People once heard, told, acted out and retold these tales, taking active roles in creating visions of life and its possibilities in imaginative ways, instead of flopping on couches with a Monster Burger in one hand and a Bucket o’ Suds in the other, passively awaiting the predetermined outcome of one steroid-based extravaganza or another. This says something disturbing about the contrast between ancient and modern civilizations and the ways the perception of reality can either be generated by humans or imprinted upon them, unless you’re the CEO of an international fast food conglomerate or a viewer engaging in a fierce wind-breaking competition during a broadcast’s inevitable male-enhancement advertisements or rain delays. 

In terms of giving one’s ears and mind something more interesting to do, then, where is the contemporary equivalent of music as interesting as “Dharma For One” by Jethro Tull or Pink Floyd’s “Money“? Heard anything as refreshing and widely accessible as a “Cars” by Gary Numan or a “Walk On The Wild Side” by Lou Reed lately?  And where are geniuses the likes of George Clinton and Prince, lavishing funk beyond measure upon the collective consciousness and contributing to a more harmonious cultural groove?  

Consider for a moment that the Captain of the P-Funk Mothership and the Artist Formerly Known As He Is Now did not have to fill James Brown’s shiny boots or restrict their expressions to genre-specific limits, but made it up themselves and let it fly.  So did the aforementioned musical luminaries, and the earth rocked on its axis between listener’s ear-holes.  Therein lies the clue to the death-rattle of rock music.  The verdict: Murder One with a bullet, even with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reuniting briefly for David Lynch’s Transcendental Meditation benefit. 

This has nothing to do with the good work floating around by the likes of Crystal Method, Flyleaf, or Radiohead, for instance.  Music is not dead, nor are musical ideas, popular or obscure.  It’s the culture that has been laid low, with the aid of the old scapegoat “corporate greed”, true, but more so by conformity of thought regarding the disposability of music and artists.  Creative writers and musicians, that is to say, real artists, do actually exist, as opposed to hacks motivated solely by “stardom” and its blandishments. These genuine artists, capable of growing and expanding their audiences for lifetimes, are essentially defenestrated by the media conglomerates that snatch them off the streets as soon as they either fail to turn a profit or bring in a profit that is smaller than that required of them. 

Meanwhile, absurdly, record companies will willingly hemorrhage money in the maintenance of “stars”, throwing hundreds of millions after them with the net result of bringing in a fraction of that investment as profit.  If, say, for some reason, “99 Red Balloons” had sold 27 million units of product years ago, Nena would have been packing venues for years afterward, with sales driven by high-dollar promotional hype in the expectation of the record label for lightning to strike twice. Forget Economics 101.  If that sounds like an allusion to the career of Michael Jackson, how dare anyone think such a thing of such a fabulous, larger than life superstar?  So now we’re back to myth and legend, and regard to proportionality in terms ancient and modern.  If it is impossible to wait for a hit to come into existence, it becomes necessary to create one, regardless of the cost.  That cost comes in the loss of what someone like Nena might well create with a modicum of long-term vision on the record label’s part.  This implies, however, the somewhat metaphysical notion that, in art, as opposed to mere product, anything is possible, particularly with conditions conducive to creativity. Such conditions are sorely lacking in the outlined scenarios, which have deteriorated for decades now.

Such narrow thinking applies not only to struggling artists, but to established ones as well. John Kay of Steppenwolf and Boz Scaggs spring to mind as musicians having earned previous acclaim who could even now produce fine works, and likely hits, if the machinery in place made more room for respect for artists, as the American Recordings label did with the late Johnny Cash. This would mean wasting fewer resources throwing whatever a company thinks some mindless demographic will buy at the wall and hoping it will stick rather than stink, as it usually does, so that’s probably out.  That does not change the fact that Cash took Grammy Awards for those recordings in the last decade of his life. 

When legend and myth reflect reality, they evolve over time.  When they are created in fifteen minutes and tossed aside fifteen minutes later, with that method of production being a paradigm and a fixed idea leading to permanent stagnation and atrophy, what happens is what is happening now.  A music culture built on originality, defined by unpredictability and dependent on freedom, dies.  Something new, something unknown, or different in that it comes from outside the understanding and control of the failed system, gradually appears to replace it. 

Presently, the funeral wake is ongoing, prior to Rock’s interment, for which no plans have been made.  Rock Music is survived by its stepchildren, Bombastic and Melodramatic Pop (no relation to Iggy), Max Volume of Interminable Adolescence, and Dim Nostalgia of One Hand Clapping.  

Pass me that Beatle and I’ll sing you a bottle song.

