CHRIS C: When we gathered at this point last year, we were staring down a global crisis with no end in sight. Everything about life was turned on its head, and the sunlight of summer was exposing and highlighting everything that was missing. Tours were gone, records were being delayed, and we were isolated from everyone and (mostly) everything that made us feel like ourselves. One year later, the difference is remarkable. The midpoint of this year feels like we are breaking through the tape at the finish line. The world is opening back up, we are removing the masks that separate us, and we are beginning the process of sifting through our experiences to find what will and won't be part of our new normal.
Through all of this, we have continued to hear and absorb new music. We often talk about music as the soundtrack to our lives, and in these recent months I have experienced the truth and disappointment of that adage. The recent passing of Jim Steinman (I already said my piece about him, so we don't need to go into that. You wanted to talk about DMX, so have at it.) brought back memories of discovering that music, and memories of who I was at that time. On the other side of that equation, the albums of the last year and a half have given me plenty of entertainment, but I struggle to believe any of them will ever be such a bright marker in my memories when I am older. We have talked before about new albums not standing much of a chance against the decades of life we have lived with our favorites, but perhaps that thought never felt as real as this last year.
Before we get deeper into the music of this year, I know you wanted to talk about being done with the gossip-mongering of Blabbermouth, so I'll let you have first shot at that, because I have some incredibly strong opinions about the rockers we give attention to that will stem from that discussion. I don't want to poison the waters too badly before you get a chance to say your piece.
Where do you want to begin?
D.M: Allow me to begin with my thoughts on DMX - plenty of writers and rap auteurs have already used their platforms to express their various condolences and remembrances, but I wanted to take a moment to put some thoughts down on (digital) paper, since for whatever reason I went through a muted version of the stages of grief after his passing.
I never met DMX. Never even came close. Knew a guy who did a little video production for him one time, but that was as close as I got. Several times, I tried to see him in concert, but it never worked out. There were two occasions that were especially close misses - once where I had ticket in hand and the entire tour was suspended as DMX went back to jail for a parole violation, and the second, when my wife and I were in the venue on the night of the show, on my birthday, and DMX simply no-showed. For all intents and purposes, I should have given up on the man right then, but while I've never really forgiven Busta Rhymes for the time I saw him show up ninety minutes late and give an eight minute performance, or forgotten the one time Jello Biafra was a dick to me, I eventually got over this spurning by DMX.
I couldn't really say why I was so willing to forgive at the time, but I figured it out after he passed - DMX was a complex individual of many demons, and so when something went sideways for him, there was always an assumption that it was because he was succumbing to some personal conflict that he couldn't ever become master of. That's not to say that I am absolving him of responsibility or anything as deeply ethereal as it sounds, but it does mean that on some level I think I understood that DMX was a man with much internal strife. He engendered sympathy more than anger. If the reader hasn't perused any of the myriad obituary pieces that navigate the struggles of DMX, particularly in his early life, please find one. (Favorite anecdote from one of them, and I'll sum it up for time - Jay-Z is apparently a steel wall of self-confidence; it is impossible for anyone to walk into a room and make Jay-Z nervous. By all accounts, DMX made Jay-Z nervous.)
Musically, there are several layers to DMX's musical legacy. He cut across the grain of popular sentiment in rap - when the genre was flooded with the likes of Cash Money Millionaires and Puff Daddy and Mase and Ludacris and Nelly - artists who lyricized almost exclusively about the glorious excess of wealth and the non-stop party life, DMX was speaking plainly about the necessity of protecting one's own from the streets and the violence that comes with it. He was an aspirational rapper, but not in the sense of those others - he didn't pine for riches or power, merely for respect and the hope that he might be a little better person tomorrow. In my lifetime, only Metallica in the grunge era can really claim to have maintained such a high level of popularity while being contrary to the popular movement. Also, it bears mentioning that DMX played Woodstock. Not many of those others would have taken that shot.
Two more thoughts that separated DMX from his genre competitors - certainly he spit many rhymes about violence, over and over again, but rarely in the glory of it. Method Man or Ghostface Killah or even the venerable Rakim (thinking specifically of "The Punisher") revel in the gory description of their carnage, where DMX always just presented it casually, as just another unavoidable facet of his complicated life. I think of the verse in "Ruff Ryder's Anthem":
What was that look for // when I walked in the door?
Oh, you thought you was raw? // Boom! Not anymore
'Cause now you on the floor // wishin' you never saw
Me walk through that door // with that .44
And lastly, look at the stanza above, and where the breaks in the lines are. DMX, more than any MC before or since, had an intimate understanding of how to match his cadence to the beat of the song, up to the point of even raising and lowering his vocal volume with the individual beats. His phrases were rarely longer than the course of a single sample, which made his rhymes easy to digest and assimilate. Add in his penchant for using two different voices to express two different emotional states (thinking of "Stop Being Greedy,") and you have an artist who may never have used his words to create a complex and nuanced picture, but created an artistically compelling style all in its own right.
Okay. Thank you for allowing me that. Time to get the blood boiling.
