The Death of Rock’n’Roll
Rock’n’roll doesn’t exist anymore. Sure people are playing rock from every era, and musicians are producing their idea of what rock’n’roll should be. But, the epitome of rock music, the explosive sensation of sound, youth, and fury has become a part of history. Today we are left with music that duplicates or fits into already tried and established forms. Is this representative of the first decade of this new millennium?
Remember the music of the fifties. Elvis shook his hips, snarled, and crooned so sexily that young girls screamed and young men wanted to be like him. These young men were different from their fathers. They wanted to be “All Shook Up”, they wanted to wear “Blue Suede Shoes”. Presley changed the look of teen lust, he altered the sound of young desire and just by his presentation he created a style. He was a working class white boy, singing and dressing like a black musician; showing kids that music had no color and was a tool to effect change.
Think of Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis. They transcended race, religion and gender by pounding and attacking the piano while howling to a fresh new musical god; behind them followed scores of musicians echoing similar sentiments. Imagine the visual impact of a young man with too much hair sexually stimulating 88 ivory keys. Think of the burning excitement smoldering inside a young listener feeling the shakes, hearing the rattle and watching the roll of a sequined singer hell-bent on starting a musical fire. These records brought the youth of a whole continent, if not the whole world, on their feet demanding acknowledgement.
Before this decadence teens had only the croon of romantic balladeers and the visual stimulation of bobby socks and poodle skirts. The pioneers of rock kick-started a tonal and social evolution. They borrowed from the blues/gospel melodies of the south; they used the twangy flavor of the grand ole opry, adding the rhythmic smoothness of big band swing. From this unholy union burst the audio specter that not only affected the tunes on the radio, but influenced the beat on the street. No longer a background to life, these songs became the symbol and voice of youth, exclusively.
Not long after this rock nativity we discovered the Beatles. Their sound was initially similar (founded in American rock), but their appearance, ideology and philosophy took us much further than the blues fueled rock of the fifties. The tunes of McCartney and Lennon ushered us into the psychedelic sounds of that era incorporating eastern mysticism with the drug culture of the 60’s & 70’s. In unison with the folk poetry of Dylan and his ilk, there was little doubt that young people would be heard. Again music was taking youth to places it had never been before. Hair became longer, clothes weirder, music stranger, and personal politics reached new extremes in freedom. Youth dressed like and spoke like their heroes.
Music espoused revolution. Gone was the subtlety of early rock, or the gentle incorporation of black culture through Motown and R&B music. Music now demanded change and acceptance of all philosophies as the voice of a whole generation drove that need right through your stereo speakers. Rock’n’roll had graduated into an art form that spoke for moral concepts and urged mankind to follow a righteous path. Contemporary music assured us that a new golden age was in the making, one that could eliminate wars, denounce racism and put an end to much of the world’s poverty and suffering. All this and it had a great beat that you could dance to.
The problem with messengers of change is that such voices cannot remain stagnant, or they lose their validity. Following psychedelia we still heard a few shouts of growth and revolution. The eruption of Jamaican reggae and ska mobilized the Caribbean. Bob Marley and his ilk urged the poor to”Stand Up!”; it informed black islanders that they too deserved all the world had to offer. No doubt reggae spread to white followers as it condemned poverty and injustice everywhere.
The Rasta sound bridged into the 80’s as it fueled the assaultive style of the punk movement giving anarchy some unique rhythms. The spark of change was kept alive by the sound of The Clash, Iggy Pop, The Sex Pistols, The Police and dozens of faceless punks with instruments accosting us about a system gone wrong. But rock as social catalyst was rapidly running out of steam. The advent of Grunge rock in the 80’s was a logical follower to punk. The production values were given a rest, so we could hear what bands in garages without smooth recording techniques and slick producers. The players tried to keep the music alive and socially relevant through their aggressive minimalism and crude relationship to their audience. Unfortunately the tunes, the playing and the lyrics were facile, degrading, and often rehashed from various other eras. The social relevance of grunge was raw, loud, but short-lived and out of touch.
The most vital movement of the last 25 years has been rap .The rhyming banter was taken from old southern black work songs, dub reggae, and the poetry Mohammed Ali recited before a fight; the music speaks for outcasts as well as heroes. The overall presentation is original and the artists have mixed the rhymes with existing grooves so that rap remains fresh in its essence, if not in melody. Gangsta rap is so socially in tune the rappers are involved in as much gunplay as drum play. It’s a further sad commentary that many hip-hop artists have traded on their freshness and parlayed it into symbols for clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics. This does not sing of revolution or brotherhood, but is rather a lullaby to corporate America. Does hip hop need to be given back to the people?
Now we’re at the beginning of a new millennium and we have no music to speak for us. Listen to the radio, and everything will be combinations and permutations of the aforementioned styles. Sometimes artists just remake songs that young listeners have never heard before showing them off as brand new material, manipulated and marketed by whatever large company has paid for promotion.
Country claims to have a brand new voice that is neither new, nor is it really country. It has put pop idols in ten gallon hats and riding boots, and has them singing about trucks, bars and broken love affairs. It’s cleaned up the country artists, gotten them new clothes, fixed their teeth and taught them Vegas style showmanship. Rather than country’n’western, this is richly produced and carefully marketed pop music that’s being presented instead of the sparse honest sound owned by truck drivers, migrant workers, and spurned lovers. Now they have a ‘fashion’ to dress for and a style of dance to share with their partner. Does it speak for anyone?
Have we worn out the musical cookbook? Is our society too drained to develop a music that represents youth? In the 1970’s Don McClean was wrong about “the day the music died”. “American Pie” was a couple of decades premature. Music kept evolving until somewhere in the 80’s when “video killed the radio star”. Around that time, music stopped regenerating and became its own parody. Young musicians line up for a spot on “American/Canadian Idol”, where performers compete for money and media contracts. Most vocalists present styled versions of torch song standards. It’s difficult to gauge the content of modern music after witnessing a twenty-one year old from Mississaugua belting out her rendition of “I Will Survive”.
The tastiest tunes of rock have been collected by big business to sell automobiles and espouse the merits of lite beer. These corporate advertisers also present the finest of the new sounds. Is anyone feeling inspired?
After rock begat the innocent tough guy of the 50’s, who eventually bore the musical Age of Aquarius, he sort of faded into the background. Today’s rock’n roll has lost its vision: shaved heads or ass-length tresses, skin tight jeans or floral skirts, belly shirts or Indian print dresses, body piercing or tattoos. Who is rock’s everyman and what’s his goal? Sure there are some great sounds on the airwaves, but will they become the classics of tomorrow? In the 70″s James Brown had”..a Brand New Bag.” Does the new millennium have anything fresh, or has all the rock music become fodder for the merchandising machine? Good-looking, hard-selling, ear-splitting numbers on a ledger?
