Grime and misdemeanours
September 20th 2007 06:39
I am in something of an unusual position. See, I enjoy both 90s alternative rock, and the so-called ‘real’ rock of the preceding couple of decades.
First, let us have a brief history lesson. Purists say that the 1990s marked the demise of proper rock and roll. They moan that everyone was having fun and enjoying the music and in turn, their lives; until Kurt Cobain came along and ruined the party by being a depressing misery guts. There is some truth to this argument. Cobain did in some ways do away with the guitar as a lead instrument in rock music. Seventies and Eighties rock was heavily dependent on guitar solos and showmanship. The Seattle grunge bands of the early 90s were content with pounding out simplistic power chords.
It was reminiscent of the late 70s punk explosion. Cobain and his grunge contemporaries wished to do away with the ridiculous pretensions and self-indulgence of rock. Just as Joe Strummer and Johnny Rotten and their ilk had done some 15 years earlier. They wanted to return rock to its essential elements. No 10 minute drum solos. No lyrics about the works of J.R.R Tolkien or Arthurian legend. No progressive rock epics like ‘Tommy’ or ‘The Wall’.
See, I actually like Tommy and The Wall. I like depth and progressive tendencies in my music. I like the geeky references to science fiction movies and Greek folklore (being the large nerd that I am). Punk music, though enjoyable, is perhaps a bit too limited and repetitive. I feel mostly the same way about grunge. I do like Nirvana, although I’ll be the first to admit that Cobain is (or was) a sloppy guitar player.
When you think about it, was the death of Eighties rock a bad thing? By the end of that decade, mainstream rock was plagued by the likes of Poison, Warrant, and Ratt, alongside other hair metal try-hards. Whenever a new musical movement rears its head, the establishment is always quick to realise the commercial potential of it, and water it down for mass consumption. Look at all those dreadful rap and emo bands these days which all sound indistinguishable from one another. That’s because the artists have been told by the record companies to project a certain image in both their look and sound (I find it somewhat amusing that followers of these fashion movements, be they goth, emo, punk, or whatever, think they’re so individual; and yet they all shop in the same stores, wear the same clothes, dye their hair the same colour, wear the same eye-liner, etc) Rock was wearing out its welcome by the end of the 80s. The grunge era put paid to all those hair metal pretenders for good.
Unfortunately, the grunge bands committed several rather heinous crimes, too. Firstly, the likes of Nirvana paved the way for the abomination that was nu-metal. In the late 90s and early 2000s, this godforsaken trend was at its height (Remember nu-metal? If you grew up in the late 90s or early ‘00s, like I did, you will hate me for reminding you of it). In turn, nu-metal gave us today’s hideous perpetrators of generic, middle-of-the-road rock, like Nickleback. The art of guitar solos has almost entirely been lost in the early 21st Century, and it is partially grunge’s fault. Basic, bludgeoning power chords have replaced virtuosity and musicianship in many of today’s bands. Still, you can hardly blame Kurt Cobain for inspiring all of this nonsense. He would probably turn in his grave if he heard the likes of Creed and Staind.
Secondly, there were several kinds of grunge artists. There were the redneck, jock grunge bands that performed this kind of music for the sake of it; and for the sake of records sales like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam. Then you had the downright depressing, introspective types like the aforementioned Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden. Lastly, there were the classic-rock obsessed, pretentious groups like the Smashing Pumpkins. (I might be inadvertently giving you the impression that I don’t like these bands. In the case of most of them, I do). The first wave of grunge didn’t last long. It petered out by about 1994 (the same year Cobain committed suicide). Whenever a product or an idea is hyped to a ridiculous degree, one soon tires of it.
Furthermore, when the 90s alternative brigade took our guitars away, they killed off most of the good rock and metal bands, too. Metallica switched their priorities from brain-melting fretwork to mid-paced hard rock after grunge hit. Most Eighties heavyweights faded away, or shrank to survive. If you were into traditional rock and roll, or metal, the 90s was not the decade for you. Traditional metal is making a comeback this decade, though.
The 90s is supposedly the decade where nothing new happened. This is partially true. Oasis? Britpop? That was hardly new. It had already been done in the 1960s. Spice Girls? Nah, just like all the manufactured girl groups of the 80s. Fashions and music trends are cyclical. They always make a comeback. The only sound you could really call completely new in the 90s was probably Radiohead. Those guys truly sound like nothing else on Earth (despite the Pink Floyd comparisons. I think the two groups sound totally different, myself)
I think another changing of the guard is needed. I don’t think the 2000s have done enough to distinguish themselves from the 90s. (Although it’s hard to tell about sociological change when you’re actually living in the period. It must be studied in retrospect. We’ll see what history has to say about the Naughties in a couple of decades) The emo bands really have to be done away with. It’s probably even worse than nu-metal ever was.
My main gripe with most modern music is as follows: Where’s all the high concept material? I liked it when bands produced works that were not designed for commercial airplay, and went for longer than 10 minutes. I liked all the references to literature and history. Zeppelin frequently mined Tolkien for inspiration. (Misty Mountain Hop, The Battle of Evermore, and Ramble On being the obvious examples). Rush used the political diatribes of Ayn Rand, for God’s sake (on the 2112 album). Metallica sang about Moses leading his people across the merciless Egyptian desert sands (Creeping Death) and about H.P Lovecraft (The Call of Ctulu).