I am done with Blabbermouth. I think I have been done for several years, and am only just now realizing in my conscious brain that I am done with Blabbermouth. And you know why? Because Blabbermouth continually harps on the most inane bullshit. As a test, I took a three-week trial - I would visit the visit the site once a week (long enough, I figured, for the news cycle to roll over,) and take note of who the subject of the first headline was. Three weeks, in a row - Geoff Tate complaining, Dee Snider being a loon, Sebastian Bach complaining (which may have been followed again by Geoff Tate complaining about something else, but memory is fuzzy.)
Pardon me for resorting to profanity, but who the fuck gives a flying shit about whatever the fuck Geoff Tate wants to fucking complain about? And listen, Geoff Tate (sorry I keep picking him on him, but his name comes up a lot,) can do whatever he wants, but if Blabbermouth really wants to be a source of news for the heavy music masses, and not just a soaking gossip rag of digital fishwrap, they should be concentrating on artists who....matter? I get it, Queensryche in all its various and sundry forms still pulls a lot of weight, but I don't give a shit about what a bunch of sixty-year old white men are holding grudges against each other about. I get enough of that shit on the news. Tell me something about artist I don't know. Give me insight into something coming up that could be of interest, not another meaningless interview about the legacy of a musician who hasn't released revolutionary music since the Clinton Administration. Blabbermouth is hardly the only party guilty of this, but they are the largest and the most guilty.
I've said this before - the past is dead. It can't be relived, we can't go backwards, and we're collectively fooling ourselves if we think we can clutch to it and keep it present. Punk tried to teach us this. I enjoy plenty of music from my formative youth, but I am always interested in what's happening and what will happen, more than what already did. There is a distinct difference between saying "grunge was a great moment of music in my formative youth that I still enjoy," and "grunge was the ultimate musical movement and nothing will ever reach that lofty pinnacle again."
Okay, I'm out of steam for now. Let me catch my breath.
CHRIS C: You mentioned the stages of grief. I wasn't surprised, though maybe I should be, that I didn't go through that when Jim Steinman passed. As formative as he was for me, and as much as I still listen to his music to this day, I accepted the news fairly easily. I spent a day or two listening to everything of his I had, and sure I was a bit down, but I was ok. I've often worried about that.
Blabbermouth's problem is the same thing the entire media has failed to figure out; it isn't news every time someone opens their mouth. What a generic old rocker thinks about any random issue of the day isn't news, and it has nothing to do with music, so we probably shouldn't care. For all those who want to keep music and politics separate, please blame Blabbermouth and the other outlets like it who keep posting the political commentary of these people, rather than posting news about actual music.
And this gets me to what I wanted to talk about. Blabbermouth still gives copious time to everything that people like Ted Nugent utter. I cannot understand not just why they do that, or why anyone gives a damn what he has to say about anything, but why we continue to give any modicum of respect to that era of rock and metal. You said the past is dead, and I'm going to go further and say I'm glad it's dead.
Ted Nugent sang a song called "Jailbait" where he described raping a thirteen year old, then trying to pass her off to a cop to be raped again if it would get him off the hook. I cannot think of a more vile and reprehensible song in the history of rock than that, but he wasn't alone. You had KISS singing "Christine Sixteen", Winger with "Seventeen", and even Motorhead had their own "Jailbait". Couple this with Jimmy Page and Steven Tyler going through shady dealings to get access to underage girls, and I'm ready to cut bait on all of them. Anyone from that time period who sexualized kids, and who glorified grown men taking advantage of them, should be persona non grata in our world. But rather than being branded pedophiles, or at least pariahs, they are still 'legends' we are supposed to look up to. Fuck that. We've talked before about how I never was able to get into Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin. At this point, I'm happy I never did, so it's easier for me to ignore this garbage.
But it isn't even just that. I still hear people clamoring for the old days, because rock was 'dangerous'. Yes, it was dangerous because those rock stars were a bunch of alcoholics, drug addicts, abusers, and unprofessional assholes. Rock stars used to trash hotel rooms. They were assholes. Rock stars used to show up late and drunk/high to shows. They were assholes. Rock stars used to take advantage of groupies. THEY WERE ASSHOLES.
Being a rock star is no different than being an athlete; neither gives you an excuse for acting like a total dick. Is rock 'soulless' right now? Maybe it is, but I'm not eager to go back to a time when bands felt they could piss on their fans (sometimes literally) and still be loved for it. Every time Axl Rose showed up late? He was pissing on the fans. Every time a show sucked because someone wasn't sober? They were pissing on the fans. Buying a record or a concert ticket should never have been a lottery as to whether or not you were going to get a decent effort. Being a musician is a job, and so many from that era didn't treat it like that, which in turn disrespected everyone who let them live that lifestyle.
I ranted last year about a song framed as a letter to the singer's son, wherein there was bragging that the new girlfriend was about his age. Think about that. The guy wrote a song where he essentially admitted he could be attracted to his own daughter, and neither he, the producer, the label, or the PR people thought there was anything at all wrong with it. I started getting creeped out by sexualizing teenagers and those barely past that age only a few years after I was there. It's beyond creepy now, it's sickening.
