My Generation: Is music alive in 2009?

It is remarkable really. I hear it all the time, and every time it surprises me, catches me off guard. "This generations music has been awful, terrible, nothing compared to the 60s and 70s!" It is startling how often I hear this. Could it be true? And more importantly, why would someone think that?

The first time somebody pushed this extraordinary statement on me was in Canada, when I was told - by a man I have great respect for - that there has been no music of the last fifteen years that could ever compete with the Goliaths of the 60s and 70s. I can understand this. If I had lived through the years of Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills & Nash, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC they'd probably burn my mental retina as well. But I didn't, and free of nostalgia I believe there are very technical reasons why one could believe the music of today pales next to the monsters who came before it.

The Childhood of Rock'n'roll

The rock'n'rollers' of the 1950s, Pyche-heads of the 1960s, and 'Gods of Rock' in the 70s were all the founding pioneers of rock music. Rock did not simply just begin in 1955. It did not just fall from the heavens and began boogieing. It was an evolution. A social and race based evolution, and a musical one, fusing decades of folk, gospel, soul, bluegrass, and jazz. The decades following the 1950s were not decades of necessarily amazing musicians, who knew exactly what they were doing with rock'n'roll (although obviously, some were and did). 1955 all the way through to 1976 was the birth of rock, the childhood years. We saw its teething pains, its playful infancy, its rebellious teenage years, and finally its angsty, frustrated college days in the 1980s.

This is why rock music in these decades is so worshiped, and held on a pedestal high above anything created today: because it was pushing the basic format of rock'n'roll to the limits year, after year. What can we do with a guitar in 1967 that we couldn't do in 1963? What does the technology allow us to create in 1974 that couldn't be created in 1967? But overall, the main question of rock music in the twentieth century was, ''what the hell is rock'n'roll?''.

And they all had different answers. The punks rebelled against the psychedelics and tore their shit up. The rock acts of the 1970s saw rock through the eyes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Hound Dog Taylor, but built upon it, expanded it, see what was in that idea that could - or couldn't - be milked. So you see it was a discovery, a journey amongst comrades and rivals. The search for the answer was wonderful, and it in part directly looks at the opening statement of this post: this is why music of this era is so - and rightly so - adored and important. But... why isn't that happening today?

Well it is more difficult to play prophet than historian, but I think a have a clue.

Top vs. Bottom

If through the 1950s to the 1980s - when rock entered an entirely new cycle, one I believe we're still in today - we witnessed the evolution of rock, all we need to do is examine how rock'n'roll is evolving today. I have partly looked at this issue before. But in this context, I see it as a matter of - please excuse the Marxist vibe - top vs. bottom.

The music industry grew grotesquely in the 1980's with the rise of Reganism and MTV. Music was commodified and money could be made. MTV was a channel for this, a hook for propaganda, in a similar vein to Top of the Pops in Britain: Look at this amazing act we found. Rick Astley and Billy Ray Cyrus are selling millions of CDs - see what the fuss is about! Check out this amazing new boy band. The hype in the industry was originally focussed on, shall we say, 'classical' pop music. But the industry quickly learned - through the Stone Roses and Oasis in Britain, and through the grunge scenes in America - that pop music could grow far beyond the banal drum machines of Tiffany. This is the top.

We have discovered the brilliance of the underground, we know thats where the change is happening - and so does the top. The music industry has been exploiting every underground movement since Oasis. Why? Because during the 1980s the Smiths were a bunch of Manchester skallywags, not fit to appear on Top of the Pops. But my god did they have fans. Indie had potential, in the 1990s, Oasis and the Stone Roses, and Blur came along. Suddenly indie sold, and the labels grabbed on for the ride. Indie wasn't 'indie' music anymore - although they were simply building on the success of their 80s reflections - but BritPop. Because it sold. In the words of Noel Gallagher "I fucking became a fucking millionaire four fucking times in a

fucking week".

The bottom is where the change is happening. It is where in 1976 a fetish shop owner met a young angry British working class lad called John, and became his manager. In 1968, where a frustrated Jimmy Page charged out of the shadow of Jeff Beck and created something that he saw as beautiful. In the early 1980s it is where a resurgence of British youth felt the banality of the post-Thatcher world, and sang about it from their bedrooms. It is where in 1990 a young Billy Corgan began forming a band based not on genre, but on an idea. It's where the 'new Bob Dylan' of our time teamed up with his ex and toured the United States, stating she was his sister... and beating the crap out of Jason Stollsteimer from the Von Bondies while he was at it.

It is where change occurs. And it is hard to see the seabed from the shore.

You have to look at the underground to see why our generations music is equally as brilliant, because it is the only place where the genius of the 60s and 70s lives on. It is where imagination lives. It still amazes me how big the underground can get, how well known an indie band can become, and still comfortably play the tiniest venues. Maybe I'm used to it, especially with the internet, but the talent is really right in front of us if we choose to look.

Seeing the seabed from the shore

So where do we look? To answer this I would like to briefly look at the top again. Many, including myself on occasion, look to the online music magazine (also known as 'the oracle') Pitchfork. Pitchfork is known to be a fantastic channel for discovering new talent. The Antlers, Deerhunter and Grizzly Bear's careers have all been vastly improved through good reviews on Pitchfork. This is assumed to be the apex of the underground.

Weeell, I disagree. Pitchfork is still the top. They are still 'the man'. They are vitriolic, insincere, and in the words of a former Salient editor 'they hate music'. And we are below them looking up going, 'feed us, drop another overly distorted and complicated rhythm section between my waiting lips, please! We hunger for nonsensical literary references and melodies with no direction'. I believe this is what Bill Hicks would have called 'the mantra of the moron'. They have a reputation for being constantly right about their reviews. But they review with the Fox News methodology of I'm always right, as long as you can't prove me wrong. They will drop the hottest most talented band, no matter how good their new album might be, as soon as they think a new sound has come along. The mentality: latch onto every new sound, and as soon as one takes off we can say we were there!

Sadly the same story applies to almost every music publication. They are the man. NME, Rolling Stone, they all have interests other than the love and joy of music.

For us to appreciate the music of today, we must refuse the top. We must embrace our own tastes. Do our own research. If a band releases a good album then never lives up to it, don't hate them for it like Pitchfork would. Just love that one album. If a band becomes popular around the world, keep your faith in them. Look into what the members are doing elsewhere. I've found some of my favorite bands by looking at the members of an act and seeing what they're doing elsewhere and who their friends are. The top may steal the sound of the bottom, but it can never suppress it, and the bottom will always thrive.

For rock'n'roll is made in reaction to society, it always has. Every social movement has its musical connections, and every musical movement can be connected to social and political circumstances. This will go on. Every time a wave of indie becomes popular and glamorous and glorified - much like it is today - there will be the six-string-ripped-jean cavalry ready to burn their shit to ashes. It happened in 1976, it happened in 1982, and in 1991, and in 2002. Well hallelujah, call out the fucking horsemen and hang the middleman. If DIY could exist in 1976 it can bloody well do so in 2009. So do some work, do some research, listen to your friends but think for yourself. Keep your eyes on the spaces, and point them down.. Lets watch what happens in 2010. Just uh, make sure you're not watching Pitchfork.

I'll try and help when I can in my 'Watch that Space' segment. Later in the week I'll do a post with some examples of excellent albums of my generation. And please feel free to disagree with me, not everyone has the same taste - god forbid it - that is what this shit is all about. The more disagreement we have, the more we will be remembered.