The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living - Part 9: The Era the Music Died

And I was like

Baby baby baby oh,

Like baby baby baby no,

Like baby baby baby oh.

Thought you'd always be mine.

Mine.

Thus go some of the worst lyrics in the history of music, I feel it would be agreed universally; yet, inexplicably, the single in which these lyrics serve as a chorus successfully reached #3 on the UK Singles Chart and, even more surprisingly, #2 on the UK R&B Chart. I'm not sure which of these little slices of knowledge angers me most: the fact that something so poorly written, with such repetitive 'beats' laid down by a synthesiser in the background, actually managed to succeed commercially and brought in a boatload of money for this whiney little talentless nobody, or the fact that it has been classed as R&B music, a genre with which I have often been much enamoured in the past.

R&B (or, as it should correctly be styled, R 'n' B, because its so cool it doesn't even need a full-length connective), of course stands for 'rhythm and blues'. It is a popular genre of African-American music which rose to fame in the 1940s, featuring a beautiful blend of blues, jazz and soul. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, it was one of the most well-respected and widely followed genres of music available, and is still one of the primary associations with the period writer F. Scott Fitzgerald terms 'the Jazz Age'. But what is perhaps most beautiful about it was the way it broke down barriers of race and nationality. During a period of history rife with hatred and discrimination, R'n'B can easily be described as the first example of a genre shared between black and white alike. Synonymous with such legends as Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, the genre was soon picked up by several contemportary white acts such as Free, and was even heavily-featured on the early Led Zeppelin records.

Of course, it is a tragic fact that whenever someone mentioned R'n'B nowadays, it is a rare thing that anyone will think of this kind of music, and the few who do believe it stands for rhythm and blues are sadly thinking of a completely different genre; for, what was once rhythm and blues, is now, tragically, yet another abomination of the terrible decade that was the 1980s: so-called 'Contemporary R&B', the 'contemporary' being there, of course, because that 'other' style is just too old and shocking for modern audiences to understand.

Yet the use of the phrase 'R&B' is completely erroneous in this case: where the term used to mean an African-American jazz/soul/blues fusion genre, it now refers to a style (I can't even bring myself to say 'of music') not just laced with pop, funk, disco and hip hop, but positively dripping with its influence.

And it is with that terrible change of style that songwriting like that outlined at the beginning of this article comes into being.

I have often had it said to me that I just don't understand modern music; or, if I do, I'm just an old person trapped inside a young person's body who can't accept that musical styles change. I have even had my personal tastes in music called 'boring', 'old' (which, I assume, is somehow naturally synonymous with 'boring') and just plain old 'bad'.

So I suppose this edition of The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living comes principally as a retaliation to those few who throughout the last few years have expressed a widespread rigidity and fixedness regarding what is 'good' and what is 'bad' - and yet, along the way, a few very good points will undoubtedly be raised.

As a longstanding believer that there is no such thing as 'good' and 'bad' and that everything realating to the arts is a matter of opinion, I usually find people agreeing with me as to this sentiment; and yet, when it comes to music, all these individuals choose to forsake these beliefs. In fact, I have even had one girl say to me 'I know its onl a matter of opinion, but old music is just so... bad.'

Remember that word: 'bad'. Remember, also, that this relates to old music in particular.

With that sentiment fresh in your minds, I shall rapidly move on to my heavy criticism of the quality of modern music, through a few short comparisons, beginning, of course, with what is arguably the most important part of all music - songwriting. The quote which opened this article is, of course, from the notorious hit single (oh, how my fingers burned when I typed that phrase) 'Baby' by Justin Bieber, which is featured on his hit album (oh, the pain) My World 2.0 (2010). Much criticism has already been targeted at young Master J. Bieber regarding the repetitiveness of the song, the annoying 'oh my God I'm such a deep person because I can sing a song about love at such a young age' nature of the music video and the general tiresome fuzzyness of it all (or, rather, the attempted fuzzyness, because let's face it, even a jumper stops being fuzzy if you vomit all over it). It would, therefore, be very easy for me to criticise Bieber entirely, but that has been done so many times before, it has become an approach about as sickening as Bieber managed to make the very mention of the word 'baby'.

Congratulations, Mr. Birkmyre, you now have a beautiful baby boy.

A... 'baby', you say?

AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

But it would be unfair of me to attack Bieber alone. After all, it takes two to tango and, in the same way, it takes sometimes two to write a song (or, in the case of the talentless young Bieber, five. That's right: he needed four people to help him write that. For the shared blame, therefore, I have to direct my angst primarily to the larger franction of the workforce: so, Christopher Stewart, Terius Nash, Christopher Bridges and Christina Milian... what were you playing at? Don't you remember the days when songwriting actually took some time? It's hard to imagine what these five demons felt after so many hours of work only being able to come up with a chorus which effectively re-uses the word 'baby' every second syllable and uses up their entire 'like' quota for the fiscal year in one go. Pride? Sadness? I hope fear.