I am not a huge fan of rap music. It is not the top rack choice on my iPod, and yet, I can appreciate its contribution to music and pop culture. Very few of the top 40 songs today don’t have at least a small rap section in bridge of the song.  It has now been over thirty years since rap made the leap from the inner city streets to the top of the pop charts, so it’s not going away anytime soon.

All of Ben’s complaints were once said about rock and roll: lack of melody and harmony, overemphasis on rhythm, vulgar, overly sexual lyrics… Rock and roll was also called a corrupter of youth and predictions of it’s quick demise abounded. There were record burnings and organized protests against this Satan music, and today, footage of these protests are viewed comedically. Do we really want this stigma attached to Republicans any longer?  Are we tired of being the punchline yet?

And it doesn’t matter if the stars of rap are bad influences on children. Please. What pop star has EVER been a good influence on children? Most of them are drug addicts with dysfunctional relationships, regardless of what kinds of music they play.  I know there have been a few decent people, but they are the rare exceptions. Pop stars are paid enormous amounts of cash to be over-grown children, but that should have no bearing on their art.  The criminal antics of rap musicians speak no more about the destructive nature of the music than the conduct of Boy George or George Michael reflect on eighties pop.

Yes, rap is crude, vulgar, violent, makes reference to drug use, and is demeaning to women, but so is ‘South Park,’ and very few conservatives are willing to take a stand against ‘South Park.’  Why are we so willing to accept the bad stuff in a cartoon, but rail against it in rap music? (I think we are opening ourselves for accusations of racism if we don’t accept both.)

You might not like rap music. I don’t blame you.  I had to force myself to listen to it before I was able to appreciate it.  But it wasn’t meant for old men like me–it is written for younger generations.

Every generation in modern history has been able to find a type of music that makes the older people cringe. In part, that is why they like it so much.  Someone once said the best way to keep your kids from listening to rap is to start listening to it yourself. Drive around your hood with the windows down and Fifty Cent thumping out of the mini van and your kids will soon avoid it like the plague.

Eventually that’s what happens to every form of pop music: it mainstreams, and the next generation is forced to find something new and toxic. The Beatles started as radicals but eventually were covered by Lawrence Welk. Just the other day I was on an elevator in Downtown Chicago and it started playing an instrumental version of “Smells like Teen Spirit” over the loudspeaker. I thought it was cool, but listening to it like that for the first time, I felt really old. And I could tell the thirty-five-year-old girl next to me with the faded tattoos underneath her business suit did too. I actually think she started to tear up a little.

Instead of becoming this generation’s up tight pantywaists, we should be looking for common ground between the rap culture and ourselves. Isn’t that kind of what Big Hollywood originally set out to do: find common ground between conservatives and pop culture?  Because, I think there is a lot of common ground. After all, we both have a fascination with guns and a distrust of government.

And we both get a big kick out of making politically incorrect jokes. For the most part, rap lyrics are intended to be funny. And when you become incensed, you’re letting on that you didn’t get the joke.

Don’t do that. It makes us ALL look bad.

Unanimity of public opinion over popular song has passed.  Music, which used to unite, now divides.  Eminem and Ludacris would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.  We live in an antinomian age where it’s hip to defy conventional wisdom long after every vestige of conventional wisdom lies in tatters.  Where Keats’ Grecian Urn once proclaimed, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” today’s antinomian consumer proclaims, “Whatever,” in a voice oozing ennui.

Cultural arbiters such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and People regularly cover hip-hop as serious art, generally in the music section.  But if music is a combination of rhythm, harmony, and melody, where does hip-hop, with its chanting and choruses “sampled” from better songs fit in?  Is it music?  Not by definition.  It’s a perpetuation of “the dozens,” the tradition of black cultural put-downs and sports-style cheerleading set to a beat.

The Billboard Top 100 is depressing.  The artists are either rappers or American Idol survivors.  It’s great that Stevie Wonder sings a song with the Jonas Brothers, but where is the new Stevie Wonder?

Thank God for the divas.  Thirty years ago, the divas were Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Martha Reeves, Patti LaBelle and their ilk–real women with real songs.  Today’s divas are Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, and Ashlee Simpson.  Can anybody hum anything by Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera?  How about the Back Street Boys, ‘N’ Sync, or Justin Timberlake?  Today’s divas, exemplified by the vocal acrobats on American Idol, prove their divaness by avoiding the melody.

There are Top Forty artists who still value craft.  Occasionally, a real song makes it on the play list.  Maroon 5 and Leona Lewis suggest song craft is not entirely dead.  It has merely been driven underground.

What an underground.

If you’ve never hummed a Beatles song, have no love for The Who, Cheap Trick, the Raspberries, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Stone Roses, Tom Petty, Linda Rondstadt, the Bangles, the Beach Boys, the Beckies, Badfinger or the Byrds, stop here.  Go back to your X-Box.

