As summer slowly starts its fade into fall, as the leaves begin to think about changing, as the sun fades, and the joy and lightness of summer inexorably give way to the depth and chill of winter one thing still remains, and will, apparently, always remain.
Seasons come and go; Katy Perry is forever.
--------------------------
If anyone ever seemed like a one-hit wonder waiting to happen it was Katy Perry. When “I Kissed A Girl” first appeared in summer of ’08 I would have bet my life savings on that being the only song we ever heard from the bland cipher with the bland name singing it. But here we are two years later, two years which by the way saw only a handful of weeks without a Katy Perry single in the top 10, and there appears to be no stopping the somewhat majestic mystery that is Kathryn Hudson. Majestic because she just last week tied the King of Pop by having five singles from the same album hit #1. And a mystery because, how? And why? And who? No , seriously, who is she? And who are her fans? Has anyone ever in history said – “Yes, a Katy Perry concert!!”? And if so, who? And why? I mean what is there to attach yourself to as a fan? Even Britney Spears at 17 had more of a persona and personal story than Katy Perry. So how in the age of individualism and personal expression did the non-descript sexpot win out? How in the era of over-sharing is, statistically speaking, the biggest pop star in the country someone we know almost nothing about? And WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT KATY PERRY??? And why aren’t we talking about her more? And, really, did we ever start?
Now that’s a lot of questions I know. More questions than anyone has likely ever asked about Katy Perry. But considering her latest album just achieved the distinction of having more #1 hits than Thriller and Rumours COMBINED, maybe we should start asking some questions. Like, for example, who the hell does she think she is taking over out pop charts like that?
Well since she’s not here to answer for herself, and since her answer likely wouldn’t be that interesting anyway (because nothing she says ever is), allow me to answer for her. Because I think I know who Katy Perry is: she’s a teenage dream.
-----------------------
Here is the complete list of things most people might even potentially know about the biggest selling and, technically, most popular pop star alive: she was raised in an incredibly sheltered environment by religious nut-job parents; she started her music career as a Christian act; she’s married to Russell Brand; she possibly had a brief dalliance with Elmo; and she has very, shall we say, supple bosoms. Oh, and her music is catchy as shit. I mean "Teenage Dream" makes "Party in the USA" sound like Wilco's "Less Than You Think" And that’s not even her biggest hit. But should the catchiness of her music make the complete lack of anything particularly interesting or noteworthy about her totally irrelevant? After all music is never just about the music. Especially pop music.
So what exactly is Katy Perry selling?
Well, her attractiveness for one. According to a possibly apocryphal story Ms. Perry (allegedly) first got together with Russell Brand by sending him a cell phone picture of her breasts after the VMAs. Which, if true, is I guess her way of acknowledging that she is well aware where her bread is buttered.
(Also, move over Jane Mansfield’s boobs, Dolly Parton’s boobs, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs, and Scarlett Johansson’s boobs – there’s a new contender for Most Successful Boobs of All Time)
But there’s gotta be more to it than just being a more well endowed Zooey Deschanel with a better ear for pop hooks. After all there there are a million catchy songs on the pop charts all sung by relatively attractive people. And also Ke$ha. But what separates a huge #1 hit from a middle-of-the-road hit is that it provides us with something ephemeral to latch onto. To attach ourselves to. To reach Number One a song has to in some way tap into some collective emotion or experience, whether it’s joy or giddiness or just the acknowledgment that you too kissed a girl once, and, well, kinda liked it. This isn’t something we’re always conscious of, which is why we often find ourselves liking pop hits against our seeming better judgment. But it's always there in some form or fashion. And it's what the Svengalis of pop have spent years perfecting – the ability to make a song not just catchy but universally relatable. The Black Eyed Peas are the unquestioned masters of this, what with their massive hits about starting parties, and having good nights, and rocking that body. But Katy Perry isn’t far behind. She too has a song for almost every major human experience – young love, exploring your sexuality, accepting and embracing who you are, fucking an alien, etc.
