Hey All,
You'd think a person so bent on defying labels would spend less time pondering them...
I was doing a little "slogging" last week, and came across an older discussion on a Live365 forum regarding the definition of Alternative music .
Some good points were made by several individuals, but I must give credit to one entity by the handle of Rhyslud, who said some inredibly poignent things. I am going to cut and paste this person's comment because it resonates so deeply for me..
"In the early 80s I spent most of my driving time with my left hand on the wheel and my right on the radio dial -- searching for something interesting to listen to. Despite the recommendations of a few friends, I had closed my mind to the punk movement (my loss).
I found myself more often than not on college radio stations. Artists like Elvis Costello, The Smiths and the Cure had been around for years and to my amazement were never played on mainstream radio.
Apparantly I was not the only one who could not stomach one more replaying of Bob Seager's Old Time Rock & Roll. Capitalizing on the college radio boom, commercial "Alternative" stations sprang up across the country offering an alternative to the closed-mindedness of standard commercial radio.
It seems though that the term "Alternative" has been co-opted to define a particular genre of music. And the so-called "Alternative" stations have become every bit as closed-minded to alternatives as their Fleetwood Mac-playing predecessors. From what I hear, in order for a song to be played on an "alternative" station it must either BE at least ten years old or SOUND at least ten years old."
No wonder this new stuff is making me feel pretty settled and comfy. And I thought I was adapting to that "shock of the new" so well...
This person is not alone in holding tightly to this loose fitting definition. Frankly, we are hitting a phase of Alternative and College music that I enjoy very, very much. I realized a few months ago that the reason I am enjoying it so much, is that in sentiment and harmony, orchestration and content, it reminds me of the music I dug so 20 years ago.
It is the nature of Popular Culture to recycle, reuse, and reflect. With Popular Cutlure, quite literally, what goes around, comes around--and that is not necessarily a bad thing. As I comb through the latest single tracks from bands like My Chemical Romance, Muse, and Cold War Kids, I hear traces of bands that I loved. This beat reminds me of The Cure, that lyric turn-phrase makes me thing of The Smiths...and so on.
I guess I was foolish to think that an iron curtain drops when popular musical trends shift gears and a style evolves out of something, and never looks back. That's really a wrong-headed attitude, but that's the notion of style and fashion and popular music--it all poaches from itself. I think that what I have found as significant in artist advancement is in the evolution of technology. One upon a time the David Bowie worked with a Moog Sythesizer and it was something ahead of its time, now its archaic, not to mention the electronica-centered Hair-Bands of 20 years ago...thank god that aspect of the era was left behind.
I may be a hard-core nostaligist...but not THAT nostalgic (or that hard-core).
Before it Smelled Like Teen Spirit, it smelled like Aqua Net and that, friends and neighbors, was the smell of future generations burning under an ozone free atmosphere...
...but I digress.
What was best about that era of music that I am so thrilled to find resonating over and over again? How about the highly personal metaphor, the subjective and unapologetic voices of rage, discontent, dissillusionment, awe, mystery, and...hope? Yeah, I hear a lot more hope than I did ten years ago.
Because once you work through the anger and the rage, you can look upon things with a clearer head. With a clearer head you are more apt to see an issue from more than one angle; you see options. With options comes a sense of hope. Hope is the best Alternative this life has ever given me.
How about you?
More later,
Coletrane
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