Music to my Unencumbered Ears
I got a haircut a few days ago. Thus the title.
Yesterday I heard the new Foo Fighters’ single, “Best of You.” It’s too easy to pun on the fact that it’s not their “best” work, despite the fact that it’s not. It actually made me a little sad to hear it, ’cause Dave Grohl’s voice – my all-around favorite in modern music, for what it’s worth – sounds a little tired.
But it makes sense, as his group and the rest of groups nowadays are following a larger trend that’s repeating itself in twenty year cycles.
Keep in mind, I wish no band harm – least of all the ones I like. But individual bands aside, I sense a pattern. These are conspicuously vague terms and eras, but try and humor me/see the forest here:
In the early to mid 1970’s, we have hard rock. We also have the Eagles, but we have hard rock. Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Queen (not to mention glam).
In the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, we have punk, post-punk, disco and new wave.
In the mid 1980’s, we have synthesizers alongside power ballads, and other, less convincing, uninspired music. The big bands of the 1970’s are worn or wearing out, disbanded or thinking of it or drugged out. Robert Plant’s voice remains on hiatus.
In the early 1990’s, that crap is rejected and grunge reinserts passion and irritability into the mainstream.
In the mid 1990’s, music is good. I am a teen then – imagine why I think that.
In the late 1990’s – boy bands. And Britney Spears.
Grossly OverSimplified:
1971 and 1991: Good
1975 and 1995: Good, arguably better
~1979 and ~1999: Teetering
1980 and 2000: Ungodly awful
1985 and 2005: Generally improving and bearable, if you pay attention.
1988: New Kids on the Block. What will 2008 bring?
It’s coming around again. The second column of dates can be appended to the first column: one might infer that music’s gonna be funky (either sense of the word) for four more years or so before it hits another low point and there’s another necessitated upswing in sound, for whatever reason.
Bottom line: I’m starting a hard rock band. I’ll play drums and shout backup. We’ll stay underground until we hit it big in 2010, enjoying our lives until my lead singer ditches the scene in 2014 to become a shepherd (things don’t recur exactly), at which point I become the frontman/rhythm guitarist of my own more melodic group and sing and scream until my voice becomes unintentionally raspy, in about 2025.
Check back here then, see how this theory pans out.
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