(Can we all just take a second to acknowledge the fact that at one point in American history the #1 song in the country was about having sex with an extraterrestrial? Thanks.)
But where The Black Eyed Peas’ songs are laughably broad and general, Katy Perry has been able to make songs that while equally broad are yet also somehow specific. And more importantly personally relatable. See Katy Perry isn’t pretending to be a robot or a hologram or shouting L’Chaim for no reason. She’s just a regular girl with a relatable story who likes to wear funky wigs on occasion. Her life is the new American one: the troubled upbringing, the acting out phase, the flashy quick marriage, and an adulthood full of ephemeral disposable pleasures spent trying to hang onto your youth.
So while other stars are busy selling pimped out Maybachs or dancing sacrilegious motorcycle gangs Katy Perry is selling something more familiar and relatable. She’s selling real everyday life repackaged and gussied up. She’s not trying revolutionize music; she’s just trying to do what has always worked. She’s the CBS sitcom of pop stars, only if CBS was MTV. She’s the bland, less-empowering white Beyonce. She’s the more insidious Taylor Swift. She’s not selling fantasies; she’s selling reality remade as dreams. Dreams that teenagers have. And ones that she embodies all too well.
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Perhaps it's because Katy Perry had, by all accounts, an insanely sheltered upbringing that she’s so able to tap into the mindset of a teenager. Because so often as adults we get the teenage years all wrong. They’re not poetry and art and they're not salacious spectacle. That's not what kids really want. They want Grease and Saved by the Bell and Beach Blanket Bingo. They want American Pie and Annette Funicello and Dirty Dancing. There's a reason why Awkward has worked and Skins didn’t. Because as much as teenagers might think they want to wear a meat dress, or brush their teeth with a bottle of Jack, or have an on-again off-again romance with BMX star Carey Hart, really, they respond much more to things that seem real and possible and accessible. They don’t care as much about President of the United States as they do about being Prom Queen. And they don’t want a crazy adventurous life, as much as they, deep down, just want a conventional normal one just like their friends. Which means aspiring to a simple life of fleeting shallow pleasures and no real substance. A life full of the cultural signifiers of happiness and success with nothing behind them. They don’t want a challenge or hard work or hardship. They just a good time hanging with their friends. Friends like Katy Perry who, in the immortal words of Diane Court, has "glimpsed (their) future and all I can say is...go back”. And that’s where Katy Perry differs sharply from the aforementioned Taylor Swifts and Beyonces. She never hints at growing up or facing your fears or making something of yourself. She doesn’t want you to blow off your hometown; she wants to enjoy every minute you have in it. She’s hip to the true ambitions of kids.
For (most) boys, that means getting a girl. And not just any girl - The Katy Perry Girl. One who is, like, totally super hot, but not too slutty. One who wants to have sex but who isn’t too sexually intimidating. One who likes to party and have a good time, but whom they can still take home to mom. One who won’t bog them down with all her feelings and her drama and her deep thoughts, because basically she’s just there to make them happy. A girl who wont nag them or challenge them and likes farting and sports and beer because basically they are, to quote Katy Perry’s first album title, Just One Of The Boys. Katy Perry is Smurfette (no, literally, she is). She’s the All-American Girl 2011 style.
And for (most) girls, well, Katy Perry is exactly who they are all too often taught to be. Because you can wear your cone bras ladies, but if you REALLY want to succeed in this world they better be pink and shoot white foam out of them.
And that’s why Katy Perry isn’t going anywhere. She will always be with us because we will always at some time, on some level, collectively aspire to what she represents. Like religion or fear or corporate campaign contributions she’s what keeps this engine running. Even after Kathryn Hudson is dead and gone “Katy Perry” will always live on.
She must.
Because teens always need dreams.
And we all need realities.