With that out of the way, let's talk about some actual music. I don't know about you, but so far 2021 has not been the banner year I was hoping for. I figured with everyone off the road last year, they would have more time to dedicate to making great records, and that has not happened at all. Case in point; The Offspring. After nine years, their new album was not just bad, but lazy as well. A cover of one of their own songs, an interpretation of a classical piece, and a stupid reprise as well, all mean we got less than thirty minutes of actual new music. And it's not even good music. I thought for a little while that I had gotten in my own head, and making music of my own was the reason I was having such a hard time connecting to anything. I've listened to a bunch of records since finishing my own project, and nope, that wasn't the problem.
As of this writing, I only have about four albums I feel strongly about. The pile of bad albums isn't really bigger than other years, but the mediocrity is starting to become a tsunami, and a vicious cycle. I've been listening to less new stuff, because it hasn't been interesting to me. That leads me to listen to more of my old favorites instead, which in turn makes the next batch of new stuff even less interesting by comparison. More than ever, I feel like I'm panning for gold on a riverbed.
I also want to pull one thing out of your DMX commentary; was Metallica really contrary to the grunge era? "The Black Album" was certainly not grunge, but once Nirvana changed everything, we got "Load". It isn't a grunge album, but the influences of the time are still there. How interesting is it that this year is the 30th anniversary of both "The Black Album" and "Nevermind", yet they don't feel the same age at all? We can get into a discussion of "The Black Album", or we can hold off and talk about it separately when the anniversary comes. My thoughts on it have definitely evolved over the years.
D.M: Going in reverse order - yeah, I think Metallica was, at that moment, counter-culture to grunge (this is disregarding the moment where I saw Alice in Chains warming up for the unplugged part of their set and Jerry Cantrell started to play the beginning to "Battery.") I think where Metallica loses its context in this conversation is that the grunge era also the rise of a new and different Metallica. Still, they represented something that was a very different appearance and sound from what was cascading over the waves (you never saw Hetfield in flannel or mumbling a la Cobain.) It's possible to argue back and forth about the merits of Metallica's decisions at this time, but there is little debate that they opted for both a cleaner image and cleaner sound than the grunge era was prepared to offer. At the very least, I submit for review the number of thrash artists I've interviewed on these pages (and on our previous website,) that openly admitted to loathing the grunge era as a whole. But don't worry! We'll save that for a discussion of the anniversary this summer.
I would say that for me, 2021 has been a....fine year for music. Here we are launching headlong into the back half, and I also have four albums I like, but I also only have two that I am truly prepared to go out with on my shield. And one of them, Dead Poet Society's "-!-", dances maniacally on the line with emo, and the dudes in the band not only look like dudes I would never willingly socialize with, but also would disdain if I were to meet them in person. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about that, but the photos in the liner notes afford them little favor. Even with that, the album bounces along with the kind of rubbery, Drop-C tuning that I am automatically a sucker for, so as the kids say, I'm here for it.
That said, optimism springs eternal! There are probably twenty albums coming out later this year that I am openly looking forward to, and I say that as I sit here and listen to the new Fear Factory record as I write this (full review pending.) While the Offspring gave us...something, and I don't even have appropriate words to describe how confused I am by Rob Zombie's recent album, my anticipation is not in the least dampened for upcoming releases from Red Fang, Powerwolf, Alien Weaponry, Fear of Domination, Andrew WK (did you know he got engaged to Kat Dennings? My wife is very excited about all this,) Combichrist, and the barest whisper that Kendrick Lamar's new album may hit this year.
Speaking of music that's been released this year, can we have a quick discussion about the Bodom After Midnight EP? It's a pretty good listen, it covers all the bases and makes us wonder what could have been, but my question to you, because I don't think we've ever discussed it before, is how you feel about posthumously released music? I have a handful of thoughts, but I asked first, so I'll be polite and let you respond.
Also, can we back up a second to something you said about rock being spiritless? Now, why do we think that is? I would argue the attitude of rock hasn't changed (though I would argue it hasn't aged especially well,) and I would also posit that the behavior of artists behind closed doors hasn't changed all that much. So what the hell happened? Because not to be too old-man-get-off-my-lawn about it, but I do think that rock fans have largely come to resent any vestige of new rock as artificial, and we've collectively hugged our collections ever closer. Just seeing the work "rock" in describing new music makes me roll my eyes a little.
Here's my half-informed, armchair quarterback opinion of this - I think societally, we've hit a point where we either understand, or at least think we understand, rock too well. We're too familiar with it. A&R people are too close to it. We've spent seventy years dissecting it, reassembling it, tearing it down and analyzing it again and again and again, to the point where the labels probably feel like they have a complete handle on the sound and the expectations of it. It's algorithmic now.
So, we almost have to fool ourselves into enjoying it again, right? Think about it - what are the two rock acts we've spent more time talking about on these pages than any other - Ghost and Graveyard. Both of which, if we're talking honestly, are rock bands. And both of which have circumvented the traditional marketing of rock entirely. Mentally, we've embraced the cognitive dissonance of this - we want it in spite of ourselves and we've convinced ourselves that it's not from the same mold as those other artists, but when you strip away the accoutrements, just like with Alice Cooper or KISS, what really separates those two bands from everyone around them? Sure, they write better songs, but that's a question of talent and vision, less one of style or genre. Does that make sense?
