Honestly this is something I’ve been contemplating for a while. Yet Simon Reynolds finally confirmed it for me. His article ‘When will Hip-Hop hurry up and die?’ demonstrated that the last bastion of ‘new’ music, music which defined a generation for masses of people was over.
This isn’t a tirade against modern music; I’m trying to pose a question of originality. I remember vividly a close friend bemoaning that he should live in such a bleak musical time when nothing will be ‘new’ or original. Imagine being in London in the 60s when bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles where really beginning to kick it off. Then the 70s; Woodstock, Hendrix, Zeppelin. What about standing in the Astoria, swaying with hundreds like you as Joe Strummer starts the iconic chords of ‘London Calling’? Perhaps the most attainable for us is Seattle in the early 90s. When Cobain first picked up his Fender, and Dave Grohl was gifted to the world of music. Let’s not forget the birth of rap – the real glory days of the 90s and early 00s – when everything was in balance. How about Brit-Pop? Oasis and Blur battling each other with such fervent support that it defined some precious years of our culture before the end of the Millennium. To a lesser extent let’s look at the still thriving Electronic scene. A musical lifestyle that, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m hardly on first name terms with – but still due recognition in the grand scheme of things.
You see I look at my iPod, my Spotify playlists and my prised vinyls. I can’t find anything that I honestly believe would get a good reception with the majority of people released since 2000. I’m not denying we’ve got some amazing bands. But where’s something we can all get behind? For me Hunter S. Thompson described what we are lacking best. ‘It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era – the kind of peak that never comes again…Maybe it meant something. Maybe not… but no explanation, no mix of words…or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world.’ This is what I feel we’re missing that at the moment.
We are now ten years into the millennium and from where I’m standing I can’t see it. I don’t like the idea of being represented in the annals of our cultural history by Flo Rida or Soulja Boy.
I don’t see the point to their music. It ‘can’ be catchy, it does seem to get a specific group of people dancing. There’s not much more to it than a ringtone though. This doesn’t have to be a Rock group that leads the charge. I’m not asking for what’s already happened because that defeats this entire purpose. What I want to know is, where are the artists that for us will be ‘new’? A group so blatantly different from everything
before that it sparks an entire new genre, yet something so entirely accessible that masses can get behind it? Where’s that feeling that Thompson so longingly described?
Maybe we’ve reached a precipice. It’s seems there’s so much variety in music we can’t take it all in. We can tailor-make music to fit our every need or desire. Was Led Zeppelin’s success a result of the fact that the
only other thing to listen to at the time was Donnie and Marie? It’s difficult to say, but I can’t help but feel our musical horizon looks dim.
I think there’s going to be some amazing music made, some incredible artists exist in our own time. Bon Iver, Iron and Wine, Muse, DJ Shadow; all are pioneers. But they’re irreplaceable because they found the niche that worked for them, now no-one can develop it.
Perhaps the lack of a scene is a good thing. It means we get further diversity. It means that music isn’t an issue anymore. Whoever you talk to you can find some small common ground with them through the shared enjoyment of a music type. Music is something which can charge incredible emotion. The diversity that we are now confronted with means that more people can access music because there’s more that can appeal to them. If this gets more people listening to something, anything, then perhaps that is better than one unifying genre which still alienates a vast minority of people. Let’s face it, music isn’t for everybody.
By Jack Stanley