Showing posts with label the music industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the music industry. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, July 10, 2006
Rock Is Dead, Long Live Rock
Almost exactly a year ago I got Kanye West’s Late Registration. I remember listening to it for the first time late one night in the subway station after work. I still remember hearing "Heard ‘Em Say" for the first time and just being amazed. And then after it finished "Touch the Sky" came on and I was even more amazed. They sounded like nothing else I had ever heard before. So original, so fresh, so incredibly good. And as I sat there listening the realization hit me. Rock is dead. Kanye has killed it.
Another story: About a month ago Dave Chapelle’s Block Party came out on DVD. I had seen it in theaters but watching it again on DVD I felt a vibe I had missed the first time around. It reminded me of something; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The love and positive energy, yet passion and activism seemed familiar in some way. And then a few days later as I was rewatching No Direction Home I realized where I had seen that before. The rock festivals from the 60’s. Newport, Monterrey Pop, Woodstock. Only this was our generation’s version. The difference was that these weren’t rockers, they were rappers and hip-hop artists. And one of them was Kanye. But he wasn’t alone. He was part of a movement. Kanye hadn’t killed rock, hip-hop had.
Now people have been declaring rock dead since almost the minute rock was born. There’s the famous speech Lester Bangs gives William Miller in Almost Famous about how rock in its last throes. And that was set in 1975. But much like Cheney’s assertion that the Iraqi insurgence was in its last throes, reports of rock’s demise were greatly exaggerated. Now sure, rock’s golden age was done by the late 70’s. It was in a slow but steady age of decline. And there was a moment when disco legitimately threatened to killed it off entirely. But even at the height of disco - 1977 the year of Saturday Night Fever - great rock was still being made and consumed by the mainstream. That year saw the release of such classic rock albums as The Clash, Never Mind the Bollocks, Bat Out of Hell, Rumours, Marquee Moon, and My Aim is True. The next year traditional rock albums The Cars and Van Halen each sold more than 5 million copies and launched two major careers. That same year The Rolling Stones and Blondie took disco and successfully integrated into their sounds while still making hit music that was clearly “rock and roll”. Along with The Cars, Van Halen, and The Clash the late 70’s saw the emergence of a host of other iconic and groundbreaking rock acts including The Ramones, The Police, The Talking Heads, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, The Sex Pistols and many more. And sure the 80’s have long been considered less than stellar years for rock, but hair metal dominated the early years of MTV and U2 was arguably the biggest musical act in the world. Sure there was Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson but they were more isolated artists than part of any musical movement or trend. During all of these years when rock was supposedly “dead”, other than disco, (which even in its heyday was largely derided) nothing had come along to challenge rock’s supremacy as the dominant and most popular form of mainstream music. While people were declaring that rock was dead, there was still important, relevant, and groundbreaking music being made by rock artists and it was being played on the radio, consumed as part of the mainstream culture, and selling millions of copies. Rock was shooting off in different directions, but punk, post punk, grunge, and the like were keeping the soul and essence of rock alive and ensuring that it was still in some form the dominant force in mainstream music. It might not have been as good as it once was but it was still very much alive.
Fast forward to 2006. There is only one rock album in the top ten and only two in the top twenty. Of last year’s best selling albums, only two of the top ten were rock albums. This is better than the year before though, when only ONE of the top ten best selling albums was a rock album. Albums are doing better than singles though. Of the top ten songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart none of them are rock songs and of the top twenty only two are. This still is better than the Radio Airplay chart though, where none, NONE, of the top twenty songs are rock songs. This is probably largely due to the fact that there are less than twenty modern rock radio stations left in United States, including NONE in the nation’s largest market New York City. There are now more Tejano music stations than there are rock stations in the United States. And to make all of these numbers even more bleak, nearly 20% of all rock music sales over the past four years have been concentrated in the hands of four acts – Green Day, U2, Coldplay and The Killers. And Green Day and U2 are both comprised of guys over 40 years old. If rock today isn’t dead, I don’t know what dead is.