I despair, as I'm sure you must too, when you compare the greatest hit singles of the past century with this drivel. For example, Queen's 'Who Wants to Live Forever', from their 1986 album A Kind of Magic (and written solely by Brian May, it should be noted) begins with the following beautiful, philosophical lines:

There's no time for us.

There's no place for us.

What is this thing that builds our dreams,

Yet slips away from us?

And when music is filled up with lines like that, who needs the repetitive hits of today? Yes, it should be admitted, this song's chorus is very simplistic, but at least its short - we're not confronted with these lines being repeated over and over again for anything longer than fifteen seconds or so.

And that isn't all that's great about the past. It would take me forever to list all the amazing lyrics of yesteryear and all the faecal matter of today, but there are still a few examples which should be attented to, such as:

Guess who just got back today?

Them wild-eyed boys that had been away.

Haven't changed, haven't much to say,

But man, I still think them cats are crazy.

They were asking if you were around,

How you was, where you could be found.

Told them you were living downtown,

Driving all the old men crazy.

Not as philosophical as the previous example, its true; but the point here is that the lyrics are supposed to be fun, and despite the bad grammer in Phil Lynott's language use, it works, and is still one of the most popular rock anthems in the history of music. The song is of course 'The Boys Are Back in Town' by Thin Lizzy (from the 1976 album Jailbreak).

Or how about this?:

I've been alone with you inside my mind,

And in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times.

I sometimes see you pass outside my door.

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

I can see it in your eyes,

I can see it in your smile.

You're all I've ever wanted,

And my arms are open wide.

'Cause you know just what to say,

And you know just what to do,

And I want to tell you so much,

I love you.

Oh, Lionel, we can feel your pain coming through in these amazing lyrics (which you wrote, alone, for your 1984 album Can't Slow Down and which were so popular you even re-recorded it for your 2012 album Tuskegee). The lyric make you feel; but the same cannot be said for, say, this:

I don't mean to be pushy, pushy.

I'm just in it for the pussy, pussy.

Who wants to come and get a pie of the piece?

Got time for everyone, I ain't on no leash.

(N-Dubz, 'Sex', Uncle B, 2008)

Erm... 'a pie of the piece'? Surely you mean 'a piece of the pie'.

Idiots. Proof-reading, people!

Another bugbear of mine is the rapidly-increasing obsession with the synthesiser and, worse still, the dreaded autotuner. Instruments themselves seem to be becoming a thing of the past, and it is for this reason I despise Calvin Harris so much - pressing a few buttons on a contraption which is essentially a computer does not constitute musicianship. As for the autotuner, the sad fact is that where singers could in the past be picked for their vocal ability, they are now signed up if they have the right tone which can be edited by, again, a computer. The result is, sadly, that what we hear on the record is in reality not the actual singer, and whenever they perform live, the results are inevitably tragic.

Compare:

The sad fact is, of course, that no-one sounds this good live anymore; and all because of the comfort the autotuner gives. I could cry from despair.

I believe it is for this reason artists now just have no longevity. Whereas Bryan Adams released his first album in 1980 and has something new coming out later this year (and this isn't even a comeback, having previous released albums of new material in 2008, 2004, 1998 and so on) and Bon Jovi have released new stuff on average every two years since their debut in 1984, modern artists just seem to stop after a couple of years. For example, the two great hit-making machines of the 90s, Steps and S Club 7, only managed 3 albums in 3 years and 4 in 4 years respectively, whereas one of the most popular pop acts of the present era, Take That, only managed three albums before splitting, and again after reuniting only managed a further three before announcing their 'hiatus' (and despite their plans for another album to be released in 2013, I suspect the hiatus is the start of the inevitable second disbandment).

I think I need say no more. But that isn't to say that all music has gone downhill; there are still some very talented artists out there. Yes, its true that Birdie may have managed to achive fame by making an album out of the same song repeated ten times, but that isn't the case with all up-and-coming artists. Folk music, for example, is holding out pretty well, and I would argue that whether its the fun-filled wackiness of Bellowhead's traditional folk tunes or the enchanting self-composed lyrics of the wonderful Laura Marling, there's hope for us yet. As for the more obscure acts, Vintage Trouble have worked wonders with their rock-infused soul tracks, and the French singer Ben l'Oncle Soul looks set to be working his way across the globe with his Motown revival. My list of good music, in fact, is pretty large. Whether it be The Shins, Josh Groban, Seasick Steve, etc, music seems to have hope yet.

Just as God sent Joan of Arc to lead the French to victory, so he also sent Laura Marling.
Not to lead the French to victory. That would be silly. To save music. Honestly, Laura fighting.
Look at her. Couldn't hurt a fly. Although I bet that guitar can do some damage.

But what I truly despair of is the mainstream. I would encourage all my readers not to be bogged down by the 'now' or even in the charts; there's a wealth of entertainment out there, just waiting to be grabbed by the balls.

William D. Green