Double-Edged Swords

A friend recently ended a jam session complaining, “I’m worried that musicians today don’t even know the names of the people I grew up idolizing and imitating.” (Or something close to that.) 

I responded with, “That goes both ways, with most of the folks in our generation pretending that no good music has happened since the 70’s or 80’s.” That was not received well. 

I just reviewed a book that I, mostly, disliked for the same reasons, A Craftsman’s Legacy by Eric Gorges, and you can read my opinion of that book on my Geezer with A Grudge blog. Every old generation imagines that it not only invented the wheels of society but perfected them so that every following generation can only screw up the work that went before them. It takes a special sort of arrogant blindness to believe that, but humans are really good at both arrogance and blind belief. It’s one of many things that has always convinced me that the natural state of human “civilization” is chaos. I wrapped up my review of A Craftsman’s Legacy with this: 

“Finally, I firmly believe that everything that requires skill is improved by every generation. You may be one of those addled characters who imagines that ‘good music’ stopped being made in 1960, 1970, 1980, or whenever, but you’re wrong. Likewise, most 1970’s era pro basketball players wouldn’t make the team for, even the freakin’ Clippers, today. Even Michael Jordan would have a hard time playing on a winning team today. It’s true that many people knew how to repair their cars and motorcycles in the 1950’s; because they needed to. A vehicle that lasted 25,000 miles without needing major work in 1950’s was a rarity. Today, we call any vehicle that fails before 200,000 miles a ‘lemon.’ Today, if I had to go to battle with a 15th Century sword I’d just use it on myself to get it over with efficiently. Vintage ‘skills’ are that because they are no longer state-of-the-art and, as such, are obsolete. If you think someone with a hammer and coal-fired forge can turn out a better steel tool than a modern factory, you’re only fooling yourself. If you don’t think a modern adventure touring motorcycle isn’t as well crafted as one of Gorge’s hippo-bikes, you don’t know what the word ‘craftsmanship’ means. If you think someone cobbling out plodding, non-functional ‘choppers, bobbers, and diggers’ could get a job on a modern factory motorcycle race team doing . . . anything, you are probably the ideal reader for A Craftsman’s Legacy.”

I absolutely believe all of that and even a moderate amount of exposure to the best of today’s young musicians would force almost anyone to acknowledge that the “good old” stuff is practically unlistenable in comparison. I admit that I’m not a typical Boomer in my tastes. I didn’t like the Beatles (but I am a huge George Martin fan, he could turn sow's ears into silk purses, repeatedly) or much of the British Invasion in the 60’s and I like most of that stuff even less now. A lot of great music, from R&B to jazz, was bounced off of popular radio by “yeah, yeah, yeah” and other teenybopper bullshit between 1964 and the early 80’s and I don’t think popular music has ever recovered from the damage done. Another Boomer friend commented on the “trivial character” of current music lyrics, as if songs-about-nothing like the Beatle’s “Hey Jude” or “Long and Winding Road” or “Number 9” and pretty much every Led Zeppelin song that wasn’t stolen aren’t only trivial but annoying. At least the Stones had “Street Fightin’ Man” had a point. 

That is such a lame complaint. It’s pop music, dude; music for kids by kids. Don’t expect poetry or meaningful commentary on the state of humanity from kids. 

Just because we’re old and full of ourselves now doesn’t mean that we were solid citizens or brilliantly insightful and creative 50 years ago. I am a firm believer in Theodore Sturgeon’s “90% of everything is crap” rule. I can’t think of a period where the overwhelming majority of popular music wasn’t garbage. For example, the furthest up the US pop singles charts Jimi Hendrix ever made it was #20 with “All Along the Watchtower” in late 1968. The chart topper at that time was “Harper Valley PTA” followed by the Beatles’ lamest ever “Hey Jude.”  Hendrix had 4 successful albums, If you look at almost any moment in pop music history, you’ll be discouraged at how generally mediocre the “hits” are. It was true in 1920 and it will be true in 2020 and 2050. The tastes of the average imbecile are predictably dismal. That casts no reflection on that period’s best and brightest, who will likely be an improvement on the skills and creativity of previous generations until humans vanish from the planet.