity Before She Found the Lord. Say what you want about the Purple One, but he is pretty talented and got some from might fine aphrodites. Little Richard bore RuPaul. And hence we have expectation failing where most it promises.

The Beatles may be considered the most influential and groundbreaking bands in history. Personally, I don't think they can hold a candle to Peter Noone's Herman's Hermits, but then again, not everyone can be blessed with the talent to pen that Henry VIII song. The Beatles were alternative. Straight out. The country had no idea what to do with them when they burst on the scene. We hadn't heard anything like that at all. Alternative. And just when they were in danger of teetering on the edge of pop, they veered off the road to alternative again. The Beatles kicked mega-ass because I swear that Brian Epstein was a poofy clairvoyant who knew what was going to happen in music before it happened and initiated it by giving John and Paul mind altering substances, George a ticket to India and Ringo a couple months off. The Fab Four were never pop. They were alternative. Offspring? The Monkees and Oasis. Now, there's a push.

But even at this point, there was no music fan schism. There were no high brows and low brows. Music was music and the most constricting term you could give to it was "rock 'n' roll." There were no subsets of rock 'n' roll in this time, but you can be sure that the Beatles didn't sound like the Byrds who didn't sound like the Spencer Davis Group who didn't sound like Cream who didn't sound like Strawberry Alarm Clock. It was all just music.

The downfall of music came in the 70s and I'm not technically talking about disco necessarily although I will concede that style of music rivals Boxcar Willie for the most homocidal-enducing ambiance. What happened in the 70s were LABELS. Music fans split off like some weird cult. You had acid rock (which was actually born in the 60s, but people were generally too smacked out on the stuff to remember what they called it back then), heavy metal was gaining momentum with Sabbath and Zeppelin. You had disco, God forbid. You had music that shrunk your level of testosterone exponentially as you listened to it, like Bread and Dan Fogelberg. But the multi-headed beast was not the acts themselves. It was the labels put on them by the public.

Fast forward to VH-1's Behind the Music. Thank the Lord Almighty for this fine piece of entertainment programming because, if not for it, I would have no idea that 95% of the recording artists out there were persecuted for "selling out" at some point in their careers.

Lionel Richie. Damn, did the Commodores make some nasty-ass funk back in the day. And Richie was a part of that band. Huffin' and puffin' on his horns and singing "Brick House" and blasting out "Machine Gun" and just being a dirty, nasty funky bird. Then he started listening to Dan Fogelberg and Bread. "Easy." "Three Times a Lady." Jesus H. What the hell happened? This once great funkmaster went what was now POP and ruined all expectations. "Hello? Is it me you're looking for?" No, Lionel, actually it's a .45 I'm looking for. If I had thought of this a few years sooner, I could have saved the world from "Dancing on the Ceiling." Where's Marvin Gaye's dad when you need him?

Anyway, because of the labels, Lionel went from cool to cruel. If this happened in the 60s, he may have gained some fans and lost some fans, but he wouldn't be saddled with a stigma, as much as he deserves it for "Truly." Don't hate him because he's pop. Hate him because his music sucks. And if you took geometry in school, you will know that the transitive theory of suckiness states that, because of the truths defined above, pop music sucks.

But you can't totally blame the music, really. You can't even in good conscience blame the artists themselves. You blame the fans for making it popular. If a thousand billion idiots never bought that damn Santana album, it would have spared me from the horribleness that is "Smooth" and my utter disdain for Santana would have been relegated to a mildly annoying "Oye Como Va," which is only annoying because I can't figure out what the hell he is saying. Oh sure, I took Spanish in high school, but my greatest exposure was watching that hoot Julio yap it up on Sanford and Son. Damn, that was one funny chicano, though come to think of it, I couldn't figure out what he was saying either. Where was I? Oh yeah, Santana. All of a sudden, I hate Santana with a passion. And why? Let's look at this a little more. Santana has been around since the dawn of time. He jammed with Cro-Magnon man, was the house band on Noah's Ark, opened for Nero during the whole Rome-is-burning gig and has basically put out marginally mediocre music since I can remember. He went around quietly, not really bothering anyone and releasing an album here or there. Fine with me. I don't particularly like Santana all that much, but he didn't step on my toes at all. So I let him live. Fast forward to last summer and "Give me your heart, make it real, or else forget about it." Good Christ, can that song suck any more? And that became POPULAR! As did our buddy Carlos. And the reason why I am now the victim of an eternal Santana enema is because shithead fans across the country actually bought a Santana album for the first time in recorded history! And what didn't help matters at all was that another POPULAR artist, Rob Thomas, from the band formerly known as matchbox 20 (now known as matchbox twenty...big frigging deal...now they'll get street cred, right?) sang on the bastard. Now if everything went according to plan, Santana would have sold about 38 copies of SUPERNATURAL, like all his other albums and I wouldn't have had to write this stupid rambling piece. But nooooo........