So after years of people crying wolf about rock’s demise, why is it now finally time to start actually crying? How did we get to this place? What happened?
Well, hip-hop happened.
Throughout history, art and music have grown and changed and evolved. And popular tastes have grown and changed and evolved right with them. Two hundred years ago, “classical” and opera were the dominant forms of popular music. Then it became big band and swing. And then Tin Pan Alley and crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. And then rock and roll hit and somehow everyone thought that it was the be-all and end-all of popular music. That nothing would ever supplant it. But as anyone who knows anything about history and human nature could have told them, that was an absurdly ridiculous idea. Eventually something else would come along that would be more popular, and rock would fade into the background, becoming a popular form of music, but not THE popular form of music. Much like jazz or blues or country it would still be a vital music force with a large following, but it would not be the dominant type of music in term of sales, airplay and/or cultural significance. And sure enough that is exactly what has happened right before our very eyes. For 35 years rock reigned unchallenged at the head of the music table. Of course there was “pop”, but pop isn’t so much a type of music as a title to assign to music that has no “type”. Pop is after all simply short for “popular”. But then in the mid-90’s as the last real rock movement – grunge - was dying off, rap, the young upstart, started to pull even with rock in terms of sales and popularity. The mid-90’s for me were spent in junior high and if your junior high was anything like mine (Im sorry) then hip-hop was by FAR the preffered and most popular type of music. People that liked rock, at least in Texas, were seem as somewhat weird, and troubled. The first song I knew all the words to was "Ice Ice Baby" and I think its safe to say I am not alone in that regard. Nearly all of my junior high memories are attached to rap/R&B songs, as are, I would wager, most people’s my age. Whereas we associated rock with our parents, rap was OUR music. It had loads of profanity, violence, and graphic descriptions of sex. It was dangerous and rebellious. It was fresh and exciting. It was the common denominator in my ethnically and finically diverse junior high and high schools. Even the people who listened to rock were familiar with rap, whereas the inverse was definitely not true. And this is where Block Party comes in. Rap is a uniting force and a legitimate social movement like what rock was in its early days. And most importantly to our multi-cultural world today it is something that everyone can and does listen to. Not to generalize, but rock will never be fully embraced by the majority of black, Hispanic and other minority groups. It doesn’t speak to them like rap does, which is understandable. But white kids are all familiar with rap as it represents the rebellion, youthfulness, and good times that rock used to. And sure rap is largely seen as being about bling, blunts and bitches; but what is rock and roll linked to if not sex and drugs? And underneath both stereotypes there is much artistic relevancy in both types of music. This is where where rap has succeed where other challengers to rock's throne have failed.
For years rock was able to hold off rap because it was still far artistically superior. The playing field began to level out in the 90’s but rock was still able to produce important, classic, big selling works like Nevermind, OK Computer, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Ten and countless others. But as the new millennium dawned, hip-hop began to take over. Since 1998 only twice has a rock album won the Pazz and Jop year end critics poll and one of those was an album deemed so uncommercial by its label that they refused to release it (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). And the other one was by Bob Dylan. In that same span, a rap album has come in first four times. And in that same time period, only once has the first place single not been a rap song.
So clearly rap has caught rock artistically. But is it artistically superior? Well here’s where I start getting the angry letters, but I say yes. And this is where Kanye comes in to back me up.