CHRIS C: Here's the thing about grunge, for how important it was; I more or less missed it. I know the massive singles, of course, and you turned me on to that one Screaming Trees album (I feel our friendship has been one-sided in that respect), but otherwise Grunge was mostly a thing I heard about without hearing. If we draw the timeline as starting around 1991 with "Nevermind", and ending anywhere from 1996-98, I was not listening to that stuff at all. I never really went back either, which is a thought to explore here. When I roll my eyes at old fans who don't understand the following generations, I try to explain how there were decades more albums and bands to explore once we got into music, and that is even more true for those younger than us. I had the choice to make whether to investigate the new music coming out, the old music I missed, or some combination of the two. Obviously, I chose to mostly focus on the current times, because living in the past seemed so weird. I was just listening to a respected voice in our journalistic world, and he was explaining he still seeks out and listens to lots of new records, but they are all records from the 70s and 80s he missed at the time. That attitude is bizarre. I do sort of understand the people who are completely done with adding to their musical repertoire, but to only be interested in new (to you) music if it's old music is baffling. Is there a better illustration of 'it was better in my day' than that?
I have some reasons to be optimistic about the second half of the year as well. Perhaps right before this piece will be published, I should be listening to the new Light The Torch album. I've said many times how I love the Howard Jones era of Killswitch Engage, but this band has an even higher ceiling. I'm expecting nothing but greatness. Like you, I am also looking forward to the new Powerwolf album. They have only been getting better, so that should be great too. Veering off in a completely different direction, old favorites The Wallflowers are back for the first time in nine years, and the first in sixteen years that won't wound like old men trying to keep up with the times. I'm oddly psyched for that. Then there are the unconfirmed hopes, which I'm thinking still could include new Halestorm and Graveyard by the end of the year, as reports have had both of them hard at work for quite a while in the studio. These things usually balance out, but it's amazing how every year I get a two or three month stretch with practically nothing I deeply care for.
I didn't know Andrew WK was with Kat Dennings until the engagement was announced. That brings up an old discussion the group of us had years ago. That one was centered around Jessica Simpson, but there are threads of it here too; some of the archetypes of beauty escape me. In this case, I'll just say there's a point at which being top-heavy becomes severe overkill. I don't get it.
Posthumous music falls into two camps for me; what was finished and what wasn't. If we're talking about music that was finished (or almost finished), I have no problem with releasing it. Alexi was clearly intending those songs to come out, so releasing them is a fine tribute to his memory. Where I take issue is when people start milking an estate for everything it's worth by putting out every scrap they can find. If a song wasn't developed to a point the artist was even thinking of releasing it, then it should stay in the vault. We don't need to know every scrap of an idea someone ever had. I can say this from experience; not every idea is a good idea. I have demos I have made that I know aren't good enough, and I have no intention of sharing them with anyone, so it would anger me if down the line someone thought to throw them out into the wild. But maybe the thought process is different for people who aren't artists.
I think what makes rock spiritless most of all is that it is now part of the culture. You can turn on your tv and hear Led Zeppelin trying to sell you a Cadillac. And with so many artists selling the rights to their songs to investment firms, it's only a matter of time until all the classics become entirely commoditized. There is of course the lack of fun in rock, and the trend towards darker and harsher sounds that insulate rock from the mass audience, but the biggest thing is that rock is ingrained too much in not just culture, but specifically our parents' culture. When rock was at its biggest, it was an escape for younger listeners, and a step away from whatever the older generations had been interested in. When your parents, or even grandparents, are listening to the same stuff you are, there's a lack of 'cool' factor right off the bat.
But it also goes back to that thing we keep saying about every sub-genre; they are now too self-referential. Rock bands now are influenced by nothing but rock bands who were influenced by the first rock bands, so we're hearing third generation rock without much new being thrown into the mix. The grunge bands were all different and interesting. The post-grunge bands like Nickelback were more similar and far less interesting. Now we're getting to bands who are influenced by Nickelback, so there's nothing left to explore in that world. As we've noted before, rock and metal stagnated in the last decade, and that also plays into this. Rock is spiritless because it feels like an act. Every decade up until the last had its own sound in response to technology, trends, and culture. That doesn't exist right now. Rock, in trying to be more timeless, is actually dating itself in the past.
The reason that Ghost and Graveyard work is because neither one of them feels like a bland copy. They are both working a gimmick, in a way, but you can't pinpoint what they are doing to a specific influence. So much of rock right now is too obvious where it's coming from. It's like going to a gallery and looking at a Paint-By-Numbers. It might be the best one ever done, but it still doesn't feel authentic, and more than anything, I think that's what rock is lacking most of all.
D.M: First off, oh man, I only introduced you to the one Screaming Trees record? Was it "Dust" or "Sweet Oblivion?" Either way, I've one done half the job - whichever it was, make sure you listen to the other as well. Both masterpieces from a severely underrated band.
