Am I Old, Or Is This What Music Is Now?

It feels as if I am reminded that I see the world differently than most everyone each and every time I open my mouth. There isn't much I can say that doesn't get met with derision by someone, leaving me floating alone on an island of opinion that makes me wonder if I will ever learn to swim well enough to make it to the opposite shore. It isn't that I want to be a conventional thinker, or that I have a deep desire to fit in with the popular crowd, but I would like to be able to feel excited about what is going on these days.

Music, among many other things, feels like it is slipping away from me. I hear talk about what is becoming the next big thing, and when I go to explore for myself, I wind up more confused than when I hadn't heard about such things at all.

That's what I'm facing as I listened to LS Dunes new album. I saw multiple outlets calling it a remarkable album from one of the best new bands on the scene. The critical acclaim was nearly universal, so surely in a time when music has been so disappointing, this was going to be an easy way for me to score a win. Right?

Well... you can already guess how that went.

Their album left me asking a nor familiar question; What happened to songs? As I went through the album, track after track was guitar textures and flat vocals. Not a single riff or melody had anything close to a hook to it. Everything that made the emo scene the album is paying homage to fun is completely absent, replacing the dark eyeliner and frosted tips with the grey haze of looking in a mirror whose silver backing has rotted away through time.

For the life of me, I don't understand what other people are hearing in this music that makes them rave. I have long thought there is a type of person who doesn't actually have taste, and who will praise anything they assume took talent to make. That is the best explanation I can come up with for the praise LS Dunes has gotten. If I let myself believe people truly thought these songs were examples of great songwriting, I would have given up on trying to write my own music many years ago. Given my failure, I probably should have.

This is not exclusive to LS Dunes. There is another critical darling who falls into this category. Ethel Cain received raves for her "Preacher's Daughter" album, and went to make a massive 'artistic' statement with her 89 minute long EP, "Perverts". The reviews have been more mixed, but plenty of critics still laud her for her efforts, and they convince me the theory that we experience sensory information differently has to be true.

Her record is an exercise in drone, by way of 'pop'. We've gotten to the point where that word is meaningless, as the only thing pop about her record is the sound you make trying to clear your ears, because you are certain you must have a sinus infection if this is actually what she intended to make. Time stretches on with barely any notes being played, just washes of noise that feel as if we accidentally put an LP on at the wrong speed. She is making music that is not musical at all, and doing so in the dullest way possible. At least when Scott Walker went out of his mind, the atonal artistic bullshit he produced had a flair for absurdity.

Ethel Cain's music is more akin to holding your hand over a candle to see how close to setting your skin on fire you can come. Eventually, the nerves get damaged, and you can smell your own flesh cooking. Of course, that is more interesting than her music, because at least you can notice when something is going wrong. Cain's music is one long soundtrack to lobotomy.

So as I listened to both of these bits of music, I found myself asking what the heck I'm doing. If this is what music now is, and this is what fans and critics are willing to praise as greatness, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. Trends come and go, but I had always thought there was a fundamental base-line where we still expected the sounds of the day to be put atop actual songs. But no more.

And so I'm feeling rather distressed, and out-of-place. Something will come along to pull me back into believing music still has a future, but I'm not sure what, and I'm not sure when.

It better hurry its ass up.