About half an hour ago I arrived back at my place after attending the coolest "lecture" imaginable. It was on rock music in the 60s. To be perfectly honest and perhaps a bit big-headed, I know a lot about music in the 60s. A whole friggin' lot. For someone who wasn't actually alive back then, I've amassed a great database of information from actually listening to my dad when he talks. It's a point of pride with me, I was raised on the stuff, breathing it almost. For the first 13 years of my life I was hell bent on the idea that all music after say, 1975 was crap. Complete, shameless, pathetic, crap. It was only the realization that I was about to start high school that forced me to turn the dial on my radio to top 40. Every back story, every detail, every tiny morsel of rock history was and is so important to me. I want to know it all and preserve it because I'm worried about what will happen in twenty or thirty years. Already radio stations that played late 50s to late 60s music have dropped the format in favor of music from the 70s. Where will the Lovin' Spoonful go? How will kids in the future know who they are if their parents (my generation)were only vaguely aware of them and their golden-hued music? It scares me. Hopefully Jimi Hendrix will never be lost or The Beatles...but what about The Kinks? What about Barry McGuire?
The speaker said at the end that everything that happened during that decade was the very reason why music was so phenomennal. I guess I agree. I always thought that some portal to the music gods opened up when the stars had aligned just right. It opened up, but then it closed and I don't think we'll ever see anything like the 60s again. Everything now is derivative. That's not to say that no music can ever be good again, but it's just not the same. Listening to clips from various songs, any number of them have the power to reach out and pull you out of your seat while firmly grasping your beating heart. And those are just the opening notes. It's incomparable power. I couldn't even just isolate one because it would just not be fair, but do think of the very opening of Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. Yes, I know it's an obvious pick, but does that mean it doesn't send shiver up my spine if I haven't heard it in a while? What about The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel? Think about when the drums and other instruments kick in. For me it doesn't really happen like that too often with modern music.
At the same time I don't want to get down on what's out today. For most of my pre-teen years, I had the distinct feeling that I had been born in the wrong decade. That's really not the way to look at things. There should be no comparing between eras. No likening between bands. I like the Beatles. I like the Killers. I will never have them compete against each other because there is no available conversion scale. They are not "like" each other. One is not "the next" anything. They belong to different pantheons. There is no one to compare to Grace Slick. Pete Townsend is unto himself, only to share sentence space with the likes of Eric Clapton and such. That's just all there is to it. It should be illegal to make references otherwise.
I say, we've got to do something. Bulk up on your music history knowledge. Don't let it die. Love it, don't let it slip away into the abyss of "who are they?" We hardly know anything about our own grandparents' music. Glen Miller anyone? Don't let it spiral on when the Baby Boomer generation starts trailing off. We'll never really fully appreciate what we're doing right now if we've got no context.
Peace
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