When Pete Townshend wrote "I hope I die before I get old", he meant it. When he and Who drummer Keith Moon destroyed their gear almost every night in a fury of feedback and chaos, it was more than just a publicity stunt, it was the very essence of rock and roll - pure reckless abandon.
So how is it that over the last 5 decades we've gone from hoping to burn out to today's ambitions of never getting off the launching pad? Rockers of old seemed to embody something that stood for more than the music they created or the guitars they destroyed. Mick Jagger stood for the working man, John Lennon for the disillusioned, Townshend for intellectuals, Kurt Cobain for cardigan sweaters and the Mr. Roger's fan club.
But what do musicians stand for today? It's so hard to gauge simply because of what it means to be famous in 2010. What do people look for in a song? Catchy melodies? Accessible lyrics? Whether who's singing the song is wearing the right clothes or has that look regardless of what that look is?
From loud cock rock bands like Nickelback, Staind, Godsmack and Disturbed, bland and soulless acts in the vein of The Black Eyed Peas, to auto tune pioneers including Lil' Wayne, T-Pain, Kesha and almost every other artist you hear on hit radio, music has for the most part lost its mojo. It's been a slow painful decay to the mighty forefathers of yesteryear to the puppy eyed sob stories of today.
But who is the blame for this modern trend? If things were supposed to mean so much so long ago, how did the current trend become the norm? Is it the "evil" corporations whose "wicked" money corrupted the meaning behind the music? Is it simply the new generation's knack for disdaining all things deemed "old", "stale" or archaic (big word huh?)?
No. It's the very people I was praising just a few paragraphs earlier. Rock's greatest stars let the whole movement down before many of today's bright eyed stars were even born. Sure The Who might have sang about dieing in the prime of youth, but just 15 years later they were writing songs about fucking that appealed to house wives. The Rolling Stones claimed to never get "Satisfaction" and made you have "Sympathy For The Devil", but by 1975 they claimed it was "Only Rock N' Roll" - but they liked it.
And it doesn't end there. Led Zeppelin - the most iconic hard rock band ever, share some of the blame. At the height of their fame, after four straight albums of exponential growth they caved into the young "glam arena rock" movement and released "Houses Of The Holy" where Robert Plant wailed how "The Song Remains The Same". Right when rock needed to stray from stagnation - it's greatest icons let it down. The revolution would be called “punk”.
That's not to say that all the super stars let down the music. The Beatles are still held in such high esteem 40 years after their demise because they never made a giant misstep against what rock should be. Sure their "Magical Mystery Tour" movie might have sucked and so what if "Yellow Submarine" or "Piggies" is goofy? The attempt to progress what music in the modern world could be was earnest. Hell, even the band's break up album, Let It Be, made a statement to humanity as the title track is played on radio to this day. Perhaps the band's legacy has been preserved so well because they fell apart at the right time - and never got into a reunion tour sponsored by Pepsi.
Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana are lumped into the same basket but for different reasons. Death is what sustains legacies more so than any album or song a major figure can release. Hendrix and Cobain each died at the age of 27 with limited catalogs and scores of committed fans who would cry foul if any record label or business man tampered with their heroes.
But when it became the norm for greats to become has-beens, it in turn becomes the norm for startups to not give a shit. The once mighty bands who have morphed into wrinkled baby boomers let down rock and rocks greatest proponents. When they stopped caring so did everyone else.
That’s why Warped Tour makes so much money and why Taylor Swift’s existence is allowed. Rock has been dumbed down for dumb audiences. Sorry to sound like an elitist, purist or jack ass in general. I just see the potential that has been dormant for far too long in music.
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