You know, in reference to the music journalist you talked about, I gotta say it for the record - I sympathize with his attitude. It is practically an inevitability that as we meander through our limited time on this earth, we take on a great deal more responsibility in our adult years, whether that's rearing children, other familial obligations, pressures in a career or whatever it may be, and this limits our time to create new experiences. I live in a near-constant state of trepidation that there's some genius band out there whose music will irrevocably enrich my life, and I simply don't have the time to explore whatever unexposed corner they presently inhabit. So I get what this guy is going through; he clearly has strong emotional ties to the period of music he's enamored with, and he's on a personal quest to mine every last iota of information and joy out of it. As I said, I get this.
However, and you and I have spoken about this offline before, I would be very curious to know why media, in all its forms, is the one place in our lives where what we personally identify with, whether present or past, is automatically and forevermore regarded as better than whatever might be coming next. Whole marketing firms are built around the basic advertising principle that the new thing you could own is superior to the old one you've used for years. And we, societally, buy it hook, line and sinker, with great frequency. I'm as guilty as anyone. And yet, for the media we consume, the exact opposite is true.
I'm with you - my opinions of the past are well publicized at this point, so it should be fairly obvious that I'm constantly on a quest for the next big thing. As part of that, I've had to simply make my peace with the concept that I just plain won't get to it all. Especially with the manner in which media is distributed now, where there are a thousand digital outlets, as opposed to a handful of notable labels and record stores, there is no humanly possible way to consume and process all that new material. So, I just live with the knowledge that I will get to what I can get to, and the effort to take in as much as I can will simply have to be enough. This is actually a principle I took from my hobby of video gaming - there are plenty of series that I have some level of fealty to, but there are ones I missed. I missed out on Mass Effect. I missed out on Assassin's Creed. I ain't going back, it's too late now. Oh well.
For the record, I disagree with you about Kat Dennings. In the interest of this being a reasonably family-friendly piece, I will end my statement there.
I think we are generally in agreement on posthumous music, and yet, I can't help one particular example. Al Hendrix has famously exploited any and all fractions of recording that Jimi had laid down prior to his untimely death, to the point of parody, and second only to the exploitation of the remaining recordings of Tupac Shakur by Suge Knight. On principle, I avoided most of it - past a certain point, we can't even say with any certainty that Jimi himself intended to do anything with these leftover scraps. Then, out came "Valleys of Neptune," which I listened to as part of my duty as a music critic on our previous venture. And not only did I enjoy it, but I was overcome with the bittersweet sense that these snips and snaps of music were a small window in the world Jimi was intending to go. As a musician, he has always been ahead of his time, and now he was experimenting with a play style akin to Jimmy Page, but perhaps five years before Page himself would arrive at the same point. It was a fascinating listen, and while I don't think Al Hendrix had such altruistic intent in releasing these songs, I'm kinda glad he did. (Sidebar: Jimi Hendrix remains one of, to me, the three all-time great "what could have been" conversations, alongside Bruce Lee and the athletic career of Bo Jackson.)
Can I stand on my soapbox for a minute, since you mentioned Led Zeppelin selling Cadillacs? I don't have a huge issue with the commercialization of rock on the whole (go get your money, if you can,) but can we at least, for the love of God, stop using songs in wildly inappropriate applications? This began for me all the way back when Nobody Beats the Wiz (dating myself, I know,) was using The Cars' "Just What I Needed," as their theme. Which isn't a terribly egregious example, but I did find it funny that they'd feel such confidence about using a song that began with the lyrics "I don't want you coming here / and wasting all my time." This continued with a major cruise line (I think Norwegian?) using Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life," in their commercial campaign. Sure, let's entice everyone to come on a cruise with a song about heroin addiction! I can't help but notice that the commercials never mentioned liquor, drugs, or sex machines....or having it in the ear, whatever that means. And please, please, please, can we stop using "London Calling" whenever there's a tennis match or soccer final or NFL game at Wembley? It's about the apocalypse, you dolts! At this rate, "Creeping Death" is going to be used to sell mold-cleaning solvents.
Two things left before I'm out of breath - let me pile on to contemporary rock by adding that I don't think rock has had anything to say in a long time. Since the end of the Cold War, it feels like rock has largely abandoned larger messages and thematically retreated back into love songs of varying sincerity and grossness, the same template from which it was born. Now, we've talked before about how many of the issues addressed in music today, particularly in the heavier genres, are more introspective and deal with the complexities of mental health, which is admirable for what it is, and I say that as someone who has been diagnosed myself. And perhaps rock took that page out of the grunge playbook. Rock though, always made a great deal of hay by courting the audiences that were hungry for protest music, and I don't see that from the genre now. Perhaps the entire artistic world has taken the sentiment of Michael Jordan to heart - "Republicans buy sneakers, too." As an aside, I have often wondered, if aliens came to Earth and benevolently relieved us of all our troubles (a la, Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End,") would art die? In a true utopia with no difficulties and no conflict, what would we make art about? Would it all just be hollow, bubblegum media?
Second and last, since we were talking about Ghost - my wife has recently started using a concentrated laundry detergent that's called "Meliora." Makes me chuckle every time.