First though let me say that in many ways rock is doing better artistically than it has in a very long time. In terms of the amount of exciting, fresh new music being produced, rock is quite healthy. But a closer examination tells a different story. For all this great music being produced how much of it isn’t clearly derivative of someone (or “someones”) else? But who is Outkast derivative of? Or Wu-Tang Clan? Or Kanye? And sure there are truly original rock bands, but how much are they selling? When was the last time you heard a rock song and thought simultaneously “I’ve never heard anything like this before” and “this song is gonna be a huge mainstream hit”. "Float On" and "Take Me Out" come to mind but not a whole lot else. But I got that feeling twice in the first two songs off Late Registration. And that’s just one album. So sure there is great original rock music being made, but if a tree falls in a forest and non one is around does it make a sound? Well not a sound like a tree in a crowded forest makes. And rap is that crowded forest. Kanye was not only nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy the past two years, and not only did both of those albums win the Pazz and Jop as the most critically acclaimed album of the year, but they both were among the best selling albums of their respective years. They both spawned multiple instant classic hit singles. They spanned ethnic, age, gender, and national boundaries. How many current rockers can say the same about their first two albums? And the past 10 years have seen the rise of countless artistically relevant rap superstars other than Kanye. Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, Missy Elliot, and Lauryn Hill could all legitimately be called superstars who also are among the very best at what they do. Name a rock act that has released their debut since 1996 about whom you could say the same thing. Coldplay and The White Stripes - that’s about it. And Coldplay has more haters than Kobe Bryant. (And don’t tell me The Strokes, because as great as they are I don’t know of a single person who bought their latest album. And if I as a 20-something living in New York City don’t know anyone who bought their album, then you can’t say that they are superstars by any stretch of the imagination.)
And that’s what’s most troubling about rock. While rap seems to be churning new stars out of the woodwork, rock has only been able to create two superstar bands in ten years. Most of the biggest bands in rock have been around since the 80s (U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers) or the early 90s (Pearl Jam, Green Day, Radiohead) and are getting old. And no one is coming along to replace them. And with rock radio dying out and record labels signing fewer and fewer rock acts every year, there’s little hope on the horizon.
So where is rock headed? Well it will never completely die. There will always be a market for rock and great rock songs will always find a place in the national consciousness. In the past few years rock bands like Evanescence, Fall Out Boy and The Killers have all released hugely successful CDs. (Although notably all of them have yet to release a follow-up). There will always be a market for rock and great rock music will still be being made when we are 80. But as rock’s old guard dies out something dies with it and that is its spirit. It gets me thinking that in our accelerated age maybe art forms only have a life span as long as their founders. Because in many ways rock has run out of places to go and has started to double back on itself and eat its young (or in this case its “old” I guess). If you need proof, look no further than the biggest rock song of the moment, "Dani California". It’s clearly a recycled version of Tom Petty’s "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Pretty much everyone agrees on this. Meanwhile look at the hottest hip-hop song of the moment “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. (And if you want to say it’s not a hip-hop song, well Cee-Lo is a rapper and Danger Mouse is exclusively a hip-hop producer so I fail to see how you could call it anything else) What other song in the world could you even remotely compare it to? None. When I listen to old rock albums from the 60s and 70s like Blonde on Blonde or Pet Sounds or Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, I try to imagine what it must have been like to live back then and hear those albums for the first time and to have never heard anything like them before in your entire life. Well that’s what rap is like NOW. Listening to The Marshall Mathers LP or Speakerboxx/The Love Below or Late Registration for the first time recaptures what it must have felt like to listen to those classic rock albums of the 60s and 70s for the first time. And like rock back then, hip-hop is still young, and still has places to go. Like early rock, it has started incorporating other types of music. There is jazz/rap, soul/rap, disco/rap, techno/rap, country/rap and of course, rock/rap. Most things in rap today you can find equivalents or parallels for in the early days of rock (Speakerboxx/The Love Below is The White Album, Cee-Lo is Van Morrison, The Marshall Mathers LP is John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, etc.) Watching Block Party is like watching Woodstock. The sense of community, of passion, of being able to change the world is all there. All the things that rock stood for in its infancy can be found in rap today. I think its safe to say that rap IS rock from 30 years ago. Rock today may be dead, but hip-hop is just getting started. It is the new rock. It has picked up rock’s soul and made it its own. So mourn rock’s demise, but at the same time rise up your glass and gimme a cheer. “Rock is dead, long live rock!”
