Rock and Roll Requiem

The Times They Are a'Changing.  We have Rocked Around the Clock, my friends. Let's gather around and listen to that haunting tune by Neil Young, and hold our hats to our hearts as Rock and Roll climbs the Stairway to Heaven.

Hey Hey, My My
Rock 'n' Roll will never die.

Sure sure, you say. We've heard it all before. When the Sex Pistols came out and Rolling Stone magazine declared that "Rock is Sick."  Or when rock became of a parody of itself with the hair bands of the 80s. Or when the 60s rock star actually hit 60.

"I still look better than Keef."

But last year at this time, the Guardian reported that a measly three tracks of the top 100 songs in 2010 fell in the rock genre--and one of them was a thirty-year old Journey ballad called Don't Stop Believin'.  Doesn't look any better for this year.  I checked the Billboard Top 100 for 2011 and counted three rock acts again (and counting Avril Lavigne is a stretch).  So that's two years in a row where rock and roll accounts for a whopping three percent of the top 100 hits.

She's just run her course, from Elvis, to the greasers, to the British Invasion, to Psychedelic, to hard rock, to glam, to punk, to metal, to New Wave, to grunge, to indie.  Fifty years of guitars and sweat; sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. 

That's not to say it will die; that would be a bit melodramatic.  It will join the genres of ages past as part of the Museum of Music.  There's still great jazz bands around, long after the days of the hep cats and jive beats.  The blues, baroque, folk, bluegrass.  All still there.  But they no longer prevail, no longer capture the zeitgeist.

Lay the blame where you please. Simon Cowell and his schlock reality shows, greedy record companies and their accelerating revolving door of the Next Big Thing, technology replacing musicians the way machines replaced factory workers.  But like everything else, like us, Rock and Roll grows old; it withers under the weight of its years.  The way rock, with its electric amplifiers swept aside the clarinets and trombones, so the computers are sweeping aside the old tube amplifiers. 

"But these techno guys can't even play an instrument?"  No.  Neither could those early rockers.  How do you think those jazz guys felt--woodshedding for years to get their chops down--to see these pimply teenagers power-chording their way to riches.  Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar, AC/DC) has probably got a 50' yacht thanks to G, D and C chords.  (No offence, Malc--if I were in a band with Angus, I'd stick to chords too.)

It's passing is bittersweet. I'll rock to the end, with my friends, in garages, studios and questionable joints everywhere.  And I'll always love it, but I will not over-mourn its passing.  Rock and roll melded with other kinds of music and made beautiful babies.  A little bit of Alice Cooper in Lady Gaga. A little Black Sabbath in that trance beat. 

I'll miss the poetry.  I mean, I like the party music, the LMFAO and the Lady Gaga, but it lacks the poetry of John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Bon Scott.  The current crop of pop music lacks that honesty and self-reflection. But this too shall pass, as the pendulum swings.  Early rock-n-roll wasn't all that stellar in the lyric department, as I recall ("I found my thrills...", "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah...")   And I'll miss rock-n-roll ugly.  It's all polish and pretty and perfume now.

Then (Shane McGowan, Motorhead)

Now (Adam Levine, Rihanna) 

On the other hand, I like the way that control has been wrested from the record companies.  Digital sharing of music has shaken up the system, decentralized control from the conglomerates and created an environment of chaos where, I think, creativity will thrive and new and unexpected things will arrive.

Sure the labels are predicting the end of music.  But music will always be there, and it will always be transcendent and divine.

Incidentally, right now I'm listening to Otep, Smash the Control Machine, and Five Finger Death Punch, Generation Dead, and Muse, Exogenesis.  All good, relatively new stuff, IMHO.

Anyway, you may not agree with me, but I'm right and you're wrong.  So there. 

So let's raise a toast, shall we?  A toast to St John of Liverpool, and Jim Morrison and Janis and Jimi and George and Kurt and Keith. To being 14, drunk and giddy, walking into your first arena rock concert.  To making out to Led Zeppelin III.  To pulling Wish You Were Here, brand-new, out of it's record sleeve, careful to handle it only by the edge.  To listening to Fool to Cry over and over again after your first heartbreak.  To the sweaty mosh pit at the Commodore when Pearl Jam played there before they made it.  To the soundtrack of my wild and beautiful youth.  You Rock, rock'n'roll.