CHRIS C: You probably did introduce me to both of them, but "Sweet Oblivion" is the one that made more of a lasting impact. Also, saying this right now I'm realizing that is likely where they got the name for Geoff Tate's newest project, and that makes me hate him a little more all over again. At least Fall Out Boy took their name from something that wasn't musical. This makes me want to yell about those who hit the band/album/song same-name trifecta, but I'll let it slide.
You're right that media is where the feeling of generational superiority comes through most. I'm just as annoyed by it in the film world, which just so happens to be centered around the same time as a lot of the musical issues, so I'm inclined to think it's a psychological flaw in a certain generation. 80s movies are as enduring and beloved as ever, when most of them are just as terrible as everything that comes out now. There may have been less sequels, but there are so many cringe-worthy movies from back then that we still can't get away from. There was more uproar and controversy when they wanted to make a new Ghostbusters movie than when "Psycho" got remade shot-for-shot for absolutely no reason other than to prove Vince Vaughn shouldn't be in those kinds of movies. And how many people will continue to defend the rape culture John Hughes movies? Yes, a lot of movies today suck. So did the movies then. One of my absolute favorite moments was on "The Big Bang Theory", where Amy points out that "Indiana Jones" would have had the exact same outcome if the characters sat on their asses and never did anything. That is a Grand Canyon sized plot hole that should ruin the movie, but instead they're still talking about wheeling Harrison Ford onto the set to make another one. What's the difference between that and the apparatus they use to keep Mick Mars upright long enough to play a Motley Crue set?
But it doesn't exist only in media. We both play instruments, and you must be aware that vintage instruments have a reputation for being superior to the modern products. They have more 'soul' or 'personality' a lot of people will say. What they're actually saying is that they weren't produced with the same quality control, so there are differences between even identical models that made every guitar and every amp sound just a little bit different. You really couldn't buy the same equipment as your favorite band back then and sound just like them, whereas today you can. That, and the increased learning curve in playing a lot of that gear, gives many people the idea they are doing something superior. Guitars are just tools, and while I fully understand the connections we make with them, the purpose is so much more than the form. I remember seeing a blind test that was done between a Stradivarius and another world-class violin. The expert players, even people who owned a Stradivarius, couldn't tell the difference on a recording. Do you think that will ever matter?
Yes, the math does make it impossible for us, or anyone following us, to hear everything. I've also made me peace with that. As long as I know enough to know I'm not missing out, I'm fine with it.
I will only disagree with you slightly about Hendrix; I don't know if he falls into the category of greatest what-ifs, only because people revolutionizing an art only do so for so long before they get passed by the next thing. A few years later, it wouldn't have surprised me if Hendrix was an afterthought as Zeppelin conquered the world. It's like how Bob Dylan has always been called a genius, but he's been largely in the background of music since the mid 70s. Leaving the scene early, and staying forever ahead of his time, has helped Jimi's legacy immensely, as it has Jim Morrison, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Kurt Cobain, and all the others who never had to suffer the public apathy of their creative lulls.
Yes, it would be nice if both bands and brands would try to put songs with products that make some sense. Of course, we know most people don't have a clue what any of the words in most songs, even the classics, are. Lyrical analysis has never been high priority, and I'm guilty of that as well. Although, I put a solid amount of the blame for that on the labels. I would love to be able to talk more about lyrics, but even in the cases where bands aren't churning out generic dreck, we almost never get a copy to read when we're listening to and digesting these albums. There's no way I'm going to transcribe all these albums just to figure out if there are any words worth paying attention to. That leads me to one of my biggest pet peeves; when you buy a CD and it doesn't come with lyrics. If I actually give you money for the product, especially now when I could stream it for free, I think I should get the entire experience of a record. Are they really that ashamed of their words they won't even print them?
I'm a bit shocked no one has ponied up enough money to use "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the deodorant commercial it was inspired for, or Blink-182's "All The Small Things" for the latest male enhancement pill. Who wouldn't want Mother's Day flowers accompanied with a serenade by Glen Danzig?
You led me to hat I was going to say is the biggest surprise not just of this year, but the last four years; the lack of fiery, passionate, anti Trump music. Whether it was Green Day or who we now call The Chicks, the Iraq War led to more music that pushed back against politics and impacted society. I struggle to think of a single piece of art inspired by Trump that has lasted more than a single 24 hour news cycle. We saw society and democracy itself beginning to crumble all around us, revealing people's worst impulses, and there isn't an album that spoke up and spoke loudly. Were we all too exhausted?
In your hypothetical, I would like to think art will still endure. As a creator, there is nothing I find more depressing than the idea artists need to be troubled in order to make their best work. Sure, I have written more than my share of stuff in those times, but I would like to think there are other possibilities. If there aren't, it means art is actually an unhealthy obsession, and the amount that gets thrown into the world each and every day is a searing indictment of how we have failed as a society. I am of the mind that pain, like drugs or alcohol, is a convenient explanation for something words can't describe. The creative process is so nebulous, and pulling art from the ethos so miraculous, we often swear we need to be in an altered state of mind to make it happen. It's easier to say a great piece of art came to us, rather than give ourselves credit. Then again, I might be thinking far too highbrow about all of this.
Anything else you found interesting in music this year we haven't mentioned yet?
