[Industrialblog,
November 14, 2003]
Great 90s Albums -- No Picks for Me
Michele and Dean Esmay, and now others, are asking people to list the Best CDs of the 90s. I really couldn't say, since I missed most of the 90s music.
My thoughts were Nevermind was one of the best albums ever. And there was a lot of other great stuff in the early part of the decade, but I didn't follow the bands closely. I can't help feeling a bit like Homer Simpson talking to Bart — out of touch. Somewhere along the line I lost my interest in rock music as art.
I read in a comments section somewhere a particularly intriguing insight. Someone said that every person he knew that took rock music too seriously as art stopped listening by the time he turned 30. And that's pretty much what happened to me, except it was age 26.
I took rock music way too seriously, and in my case this seriousness had its upside and downside. The downside was I was confused about art. Despite having a college degree, the truth is I got out of college with neither a good education nor common sense. And I had no idea what art was.
The upside was that my desire to find real art led me toward things of better and better quality. Over the years, through reading, dialogue, more college, travel, and just living and getting older, quality art became more apparent. I learned the inchoate emotions and rebellion in rock music were maturely developed as artistic themes in William Blake and romantic poets such as Shelley, Byron, Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth [who still had their own issues.]
Rock music is what it is, and little of it is art. What is honest is often adolescent, sentimental, and corrupted by celebrity culture. What tries to rise to high art is often laughable pompous and pretentious.
Occasionally something pierces the veil and rises to a level of real quality. Like Nevermind. Because Nevermind perfectly expressed what it wanted to be: an unpretentious, direct, clear statement of adolescent frustration. And the music was great. It wasn't a well-wrought urn, but John Keats never came up with a bass line like Come as You Are, either.
Nowadays, I'll listen to a little country, a little folk, a little reggae and a little rock, but the music doesn't have much meaning for me anymore. Besides aesthetic reasons, there may be biological reasons, too. Bodies change; ears become more sensitive and less tolerant of distortion, it becomes more difficult to just give in to energy and volume when something is clearly out of key and the guitar work is ham-fisted. You just become more discerning. A lot of rock music doesn't impact some people's older's bodies.
And let's not even get into the lyrics. Reproductive glands? At least Cobain knew to slur it so no one knew what he was saying.
My thoughts were Nevermind was one of the best albums ever. And there was a lot of other great stuff in the early part of the decade, but I didn't follow the bands closely. I can't help feeling a bit like Homer Simpson talking to Bart — out of touch. Somewhere along the line I lost my interest in rock music as art.
I read in a comments section somewhere a particularly intriguing insight. Someone said that every person he knew that took rock music too seriously as art stopped listening by the time he turned 30. And that's pretty much what happened to me, except it was age 26.
I took rock music way too seriously, and in my case this seriousness had its upside and downside. The downside was I was confused about art. Despite having a college degree, the truth is I got out of college with neither a good education nor common sense. And I had no idea what art was.
The upside was that my desire to find real art led me toward things of better and better quality. Over the years, through reading, dialogue, more college, travel, and just living and getting older, quality art became more apparent. I learned the inchoate emotions and rebellion in rock music were maturely developed as artistic themes in William Blake and romantic poets such as Shelley, Byron, Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth [who still had their own issues.]
Rock music is what it is, and little of it is art. What is honest is often adolescent, sentimental, and corrupted by celebrity culture. What tries to rise to high art is often laughable pompous and pretentious.
Occasionally something pierces the veil and rises to a level of real quality. Like Nevermind. Because Nevermind perfectly expressed what it wanted to be: an unpretentious, direct, clear statement of adolescent frustration. And the music was great. It wasn't a well-wrought urn, but John Keats never came up with a bass line like Come as You Are, either.
Nowadays, I'll listen to a little country, a little folk, a little reggae and a little rock, but the music doesn't have much meaning for me anymore. Besides aesthetic reasons, there may be biological reasons, too. Bodies change; ears become more sensitive and less tolerant of distortion, it becomes more difficult to just give in to energy and volume when something is clearly out of key and the guitar work is ham-fisted. You just become more discerning. A lot of rock music doesn't impact some people's older's bodies.
And let's not even get into the lyrics. Reproductive glands? At least Cobain knew to slur it so no one knew what he was saying.