Observations In Life

I had a great conversation this weekend with my friend Andy about the state of music. He was telling me about his brother Ian’s job producing a weekly radio show on the BBC for Smooth Operations called the Bruce Dickenson Rock Show. He has been producing shows for the BBC for many years and has met many legends of rock. As the conversation progressed and we went over the many famous people Ian has met, we really started to think about music and where it is now and came to the conclusion that it just sucks!

To clarify, we were talking about mainstream music, the music for the masses. We weren’t putting ourselves up on a pedestal or having diverse and interesting music tastes but just referring to the current state of music. It all relates back to a similar post I wrote about America being a throwaway society. It reminded me of a question my mom asked me when I was in my teens and was listening to some metal loudly in my room. She asked me what the music of my generation would be? What would last? Surely no oldies station 50 years from now would be playing the pop music of today. Instead the music of her generation would endure. Classical radio stations would also continue to play the likes of Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven and Bach. The days of everlasting music are over.

While talking with my friend we realized that what was really troubling to us was not pop music’s entertainment value, but it’s lack of value of any other kind. Record companies continue to promote one hit wonders with advertising budgets that rival the entire economies of some poor nations. The evocative emotional music of years passed, the lyrics, the meaning, all gone because the attention span and appreciation for talent in American society is lost as well.

Record companies complain about the drop in CD sales and blame it on the iPod and other similar devices. Surely it must be all of the music piracy that is responsible for their downturn in sales and not the crap that they keep putting out. How about this? Could it be that the record companies aren’t putting out music that people are willing to pay for? Perhaps if the quality improved people would be willing to spend their hard earned money on an album instead of other items which they value more.

Music is produced to be heard and forgotten. I say in life you generally get back what you put in and if you are lucky sometimes a little more. Give me something memorable. Make me anticipate some really good music. Is it odd that my latest purchase was a B.B. King album and not an album from my generation? Is it odd that I’ve only bough a handful of CDs in the past few years and not because I downloaded the music illegally (which I haven’t)?

Andy considers himself a record company’s dream. He’s a person that will spend hours looking for great music and will spend large amounts of money on music if he can find something or a few things of value, and yet he rarely buys cds or listens to pop radio.

I’ll admit it’s fun to go out to a bar or club and hear Eminem, Jay-z and Beyoncé or God forbid Britney Spears and countless other copycats and no talents because I’m not paying attention them anyway. They just provide a good beat for the atmosphere…but when I’m home or in my car and want to listen to the vibes of our time, am I really going to listen to them? I don’t think so. Do I care who the next American Idol is? Surely not. They certainly aren’t my idol.

Maybe things will change. Until then I’d rather spend my money on other of real value.

That is all…