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Smoothies
2.) Cee-Lo
3.) John Hodgeman
3 & 1/2.) Realizing that "Mr. Blue Sky" is a take off on Paul's part of "Day in the Life"
Thought of the Week:
Friday the 14th is the birthday of your favorite online journal author. You should buy him a present. Like a life.
Another story: About a month ago Dave Chapelle’s Block Party came out on DVD. I had seen it in theaters but watching it again on DVD I felt a vibe I had missed the first time around. It reminded me of something; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The love and positive energy, yet passion and activism seemed familiar in some way. And then a few days later as I was rewatching No Direction Home I realized where I had seen that before. The rock festivals from the 60’s. Newport, Monterrey Pop, Woodstock. Only this was our generation’s version. The difference was that these weren’t rockers, they were rappers and hip-hop artists. And one of them was Kanye. But he wasn’t alone. He was part of a movement. Kanye hadn’t killed rock, hip-hop had.
Now people have been declaring rock dead since almost the minute rock was born. There’s the famous speech Lester Bangs gives William Miller in Almost Famous about how rock in its last throes. And that was set in 1975. But much like Cheney’s assertion that the Iraqi insurgence was in its last throes, reports of rock’s demise were greatly exaggerated. Now sure, rock’s golden age was done by the late 70’s. It was in a slow but steady age of decline. And there was a moment when disco legitimately threatened to killed it off entirely. But even at the height of disco - 1977 the year of Saturday Night Fever - great rock was still being made and consumed by the mainstream. That year saw the release of such classic rock albums as The Clash, Never Mind the Bollocks, Bat Out of Hell, Rumours, Marquee Moon, and My Aim is True. The next year traditional rock albums The Cars and Van Halen each sold more than 5 million copies and launched two major careers. That same year The Rolling Stones and Blondie took disco and successfully integrated into their sounds while still making hit music that was clearly “rock and roll”. Along with The Cars, Van Halen, and The Clash the late 70’s saw the emergence of a host of other iconic and groundbreaking rock acts including The Ramones, The Police, The Talking Heads, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, The Sex Pistols and many more. And sure the 80’s have long been considered less than stellar years for rock, but hair metal dominated the early years of MTV and U2 was arguably the biggest musical act in the world. Sure there was Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson but they were more isolated artists than part of any musical movement or trend. During all of these years when rock was supposedly “dead”, other than disco, (which even in its heyday was largely derided) nothing had come along to challenge rock’s supremacy as the dominant and most popular form of mainstream music. While people were declaring that rock was dead, there was still important, relevant, and groundbreaking music being made by rock artists and it was being played on the radio, consumed as part of the mainstream culture, and selling millions of copies. Rock was shooting off in different directions, but punk, post punk, grunge, and the like were keeping the soul and essence of rock alive and ensuring that it was still in some form the dominant force in mainstream music. It might not have been as good as it once was but it was still very much alive.
Fast forward to 2006. There is only one rock album in the top ten and only two in the top twenty. Of last year’s best selling albums, only two of the top ten were rock albums. This is better than the year before though, when only ONE of the top ten best selling albums was a rock album. Albums are doing better than singles though. Of the top ten songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart none of them are rock songs and of the top twenty only two are. This still is better than the Radio Airplay chart though, where none, NONE, of the top twenty songs are rock songs. This is probably largely due to the fact that there are less than twenty modern rock radio stations left in United States, including NONE in the nation’s largest market New York City. There are now more Tejano music stations than there are rock stations in the United States. And to make all of these numbers even more bleak, nearly 20% of all rock music sales over the past four years have been concentrated in the hands of four acts – Green Day, U2, Coldplay and The Killers. And Green Day and U2 are both comprised of guys over 40 years old. If rock today isn’t dead, I don’t know what dead is.
So after years of people crying wolf about rock’s demise, why is it now finally time to start actually crying? How did we get to this place? What happened?
Well, hip-hop happened.
