I have seen on my time line here
recently a couple of comments about the fact that the music we grew up with was
the best. My wife and I totally agree. The
music from the 1960s up to the 1980s was altogether different than the music
that you hear today. The innocence that the music had and even the adult themes
were more subliminal than spoken. The
groups and the singers from the bands from our era had their own specific
individual sound, even the songs on their album’s had their own individual
sound, not like the songs of today that have all the computerized echo and
special effects mastered into them for these newer artists that can’t hold a
tune. I once saw a video of various
artists singing Happy Birthday and the absolute worst one of them all was
Justin Bieber. He couldn’t carry the tune.
I don’t mean to pick on any one individual artist of today, but very few
of them don’t use all of the enhancements that modern recording provides in
their music that our generation of artists were not able to use because it didn’t
exist. The computer age seems to have
brought forth a generation of singers that are not of the caliber of our
generation’s singers because the computer wasn’t around to make them sound good,
they sounded great on their own.
Now, you take a band like the
Beatles, every single person, John, Paul George and Ringo have all been award
winning vocalists. I can’t believe that
the kids of today think that some of these artists they listen to wrote some of
the greatest songs to ever hit the radio when it was the artists of our day
that wrote them. I have seen some pretty
good covers of songs that came from our era and a few really good songs from
today’s artists, but when you try to listen to their albums there’s only one
song on their whole albut that’s worth its weight and who’s going to pay for 10
songs when you’re only getting one that is worth listening too. Yes, I’m an old fuddy duddy, but my bands are
better than theirs. Pick up an old album
from the 1960s to the 1970s and you would be hard pressed to find only one song
that you liked. Most of the albums had 10 great songs on them.
All of these “make a star” shows that are on
television have only produced a couple of artists that can stand the test of
time and I must admit those artists are pretty good but where are the rest of
them. A group like Sawyer Brown which
was an extremely good group who won Star Search but is no longer around today. It’s
almost impossible in this day and age for a group or any individual to make it
in the industry as the Beatles and other groups did in the early sixties. They developed their craft for several years
before they hit it big and/or found the right producer to ever even get noticed. The people at the top of the music industry
are using these young people up so fast that it’s impossible for them to last.
Yes I am blaming the way the record industry is run today on the lack of great
talent and using what good talent they have up too quickly and they’re getting burned
completely up before their time. Even
country music is now so homogenized and synthesized that it’s not funny.
Like Elvis once said in Jailhouse
Rock, “I don’t sound like nobody”. I know everyone’s trying to find the next Alabama
or the next Reba McEntire, but they seem to all sound exactly the same. The female
artists sound like one another, not like in our day when you could’ve heard
Dolly Parton who sounds like no one else I’ve ever heard or Linda Ronstadt who
just received an award from the President a United States. It also has been
said that our music is good and the younger generation’s music is bad. I
personally cannot agree with that argument because the younger generation’s is
just not music, most of it. The groups
from our day played music that is still in major demand today, just listen to
Slacker, or Jango or Pandora. I wonder
where all the music of today will be 60 years from now when they really do let
the dogs out, woof, woof, woof. Not that
I really care what happens to their music, excuse me, their talking on a record.
I always thought that the music
would get better in the future but it has digressed rather than bringing a
lovely art form to a higher level. Names
like Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers,
the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Monkeys, the
Lovin’ Spoonful, the Mama’s and the Papas, the Righteous Brothers, Donovan, Cat
Stevens, the Grateful Dead, Elton John, BJ Thomas, Barry Manilow and so, so
many more names will live in the annals of rock history, it is impossible to
name them all here.
I want to know who
it was that decided rap should be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I guess that’s what we get for allowing a
city that’s only claim to rock and roll fame was that a DJ from there
supposedly coined the phrase rock and roll which, if the truth be told, was
lifted from black artists in the 1930’s and 1940’s. This brings me to my pet peeve, even though
there can be made a substantial argument against Memphis, Tennessee being the
birthplace of rock and roll, but without the blues and rhythm and blues which
were definitely born from the Delta area that ran from Mississippi all the way
up into Memphis, Tennessee and the acceptance of a young swivel hipped white
boy from Tupelo, Mississippi recording his brand of music on the Sun label in
Memphis, Tennessee, there would have been no rock and roll as we know it. Whether you like that fact or not, it is
absolutely a fact and whoever it was that decided that Cleveland was the rock
and roll capital of the United States should be tarred and feathered and run
out of the country on a rail while they play Johnny B. Goode. I personally give the early rhythm and blues
black artists the credit for starting a style of music that was blended with
gospel and country music to become what we know as rock and roll. And yes, Memphis really is the Home of Rock
and Roll.