D.M: At the risk of being overly cynical, which the internet is entirely too full of already, I have my doubts that Geoff Tate took his project's name from a Screaming Trees album. That would require Tate realize that anyone besides him makes music in the first place.
Ah, the Stradivarius test. Proof that name brands matter - or at least, that we conceive that they do. It's all about scarcity and recognition. I have, in my time on this earth, discovered a few brands that actually matter for an individual product - I find Adidas to make the best basketball sneakers. Hood makes the best cottage cheese. Five Guys makes the best fast food burger (fight me, In-N-Out devotees!) In my weird, wild world, these are the first three that come to mind that involve actual differences in quality. Most other brands come down to individual taste (Pepsi vs Coke, for example,) or exist in strata - do I enjoy my Volvo more than I did my Nissan? Sure. But that's because Volvo makes cars in a different strata. It doesn't mean Volvo is the only car in that strata, or the only brand I've ever buy again.
As a weird aside - so back in the day when I worked at a bookstore, we used to get the Robb Report, which was a magazine detailing luxury lifestyles. And what you learn in the Robb Report is that there is always some super-exclusive brand that only rich people know about for everything. Like, you might think you're buying the absolute Cadillac of mattresses, but no, there's some dude in Germany that's hand-sewing them and filling them with hypo-allergenic horsehair and it costs more than a new boat. The lone exception is Rolex - the average person has heard of Rolex, and there's no brand above them. They are the absolute top of the game (no matter what Tissot says.) Anyway, I'm off on a tangent.
The thing that separated Anti-Bush musical sentiment from Anti-Trump musical sentiment was, frankly, war. There were a hundred other factors going on (or not going on,) in 2003, but that was a period of relative prosperity across a broad spectrum of the population. This was back when political candidates were largely viewed as being slight ideological variances of a baseline sentiment; you may recall that during the Bush/Gore election in 2000, there was a real sense of electoral disinterest because the candidates were viewed as not being all that different. But war, especially one with little justifiable cause (referring specifically to the invasion of Iraq) was particularly distasteful to John Q Public (though notably, not on such a scale to cost Bush re-election.) War, as an abstraction, with all its horror, is always the worst case scenario, and the fact that one man unilaterally decided upon it (or was told to, depending on whom you believe,) made him an instant source of derision. With Trump, our attention was being pulled in many directions - social issues, economic inequality, the general realization that mental health is a thing, the climate of the planet, a global pandemic - until that last, there was no one issue that generated enough interest to formulate a full-fledged backlash, and that point, everyone's primary focus was to stay alive. Plus, for all his awful 'leadership,' Trump didn't actually DO that much, and it's harder to write with great conviction when trying to condemn another's fervent INaction. Even in the case of the pandemic, Trump's burden of responsibility lies in either outright denying or not addressing the problem (to put it mildly,) which in the public eye doesn't read the same as actively ordering someone into combat and death. Not until the reprehensible acts of January 6th did Trump actually take an action that would have caused such backlash from the art community, and by then it didn't matter - we were done with him anyway. That probably sounds like I'm letting Trump off the hook for the all the fucking awful shit he said and believes, and his basic rebuke of the tenets of democracy, and that's not the case - I'm just trying to be objective and drill down on what he actually DID, versus Bush's order to war.
Let's move on to brighter things, my stomach turns just thinking about the specter of Trump. I'll reiterate my running theme - the past is dead.
I think the thing that interest me most in music this year is actually a failing on my own part - I don't think I realized just what it would mean to essentially have the 2020 album cycle and the 2021 album cycle happen concurrently. There are so many great artists that I would have looked forward to an album from last year that have held it in their pockets, coupled with the ones who will be released this year in the first place. I admit I was not prepared for how much serious, critical listening I was going to have to do. We've mentioned some of the names already, but as the summer touring season bears down on us, the year has already seen albums (good or bad,) from Rob Zombie, Evile, Red Fang, The Offspring, and a bunch of others, and that's with Fear Factory coming in the near term, Fear of Domination, Andrew WK, Combichrist, Beartooth, Alien Weaponry and maaaaaybe Kendrick Lamar all still to come. Plus, I'm sure a dozen others will crop up as we come into the fall. This is going to be a full year.
Last thing I thought of a day or two ago, and please allow me to engage in the theater of the absurd. You and I speak frequently about the nonsense genres that exist as subsets of metal, and how perhaps the most ridiculous of them is so-called 'Beauty and the Beast Metal.' Then it dawned on me absently the other day - were the B-52s the band started all this? What about Aqua? Forever when I think of their sugary disco-pop, I hear the tinny lyrics about a plastic world juxtaposed against that baritone lunatic yelling "Come on, Barbie, let's go party!" Would Lacuna Coil never have happened in the absence of some of the most ridiculous and annoying pop we've ever heard? My head is spinning.
CHRIS C: I wouldn't give Tate himself any of the credit. I actually find the story of that 'band' hilarious. Tate gets hired to sing an album that apes old Queensryche, and when he figured out it's actually pretty good, he tries to rewrite a lot of it (probably to get credits, and therefore money). The guy who wrote the album then has to fight to save it from Tate's influence, only to get fired from the project so Tate and someone with less self-respect can make the second, far inferior, album. And now the drummer of Queensryche is either having serious issues, or there will soon be two of those bands as well. It's such a joy to follow the music news....
