As we sat around the Labor Day bonfire, draining bottles and discussing the amazing meal of animal parts I had just grilled, the subject of popular music came up (yes, music, not Trump).
My good friend Liam Sullivan, musician and author of “Making The Scene: Nashville – How To Live, Network and Succeed In Music City,” popped another can of Montauk Summer Ale and started bitching. “There’s no artist, no band today that’s having an impact on the culture—and there hasn’t been since Nirvana,” Liam asserted. To which another fire keeper replied, “Yea man, nobody gives a shit today…there’s no music speaking up for what’s important. It’s just DJ crap!”
At this point I threw another log on the jam and said, “You guys are starting to sound like my mother when she first heard the Beatles—‘Turn that down or turn it off!!’”
Wikipedia cites author Michael Azerrad’s assertion that Nirvana’s breakthrough 1991 album Nevermind “was music by, for, and about a whole new group of young people who had been overlooked, ignored, or condescended to”…making it an “epochal generational shift in music.”
On the other hand, here’s some post-teen spirit to digest: My beautiful 22 year-old stepdaughter just confessed, “I’m not really familiar with Nirvana.”
Which reminded me of a very special moment at the start of the decade, when I met Sade at her record release party for “Soldier Of Love” in New York. Yes, I was like a babbling teen fan, so shut up. Next day, still smitten from my encounter, I remarked to the young woman serving coffee at Muffins Cafe on Columbus Ave., “Guess what—I met Sade last night!” To which she replied, “Who’s Sade?” Like a slap in the face. A knee to the groin. A rusty knife in my throbbing heart.
But I digress. The fact is that people of Earth—whether old farts or newer ones—have to get over the idea of “universality” in a popular musical voice in this era of streaming radio and cherry-picked playlists.
As Chris Clark, director of music at Leo Burnett, observed, “Over the last year, when the political and racial climate called for a powerful message from artists once again, D’Angelo and Kendrick Lamar made impossibly great statement records that are a force in my mind. It’s just that people don’t HAVE to listen—they have to CHOOSE to listen.”
Even Radiohead’s breakthrough albums “OK Computer,” “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” were all released before iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, etc. existed. Their 1992 hit “Creep” a full decade before. Clearly, MTV helped fuel their explosive rise on the charts.
And before that, in 1988, MTV responded to accusations over a lack of diversity in its music programming by broadcasting a new series, “Yo MTV Raps”. That same year N.W.A released its ground-shaking “Straight Outta Compton”, which, 27 years later, would become a number one box office movie about the pioneering rappers and their rise to unprecedented hip-hop success. Remember, no streaming radio. No iTunes. Straight outta your boom box, bro.
Back then, MTV was actually still about the music—though later that year “The Real World” would debut and spawn a proliferation of “reality” TV shows. Bye-bye music television.
So, back to the bonfire. Are there any game-changing voices in popular music today, or is the fire just the smoldering ash remains? I will take the affirmative position. But it is a collective “voice”, not singular, reflecting the multitude of mediums through which we hear our music.
Lyrically, there is an unmistakable focus on the personal, not the fabricated. Life’s realities, internal pain, loss, heartache, alienation—a “this is my world” approach to storytelling. Without judgment I would offer these artists as brilliant tellers of their own truth: Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Lorde, Halsey, Taylor Swift, Drake, Adele, the Lumineers, Arcade Fire….and any all whom you would add to this list.
Sonically, there is a breathtaking integration of genres, production techniques, electronic and acoustic instrumentation resulting in an unnameable “revolution” in how things are made that we haven’t quite ever heard before. It’s awesome, really. This collaboration between Justin Bieber, Diplo and Skrillex is a pretty good case in point.
Billboard posted its own list of the 10 most influential artists of the 2010’s so far. Some you’ll nod ‘Absolutely’ to…others you’ll go “Huh?”
Just enough to keep the brawl going till the glasses are empty!