Throughout history, art and music have grown and changed and evolved. And popular tastes have grown and changed and evolved right with them. Two hundred years ago, “classical” and opera were the dominant forms of popular music. Then it became big band and swing. And then Tin Pan Alley and crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. And then rock and roll hit and somehow everyone thought that it was the be-all and end-all of popular music. That nothing would ever supplant it. But as anyone who knows anything about history and human nature could have told them, that was an absurdly ridiculous idea. Eventually something else would come along that would be more popular, and rock would fade into the background, becoming a popular form of music, but not THE popular form of music. Much like jazz or blues or country it would still be a vital music force with a large following, but it would not be the dominant type of music in term of sales, airplay and/or cultural significance. And sure enough that is exactly what has happened right before our very eyes. For 35 years rock reigned unchallenged at the head of the music table. Of course there was “pop”, but pop isn’t so much a type of music as a title to assign to music that has no “type”. Pop is after all simply short for “popular”. But then in the mid-90’s as the last real rock movement – grunge - was dying off, rap, the young upstart, started to pull even with rock in terms of sales and popularity. The mid-90’s for me were spent in junior high and if your junior high was anything like mine (Im sorry) then hip-hop was by FAR the preffered and most popular type of music. People that liked rock, at least in Texas, were seem as somewhat weird, and troubled. The first song I knew all the words to was "Ice Ice Baby" and I think its safe to say I am not alone in that regard. Nearly all of my junior high memories are attached to rap/R&B songs, as are, I would wager, most people’s my age. Whereas we associated rock with our parents, rap was OUR music. It had loads of profanity, violence, and graphic descriptions of sex. It was dangerous and rebellious. It was fresh and exciting. It was the common denominator in my ethnically and finically diverse junior high and high schools. Even the people who listened to rock were familiar with rap, whereas the inverse was definitely not true. And this is where Block Party comes in. Rap is a uniting force and a legitimate social movement like what rock was in its early days. And most importantly to our multi-cultural world today it is something that everyone can and does listen to. Not to generalize, but rock will never be fully embraced by the majority of black, Hispanic and other minority groups. It doesn’t speak to them like rap does, which is understandable. But white kids are all familiar with rap as it represents the rebellion, youthfulness, and good times that rock used to. And sure rap is largely seen as being about bling, blunts and bitches; but what is rock and roll linked to if not sex and drugs? And underneath both stereotypes there is much artistic relevancy in both types of music. This is where where rap has succeed where other challengers to rock's throne have failed.
For years rock was able to hold off rap because it was still far artistically superior. The playing field began to level out in the 90’s but rock was still able to produce important, classic, big selling works like Nevermind, OK Computer, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Ten and countless others. But as the new millennium dawned, hip-hop began to take over. Since 1998 only twice has a rock album won the Pazz and Jop year end critics poll and one of those was an album deemed so uncommercial by its label that they refused to release it (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). And the other one was by Bob Dylan. In that same span, a rap album has come in first four times. And in that same time period, only once has the first place single not been a rap song.
So clearly rap has caught rock artistically. But is it artistically superior? Well here’s where I start getting the angry letters, but I say yes. And this is where Kanye comes in to back me up.
