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I’ve been thinking lately about why I don’t like a lot of the music that’s being produced currently by what used to be some of my favorite bands or musicians. Is it that once a band achieves a certain level of fame or income or whatever, they become comfortable and don’t try as hard anymore? Does the talent well dry up? Am I less interested in what they have to say because their subject matter no longer suits my tastes? (Which is precisely why I don’t like a lot of NEW music these days. Hey, I can admit it, and I know how old I sound saying that.) Some people might say that the crap factor of the music corresponds to the advancing age of the musician, but I don’t think this is necessarily true either.
So here’s my theory: It has nothing to do with how old a musician has become, or how talented they are, or even really what they are writing about. It is that what they used to be able to say in five words, they now feel compelled somehow to say it in twenty, or thirty, or more. There’s poetry in those five words that is lost when something is overexplained. Which is better, A or B? A) “Coffee on grey stone Tuesday”; B) “Went to our coffee shop on the corner, feeling sad cause you’re not here, the skies are crying like me, but I don’t let it show” (I totally just made that up). Isn’t A soooo much better? It leaves things to your imagination, lets you interpret, doesn’t feel compelled to hold your hand through the story.
And even besides the lyrics, the music… sigh… it’s just… boring sometimes. Take Sting. His music has just gotten boring. It all kind of sounds the same, and it’s all sort of got that light jazz/muzak/easy listening feel to it. What happened to songs like Children’s Crusade, Fortress Around Your Heart, and Low Life? And his stuff with the Police was fuckin’ brilliant. Not to pick on Sting in particular, but he’s the first one that came to mind.
But then there’s people like David Bowie who produce HUGE volumes of work, and a lot of it’s crap, and he knows it, but because he produces so much material there’s also a big portion of it that’s really really damn good. He says that he’s not afraid of failure, and would much rather take chances than stay safe. Or Peter Gabriel — he’s never lost it. That mysterious “it.” There was a time there with the whole “That’ll Do Pig”/Uncle Fester phase where I was a little worried, but he pulled out of it fantastically.
Anyway, that’s enough of that. My biggest blood-is-boiling issue this week (besides of course the Iraqi prisoner abuse stuff, which I won’t even go into) is the fact that Disney refused to let Miramax release Michael Moore’s new film, Farenheit 9/11, because it harshly criticizes the Bush family and they fear that it might endanger their tax breaks from the State of Florida, which is run by… yes, Jeb Bush. Disney’s party line is that Farenheit 9/11 is not the Disney brand, and that Disney produces family oriented films (as Michael Moore said, that would explain why the #1 Disney film in theatres right now is called Kill Bill Vol. 2); and that it’s not in their best interest to distribute a partisan political film that might offend some of their customers (which explains why they distribute the Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh radio shows, and also why they distributed Michael Moore’s 1998 partisan political film, The Big One — during an election year, no less). The New York Times has a great editorial about the whole issue.