American Pie: The Song Is Eeue!
...It seems that every year, the tunes, I can’t bring myself to call them melodies, become literally more monotonous; the words fewer and increasingly meaningless; and the performances more extreme. In the face of falling album sales, the recording companies’ executives seem blind and deaf to the problem....
John Merchant is aghast at the abysmal state of current pop "music''.
I have written before, and no doubt will do so again, on the abysmal state of Pop “Music” and its increasing pervasiveness in America life. I can’t speak to the situation in other countries, but I expect it will, to some extent, mirror the US scene.
It seems that every year, the tunes, I can’t bring myself to call them melodies, become literally more monotonous; the words fewer and increasingly meaningless; and the performances more extreme. In the face of falling album sales, the recording companies’ executives seem blind and deaf to the problem.
This probably is because many of them are ex-performers and producers, or in some cases, still active as performers. Such an incestuous mix is unlikely to be able to assess the situation with a cool head. Their remedy for the decline is reworking old classics, or resorting to more bizarre forms.
Aiding and abetting the decline are the, so called, music critics. Some of them are educated and literary, and therefore command credibility. Their critiques are featured in venerable and respected newspapers and magazines, lending their reviews yet more kudos. That such writers produce serious and often laudatory dissertations about such a banal subject can only be encouraging to performers and producers alike, thus ensuring they continue down the same road.
Recently I read an article, several pages in length, about a recording session in which Toni Bennett was joined by Lady Gaga in a rendering of “That’s Why the Lady is a Tramp.” The producers of the album are two of Bennett’s sons who have worked hard and successfully to resuscitate the 85 year old singer’s career by pairing him with younger headliners.
Ms. Gaga, for her part, confessed to being gaga about Mr. Bennett, and that may have been sincere, because behind that clownish appearance and performing style is apparently an educated and musically talented business woman. That being the case, it is clear that, for her, pop music is just a money machine, and that she has temporally put aside her real self while she outperforms and out earns Madonna, the prototypical pop music tycoon.
The article appeared in the respected New Yorker magazine, America’s answer to Punch, and was written by Gay Talese, a well-known sports writer and author of 11 books. This is exactly what I mean by adding luster and legitimacy to what is at best, just fluff.
The quality and worth of contemporary pop music aside, its sheer pervasiveness in American society is a matter pf concern to me. It’s impossible to avoid it, except in one’s home or car, and it’s getting to be more difficult in one’s car, due to the incredible volume of some car stereos. A busy road runs by my house, about a hundred yards away. The base volume from a significant number of vehicles rattles my windows.
I exercise regularly at a gym in my development. It has a machine room, a locker room and a pool. Each location has different piped music. In the exercise room it’s Pop Rock, in the locker room New World, and at the pool, Disco for the water aerobics. Most people using the machines are listening to their iPods, so aren’t troubled by the howling, wailing, growling and thumping that is forced on the rest of us.
There is obviously a need for ordinary people to express their concerns and feelings musically, in a simple way, or to identify with someone else’s expressions of the same emotions. Folk songs throughout history were never exactly artistic gems, with the possible exception of “Green Sleeves,” which, after all, wasn’t written by some scruffy kid in a garage, but by no less than Henry VIII.
The genre “Hey Nonny, Nonny No,” however, fully qualifies for the junk music box of today. The big difference that prevented it from being the menace that contemporary folk music has become, is the absence of recording, broadcasting and amplification. Strip away all that and the stunts and pyrotechnics of pop concerts, and you’re back to “It Was a Lover and His Lass.”
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