Then, you have the problem that exists with the jealousy among artists caused by one artist becoming "popular." These other artists are not "popular" but instead of trying to be, they attack the pop artist in an "ah, I didn't want a hundred million dollars anyway" attitude and chastise them for "selling out." Case in point. Vanilla Ice. That boy was a different kind of Milli Vanilli. Just because he rapped on his discs doesn't mean he was from the mean ghetto in Miami like they claimed. He made some records, bugged the shit out of me for having the nerve to say that the sample in "Ice Ice Baby" was different than Queen's "Under Pressure," but no one would have cared if the public had taste and let him suck by himself. Instead twelve million amoebas had to drag us down into their colossal mire of Suck by buying it. Ice is pop. And the other rappers didn't like that very much. Not because Ice was all out there perpetrating, or because he shaved lines in his eyebrows or whatever. The boys were green with envy and envious of the green they were without. Take 3rd Bass. They had a song out called "Pop Goes the Weasel (Cuz the Weasel Goes Pop.)" The single was a nicely veiled metaphor until they made a video in which they beat the living bejeezus out of a Robbie Van Winkle lookalike. Ahhh...so Ice is the Weasel. The Walrus is Paul, and I am Iron Man. No matter. What it boils down to isn't that Bass thought that Ice was making a mockery out of their musical stylings. Not at all. Bass was JEALOUS (and there’s nothing wrong with that). The single should have been "Pop Goes the Weasel (Cuz We Can't Sell Any Records Because the Black Crowd Hates Us Because We Pretend To Be Like Them When We're Not and the White Folk Don't Get Us Because We Don't Talk Like Them.)" It's not Ice's fault that the a good chunk of the public is, regrettably, racist and stupid. But because they are, they bought his dumb record, not 3rd Bass' infinitely better one, and made him popular. He sold out?

Quiet Riot sold metal out too back in 1983, but no one really cared. The brain damaged metalheads that actually liked them were too stoned to realize or just thought that hearing this terrible band cover another terrible band's songs for their biggest hits and having it be on the radio of all god-forsaken things was pretty cool. That's the thing about metal. No one had a big protective hold over it. No fans of metal (and they do exist) were that bent out of shape about hearing their bands on the radio or knowing that BACK IN BLACK sold a bajillion copies. Know why? Because they kept their hair long and all was right with the world.

Enter Metallica.You can sell a quadrillion copies of your discs and even have the videos shown on eMpTyV, but cut your hair and prepare to be disemboweled. The fans were generous in letting you get away with that ballad "Nothing Else Matters" on the Black Album without collectively killing you, but chopping your locks for the LOAD release...that crosses a line, dude. And that is why Metallica is one of the most loved and most hated bands today. Warring high brow and low brow factions collided on the turf known as "Enter Sandman" and things have never been the same. I marked out for Metallica and defended them to the edge of the earth. But maybe all those ogres in my high school who got mad at them for having a slow part in "Fade To Black" were right. This whole Metallica vs. Napster thing is shedding a whole new light on the artists formerly known as Alcoholica. Screw them. And double-screw Lars while I'm at it.

So, someone asked me to write something about the state of pop music. And, as usual, I get on one of my Dennis Miller meets Barney Miller rants and nothing really comes out. Well, to answer the question, does pop music suck? Well, yes it does. For the most part. But WHY does it suck is the more important question. And that is because the moronic public dictates what is "pop." And the public sucks. Once people realize that Counting Crows and Third Eye Bland and Hootie and Britney and Enrique and Bizkit all suck...then they won't be popular anymore. And maybe something cool will come along and people will rediscover A LOVE SUPREME or make THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO a number one album, or name Nick Cave as their favorite male vocalist on the People's Choice Awards and have Big Star win Best Group. But until then...we are left with "oops...I did it again."There was so much promise there in the beginning, wasn't there? But expectations failed us all. Thanks to you, High Brow music fan. Thanks to you, Low Brow music fan. Thanks to you, Soundscan. And thanks to you, Maurice Starr.

Sigh. I'm off to listen to My Bloody Valentine. Wake me when it's all over. So... does that make me high brow???

- Dim.