I can't say I am innocent of brand brainwashing, but I know exactly what is happening to me. I don't think that Les Paul guitars are built any better than others, but I still wanted to have one (ok, mine isn't a full-fledged Gibson, so I didn't go crazy), even though I rarely play electric these days. And I know for a fact golf balls don't make a damn bit of difference. Like you said, there are strata of products, but a good Titleist is pretty much the same as a good Callaway, despite what they spend millions to make us think. I can't think of many products where there is an obvious quality deficiency, other than the last experience I had with a Chevy. There was a loaner Equinox I was around for just one day, and good grief did it feel cheap compared to a Honda.
There aren't any brands above Rolex in everyday stature, you're right, but they aren't the be-all and end-all for watch people. The biggest problem they have is that the factory is just about the only place anyone can tell if one is real or not. The fakes are so good (there are a couple around the house), you know half the Rolexes you see out in the world are bogus. That does muddy the reputation a bit. Speaking of watches; would you believe that Timex Ironman Triathalon's from when we were young (you may have had one, as I did) are worth decent money now? Blew my mind.
I'm not going to disagree with anything you said about Trump. In a way, I suppose all the music about mental health is in reaction to the last four years, so it may count.
Hmm... it's funny, but I don't see this year the way you do. I thought I was going to, but the flow of releases hasn't seemed any different to me than usual. Perhaps it has something to do with me usually not being as interested in what the 'big names' happen to be, but I was excited for a year with less apathy, and yet I have still found myself at times struggling to muster much enthusiasm to listen to anything new. The summer seems to be picking up a bit, but it does make me wonder how depressing my being a music fan would be if there weren't some 2020 albums held back to bolster 2021. Yikes. I have been seeing the absurd amount of tours starting to be put into motion, but that's not my thing, so I'm not getting swamped by anything.
Oh, and since you mentioned Rob Zombie again, can I laugh about how his laziness is now bleeding over into his movie career too? I thought a while ago his records were lousy because he was creatively tapped out from his movies, and now he has not just rebooted "Halloween", he is doing "The Munsters" next. The well seems to be dry in all respects.
I can't call Beauty And The Beast Metal the most absurd subgenre. Pornogrind might take that honor. Power Violence is the dumbest, while Hospital Metal is the most inexplicable. I find the B-52s too campy to be a real source of inspiration for metal. I have a hard time believing many of the bands we're talking about were listening to "Rock Lobster" and thinking about how to make it heavy. If I had to guess, I would say the Disney-esque name is entirely accurate, and it was metalheads who grew up giant Disney nerds who are really to blame for it. I never understood the fascination, but it's scary how many 'grown ass' people still obsess over Disney movies. So I don't think it's out of line to say that some of those metal bands are attempts at trying to make their show-tune obsession fit in with their metal identities. Or, there is also the cynical answer that a lot of those bands were uncomfortable having a woman fronting them, so they made the choices they did to negate some of the attention/stereotype.
And I think we've covered a lot of ground, so I won't ask any more questions, other than if there happens to be anything you think we've missed that you want to address.
D.M: Believe it or not, I never had the Timex Ironman Trialthlon watch - I had a knockoff. Which says something about where I was in the financial strata of greater suburbia. But! At some point, the band on that watch broke, so I replaced it, and the replacement band was a Timex Ironman band. As you might imagine, it looked a little ridiculous.
Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned tours. You know me. Our beloved frequent readers know me. I am, unapologetically, a metal guy. Through and through. I am cognizant of it's excesses and absurd tendencies, but I am going out into the world with metal on my shield. And yet, fate has determined what my first live music show in sixteen months will be. New York City, Sony Hall, Sunday, Jun 27th.
En Vogue.
Fuckin' right En Vogue! Listen, you don't get a lot of shots at the real legends. And En Vogue are indisputably in that stratosphere in their genre and community. Make no mistake, my wife is going with me, but this was my idea. I am down with the funky divas. I am very excited.
Not much gas left in the tank for me, either. Because I'm obligated to get it in - Bruce Springsteen sucks. Oh, and since we tend to come down on them as well during these gentlemanly discourses, Sabaton needs to come up with a new idea for the first time ever. I think that's it for me. Let's Go Mets!
CHRIS C: Ridiculous is the manner in which the watch I wore in college broke. I had it for somewhere around fifteen years, and one day it literally fell off my wrist. The pin holding the band on fell out, the watch hit the pavement, and I spent a couple of years trying to find a new one I liked enough to wear every day. It's true of many things, but I noticed it most with watches; the vast majority of things are horrendously butt-ugly.
No shame in En Vogue. While not my choice, we all have things we like that fall outside our normal images. You got to see a hefty dose of that when I made the list of my all-time favorite songs. No regrets there.
With all of that now behind us, I think we have reached the end of this conversation. As always, we covered a lot of unexpected ground, and summed up half a year as only we can. When we reconvene; we talk Metallica.
Until then....