The award for most prolific literary and history robber has to go to Iron Maiden, though. They’ve used all manner of books and historical events for their lyrical subject matter. Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Edgar Allan Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue), Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Trooper), Orson Scott Card (their entire brilliant Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son concept album), Frank Herbert’s Dune (To Tame A Land, although I wonder how they managed to get the rights to use Arrakis, Muad’Dib, Caladan, and Dune, in the words to the song). Even WW2 movies, like Where Eagles Dare and From Here To Eternity are used as song titles.
Bring back the pretension in rock music, I say!
First, let us have a brief history lesson. Purists say that the 1990s marked the demise of proper rock and roll. They moan that everyone was having fun and enjoying the music and in turn, their lives; until Kurt Cobain came along and ruined the party by being a depressing misery guts. There is some truth to this argument. Cobain did in some ways do away with the guitar as a lead instrument in rock music. Seventies and Eighties rock was heavily dependent on guitar solos and showmanship. The Seattle grunge bands of the early 90s were content with pounding out simplistic power chords.
See, I actually like Tommy and The Wall. I like depth and progressive tendencies in my music. I like the geeky references to science fiction movies and Greek folklore (being the large nerd that I am). Punk music, though enjoyable, is perhaps a bit too limited and repetitive. I feel mostly the same way about grunge. I do like Nirvana, although I’ll be the first to admit that Cobain is (or was) a sloppy guitar player.
When you think about it, was the death of Eighties rock a bad thing? By the end of that decade, mainstream rock was plagued by the likes of Poison, Warrant, and Ratt, alongside other hair metal try-hards. Whenever a new musical movement rears its head, the establishment is always quick to realise the commercial potential of it, and water it down for mass consumption. Look at all those dreadful rap and emo bands these days which all sound indistinguishable from one another. That’s because the artists have been told by the record companies to project a certain image in both their look and sound (I find it somewhat amusing that followers of these fashion movements, be they goth, emo, punk, or whatever, think they’re so individual; and yet they all shop in the same stores, wear the same clothes, dye their hair the same colour, wear the same eye-liner, etc) Rock was wearing out its welcome by the end of the 80s. The grunge era put paid to all those hair metal pretenders for good.
Unfortunately, the grunge bands committed several rather heinous crimes, too. Firstly, the likes of Nirvana paved the way for the abomination that was nu-metal. In the late 90s and early 2000s, this godforsaken trend was at its height (Remember nu-metal? If you grew up in the late 90s or early ‘00s, like I did, you will hate me for reminding you of it). In turn, nu-metal gave us today’s hideous perpetrators of generic, middle-of-the-road rock, like Nickleback. The art of guitar solos has almost entirely been lost in the early 21st Century, and it is partially grunge’s fault. Basic, bludgeoning power chords have replaced virtuosity and musicianship in many of today’s bands. Still, you can hardly blame Kurt Cobain for inspiring all of this nonsense. He would probably turn in his grave if he heard the likes of Creed and Staind.
Secondly, there were several kinds of grunge artists. There were the redneck, jock grunge bands that performed this kind of music for the sake of it; and for the sake of records sales like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam. Then you had the downright depressing, introspective types like the aforementioned Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden. Lastly, there were the classic-rock obsessed, pretentious groups like the Smashing Pumpkins. (I might be inadvertently giving you the impression that I don’t like these bands. In the case of most of them, I do). The first wave of grunge didn’t last long. It petered out by about 1994 (the same year Cobain committed suicide). Whenever a product or an idea is hyped to a ridiculous degree, one soon tires of it.
Furthermore, when the 90s alternative brigade took our guitars away, they killed off most of the good rock and metal bands, too. Metallica switched their priorities from brain-melting fretwork to mid-paced hard rock after grunge hit. Most Eighties heavyweights faded away, or shrank to survive. If you were into traditional rock and roll, or metal, the 90s was not the decade for you. Traditional metal is making a comeback this decade, though.
The 90s is supposedly the decade where nothing new happened. This is partially true. Oasis? Britpop? That was hardly new. It had already been done in the 1960s. Spice Girls? Nah, just like all the manufactured girl groups of the 80s. Fashions and music trends are cyclical. They always make a comeback. The only sound you could really call completely new in the 90s was probably Radiohead. Those guys truly sound like nothing else on Earth (despite the Pink Floyd comparisons. I think the two groups sound totally different, myself)
I think another changing of the guard is needed. I don’t think the 2000s have done enough to distinguish themselves from the 90s. (Although it’s hard to tell about sociological change when you’re actually living in the period. It must be studied in retrospect. We’ll see what history has to say about the Naughties in a couple of decades) The emo bands really have to be done away with. It’s probably even worse than nu-metal ever was.
My main gripe with most modern music is as follows: Where’s all the high concept material? I liked it when bands produced works that were not designed for commercial airplay, and went for longer than 10 minutes. I liked all the references to literature and history. Zeppelin frequently mined Tolkien for inspiration. (Misty Mountain Hop, The Battle of Evermore, and Ramble On being the obvious examples). Rush used the political diatribes of Ayn Rand, for God’s sake (on the 2112 album). Metallica sang about Moses leading his people across the merciless Egyptian desert sands (Creeping Death) and about H.P Lovecraft (The Call of Ctulu).
The award for most prolific literary and history robber has to go to Iron Maiden, though. They’ve used all manner of books and historical events for their lyrical subject matter. Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems (Rime of the Ancient Mariner), Edgar Allan Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue), Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Trooper), Orson Scott Card (their entire brilliant Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son concept album), Frank Herbert’s Dune (To Tame A Land, although I wonder how they managed to get the rights to use Arrakis, Muad’Dib, Caladan, and Dune, in the words to the song). Even WW2 movies, like Where Eagles Dare and From Here To Eternity are used as song titles.
Bring back the pretension in rock music, I say!
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