Where'd all the good music go?

In a contemporaneous world, where back up dancers and skimpy trappings serve as a bigger attraction than the consequential lyrical content or the innovative rhythm pattern that a musical artist is supposed to impart, audiences are subject to so much more than merely auditory creations. The loyal music lover now has access to the Fashion Industry, the latest gadgets that the 21st century conceives, the scandalous world of Tinsel Town and catering especially to their female fans… the latest trend of diet disorders. Women in the music business may have established some sort of platform for expression but like women world wide, they too have superfluous obstacles to confront. Satiating their own amorous needs now comes with the option of titillation and unnecessary exposure which distorts what the legends have worked so hard to pump through the Vein of Music into nothing more than substandard lyrics clad minimally.
What Madonna did ten years ago by hiking up her hemline and converting smooth to jagged seems to have earned itself a business of its own cleverly concealed within the music industry. The difference lies in the fact that Madonna was and continues to be a mould-shattering Musician, constantly experimenting with styles, genres and religions. Pioneers like her no longer take their job as musicians seriously. Most female artists today aim at breaking records of a varying kind. Take the case of Miss Spears and her 55-hour long marriage, or Jenny from the Block showcasing her unusually large block, leading to a boom in the department of cosmetic surgery. It’s obvious that with unparalleled fame and glory comes unfathomable popularity and rapidly the bar is elevated with each new artist aiming to top the previous chart buster. If not for this imposition of responsibility on popular artists, we would never have been witness to rebels like Nirvana, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Alanis Morissette. I suppose it would be safe to assume that priorities have changed and that the bar has descended to mere erotica.
The job of true music appreciation with respect to rock music has deteriorated to the nominal task of recognizing original riffs, comprehendible lyrics and the underlying passion in the creation. It’s no surprise that at this years Grammy’s went to veterans like U2. Since the 80’s, pushing musical restraints was an obsession for breakthrough talent. A young Rasta moved Jamaica off its shrouded orbit and into the wider morally conscious universe, another coloured man forever changed not just the way a common name like Jimmy was spelt but also the face of Rock music…. Women used music to convey their suppression and broke all stereotypical notions that they were burdened with. The Bangles, Joan Jett and Janis Joplin took on the male dominated world with fervor and determination to show that women belonged beside men and not below. Picking up from where the Ladies of Rock left off, I now turn to artists like Ani Di Franco, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow and Suzanne Vega for inspiration and the hope that some good music still exists.
Younger talent shows angry streaks with a pseudo rebellious visage. Spreading love has turned to spreading hate. Equally moving as the love torn singers that crooned us in the last era, Avril Lavigne, Fefe Dobson and American idol winner Kelly Clarkson prove to be extremely efficient at portraying their pain through lovable tunes. I’m not including Jazz artists of the younger wave because jazz as a genre is like clay…. Free for anybody to be inspired by what has been sculpted in the past and therefore encouraging people to experiment and personalize their jazz. Norah Jones, Michael Buble’ and Jamie Cullum can incorporate their own fancies into older tunes or reinvent by blending different genres into a basic jazz riff. Hence the saying…there is no such thing as bad jazz!!
Rock music on the other hand, if it were to deviate from its set-in-stone rules is then labeled as “Pop” or “Alternative”. The impact and incidence falls on the audience and loyal fans of Rock through the ages as they now have the terrible onus of filtering the original from the pretentious leather modeling boy bands. Just because Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson hold guitars and write about their “painful” adolescent experiences does not mean they qualify to be compared to Sarah Mclachlan and Shania Twain. I’m not suggesting that youth equates artificiality; in fact I’m desperately search out the best of these celebrities who try to do too much in a short period of time. I admire the fact that these determined young women are showing the world how fashionable too many feathers can be on one hat but when it results in un-necessary publicity and when musical admiration extends to simple teenagers replicating their lifestyles, the essence of a musician takes a place in the backseat. Women are particularly susceptible to nervous breakdowns and the obligation to be successful over achievers than the men because as female artists they are socially expected to visually cater to all audiences irrespective of age and the fact that they maybe tone deaf. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why T.A.T.U gained more popularity overnight than older, more skilled female musicians like Sheryl Crow whose career took more than ten years to launch.
What I am grateful for is that the trend-obsessed fan gets bored and moves to the next “in” thing in the cycle. This results in lousy, non-musicians to feel the pinch of their short-lived reign in the music industry and leave while they’re ahead of the game. Nearly half of these “have-beens” are then classified under One Hit Wonders while another section returns in the future claiming to be better, more attractive and free of all that was holding them down…. Bands break up and members appear in solo performances, soon collaborating with more musicians that have mastered the circuit, blondes turn to brunettes, while brunettes turn blonde, people shell out whatever money that remains from the glory days to pay for complete and irreversible make overs and dieticians. Change is the secret of their comeback and change in choice of music is the only cure for such an insipid takeover in the once hailed music industry. The only thing that the industry manufactures now is eye candy and glitterati. It would be extremely wise to follow what Marx told his followers after the Industrial Revolution….. Fighting the restrictive and biased view of the authority is inevitable when there exists discontent amongst the suppressed. A revolution is the culmination of all confrontation between those in control of the factors of production and the oblivious and helpless consumers. So why not use the same principle to alter the face of the music production houses? Why can’t we return to the roots of music and produce pioneers and legends instead of celebrities who rake in more money through the consumer driven impulses of their fans as opposed to the so called “Music” they are making? Till this urge to be content with what we see changes to judging musicians by what we hear continues, the question -- where did all the good music go?- will continue to haunt me.