First though let me say that in many ways rock is doing better artistically than it has in a very long time. In terms of the amount of exciting, fresh new music being produced, rock is quite healthy. But a closer examination tells a different story. For all this great music being produced how much of it isn’t clearly derivative of someone (or “someones”) else? But who is Outkast derivative of? Or Wu-Tang Clan? Or Kanye? And sure there are truly original rock bands, but how much are they selling? When was the last time you heard a rock song and thought simultaneously “I’ve never heard anything like this before” and “this song is gonna be a huge mainstream hit”. "Float On" and "Take Me Out" come to mind but not a whole lot else. But I got that feeling twice in the first two songs off Late Registration. And that’s just one album. So sure there is great original rock music being made, but if a tree falls in a forest and non one is around does it make a sound? Well not a sound like a tree in a crowded forest makes. And rap is that crowded forest. Kanye was not only nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy the past two years, and not only did both of those albums win the Pazz and Jop as the most critically acclaimed album of the year, but they both were among the best selling albums of their respective years. They both spawned multiple instant classic hit singles. They spanned ethnic, age, gender, and national boundaries. How many current rockers can say the same about their first two albums? And the past 10 years have seen the rise of countless artistically relevant rap superstars other than Kanye. Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, Missy Elliot, and Lauryn Hill could all legitimately be called superstars who also are among the very best at what they do. Name a rock act that has released their debut since 1996 about whom you could say the same thing. Coldplay and The White Stripes - that’s about it. And Coldplay has more haters than Kobe Bryant. (And don’t tell me The Strokes, because as great as they are I don’t know of a single person who bought their latest album. And if I as a 20-something living in New York City don’t know anyone who bought their album, then you can’t say that they are superstars by any stretch of the imagination.)
And that’s what’s most troubling about rock. While rap seems to be churning new stars out of the woodwork, rock has only been able to create two superstar bands in ten years. Most of the biggest bands in rock have been around since the 80s (U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers) or the early 90s (Pearl Jam, Green Day, Radiohead) and are getting old. And no one is coming along to replace them. And with rock radio dying out and record labels signing fewer and fewer rock acts every year, there’s little hope on the horizon.
So where is rock headed? Well it will never completely die. There will always be a market for rock and great rock songs will always find a place in the national consciousness. In the past few years rock bands like Evanescence, Fall Out Boy and The Killers have all released hugely successful CDs. (Although notably all of them have yet to release a follow-up). There will always be a market for rock and great rock music will still be being made when we are 80. But as rock’s old guard dies out something dies with it and that is its spirit. It gets me thinking that in our accelerated age maybe art forms only have a life span as long as their founders. Because in many ways rock has run out of places to go and has started to double back on itself and eat its young (or in this case its “old” I guess). If you need proof, look no further than the biggest rock song of the moment, "Dani California". It’s clearly a recycled version of Tom Petty’s "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Pretty much everyone agrees on this. Meanwhile look at the hottest hip-hop song of the moment “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. (And if you want to say it’s not a hip-hop song, well Cee-Lo is a rapper and Danger Mouse is exclusively a hip-hop producer so I fail to see how you could call it anything else) What other song in the world could you even remotely compare it to? None. When I listen to old rock albums from the 60s and 70s like Blonde on Blonde or Pet Sounds or Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, I try to imagine what it must have been like to live back then and hear those albums for the first time and to have never heard anything like them before in your entire life. Well that’s what rap is like NOW. Listening to The Marshall Mathers LP or Speakerboxx/The Love Below or Late Registration for the first time recaptures what it must have felt like to listen to those classic rock albums of the 60s and 70s for the first time. And like rock back then, hip-hop is still young, and still has places to go. Like early rock, it has started incorporating other types of music. There is jazz/rap, soul/rap, disco/rap, techno/rap, country/rap and of course, rock/rap. Most things in rap today you can find equivalents or parallels for in the early days of rock (Speakerboxx/The Love Below is The White Album, Cee-Lo is Van Morrison, The Marshall Mathers LP is John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, etc.) Watching Block Party is like watching Woodstock. The sense of community, of passion, of being able to change the world is all there. All the things that rock stood for in its infancy can be found in rap today. I think its safe to say that rap IS rock from 30 years ago. Rock today may be dead, but hip-hop is just getting started. It is the new rock. It has picked up rock’s soul and made it its own. So mourn rock’s demise, but at the same time rise up your glass and gimme a cheer. “Rock is dead, long live rock!”
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Smoothies
2.) Cee-Lo
3.) John Hodgeman
3 & 1/2.) Realizing that "Mr. Blue Sky" is a take off on Paul's part of "Day in the Life"
Thought of the Week:
Friday the 14th is the birthday of your favorite online journal author. You should buy him a present. Like a life.
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