Moaning about Music

Greetings again, kids.

It’s been a busy week here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to vent about something that’s been bugging me for a while:  The lack of decent pop music.

Yep, I’m going to date myself here.  I grew up at the tail end of the American Bandstand years.  I can remember the segment they had called “Rate-a-Record”.  Or as Dad called it, “Rate-a-Wreck”.  No matter which kids they had to be the judges, the criteria seemed to be the same.  If “it had a good beat, and you can dance to it”, it would do well.  If not, it didn’t.  Granted, not everything that came out of the 80’s was good, but it seemed like there was a lot wider variety in the stuff that made top 40 lists.

Now, it seems like a song needs waaaaaaay too much bass, and has to pretty much be related to hip-hop somehow in order to get any airplay.  Not only that, but if you put together a rap or hip-hop group, you have to follow the formula:  Lose any ability to spell, come up with an extremely dumb name (like Lil’ Flip or Young Jeezy—what the hell is a Jeezy?  Is it like cheesy?), and don’t have any ability to sing (Sean Paul, who seems to be a poor man’s Biz Markie).

I have to go back to Dad here, who referred to 80’s rap as “Rap crap”.  Granted, I disagree with him there, as I liked Run-DMC, L.L. Cool J, some stuff from the Beastie Boys, and things like that.  But you could make out the words.  There’s a reason most hip hop videos only show the “artist” dancing with scantily clad ho’s:  If they didn’t, nobody would watch or listen.

There are some exceptions to this, but even these are either 80’s/early 90’s holdovers (Maria Carey, who, sorry Chad, is crazy, and Madonna, who’s older than all the Def Leppard guys except Phil Collen and closing in on 50!), or American Idol winners (Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Bo Bice, Clay Aiken--gag).  The other exception is the wannabe actor/singers (Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Hillary Duff) who are really borderline singers (at best) and are getting by on looks.

OK, not everything now is terrible.  I kinda like the stuff I’ve heard from Weezer, though I’ve never bought any of their stuff.  I’m fine with Eminem (the Detroit connection for me doesn’t hurt), though I haven’t heard anything off his last album that’s done much for me.  I’m not a fan of the Black Eyed Peas, but there’s certainly a lot worse stuff out there.  But you gotta ask yourself—In 20 years, are today’s teens still going to want to listen to the stuff they’re playing now?  Are they going to remember the lyrics?  Or is it going to be a whole era of songs like “Louie, Louie”, where nobody really knows what the lyrics are and you just make noises that might form words just by blind luck?

The whole name thing for hip-hop acts is just stupid.  Since when did putting “Lil’” in front of your name become a good idea?  Lil’ Flip, Lil’ Romeo, Lil’ Bow Wow (or Butt Wipe), Lil’ Wayne.  Geez, I think they’ve gone a lil’ brain dead.  I’m waiting for Lil’ Dufus.  And this is leaving off the fact that Sean Combs can’t decide on a name, when the one his mom gave him would work just fine.  I was disappointed he decided to go with Diddy, as I was convince Po’ Duddy was next (after Puff Daddy and P. Diddy).  Sorry Sean, but I don’t think it was the P. getting between you and your fans.  It might have something more to do with your entourage.  

At the same time, music labels can’t figure out why people don’t buy as many CD’s as they used to.  As if surrounding rows of crap with more rows of crap makes the first batch of crap look better.  If any of you reading this actually run a music label, I did buy a couple of CD’s recently:  Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” (their 2nd “Best Of” collection) and Depeche Mode’s “Playing the Angel”, which is actually pretty good.  I don’t remember the last CD I bought before thoseI don’t own an iPod because, well, I don’t need music with me wherever I go, particularly the new crap you keep releasing, and I don’t go that much, even if I did need it.

So that’s my thoughts, anyway.  Have a good weekend.