Like Australian convicts, eucalyptus trees and the nutria, pop music has flourished in exile.  Thousands of bands have taken advantage of new technology to record themselves, and offer their product over the Internet.  Thanks to downloadable programs like GarageBand.com, you don’t even need to produce CDs.

Most self-released records go for twelve to thirteen dollars.  Not cheap, but they offer things no major label can match: unalloyed joy and soaring pop song craft.  Peter Townshend, lead singer and guitarist for The Who, coined the term “power pop” to indicate the type of complex, joyful, upbeat music pioneered by the Beatles.  Power pop songs use harmonies and have at least three chords.

PowerPop keeps track of many of these bands.  Most have their own websites.  All pursue song craft with skill and passion: The Offbeat, The Churchills, The Davenports, The Wigs, The Wellingtons, Scott Miller, Sloan, L’Avventura, Superdrag, The Shazam, Heavy Blinkers, Bryan Scary, Hindu Rodeo, Michael Carpenter and Ness, to name a handful of the more important bands.

Independent popsters are more politically savvy than their gargantuan Top 40 Counterparts.  (Did you ever imagine that Bruce Springsteen, who started so well, would end up spouting socialist crap?)  Hindu Rodeo in particular gets it.  On their first, self-titled album, “Evil White Man” gleams with pop smarts and a great hook.  “I wish I was a woman/ So I’d think with my head/Not just the one ‘tween my legs/So I’d live twice as Long/Dance on my grave when I’m gone/But I’m an evil white man.”

Their second album, Nalladaloobr, is even better with brilliant, incisive, and danceable songs such as “McLife,” “American People” and “Somebody’s Eyes.”

Greg Pope’s Popmonster which dominated ‘08’s Top Ten Lists, proves the power of the lone artist working by himself.  Unbelievably, Greg Pope recorded every sound: drums, guitar, keys, you name it, and provided all the vocals.  The results are one of the most dynamic shout-it-out rock records since Born to Run.

The songs are way beyond my baby don’t love me, dealing with family responsibility in “I Got a Life” and individual responsibility in “Burden.”

Other power poppers who do it all themselves include Bryan Scary on his first record, Ed James, Josh Fix whose Free at Last came out of nowhere to land on everybody’s Top Ten, Jason Falkner, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Michael Behm, and the Well Wishers to name a few.

Bill Majoros of The Foreign Films released a two disc debut set in 2007 that compares favorably to The White Album for sheer breadth and scope.  The Foreign Films play with an overwhelming emotional power that most modern bands can’t grasp.

Some power poppers achieve major label success but they are the exception and not the rule.  Barenaked Ladies and Fort Collins, Colorado’s Color Me Pink are two such bands.

Seattle-based Sub Pop has offered haven to The Shins, Fleet Foxes, and Flight of the Conchords.

Not Lame Records is foremost among the tiny independent labels carrying the power pop torch.  Not Lame’s premier act is the Nashville-based Shazam, a trio with soaring, anthemic songs and enormous guitar.  Not Lame’s owner, Bruce Brodeen, is a devout Christian who trained to be a Lutheran minister.  One day he had an epiphany: he was to start his own label.  Not Lame has rescued stunning power pop from the past such as the two Toms records, another one man band in the person of Tommy Marolda.

New York-based Rainbow Quartz Records is another outstanding power pop label, specializing in finding acts from all over the world.  Especially Sweden.  During this season of ABBA revival it comes as no surprise that the dark Scandinavian countries produce some of the sunniest music ever recorded.  In particular, Rainbow Quartz’ Marmalade Souls is a haunting evocation of Mommas and Poppas era rock with a spark of fresh genius.

Rainbow Quarts is also home to Andy Bopp (Myracle Brah) and RockFour, the tightest rockin’ psychedelic band to ever emerge from Tel Aviv.

You can find most of these bands on fan sites such as Powerpopaholic and Absolute Powerpop.  Every year going as far back as I can remember has been notable, but 2008 was one of the very best.  You can find my Top Ten list and numerous others at:  Not Lame Blog.

If ever there were a time to re-birth Moon Unit Zappa’s “gag me with a spoon” from the ’80s, this is it:

David Spero, Yusuf’s manager, sees maturity, not a radical personality change. “Cat Stevens was the voice of a generation, and Yusuf is a voice of that same generation grown up,” he says. . . .

After nearly drowning off the coast of Malibu in 1976, the singer turned to Islam and found “a message to the human heart” in a copy of the Quran his brother gave him. “It didn’t have any connection to politics or global issues or the continuing turbulence in the Middle East,” he says. “That wasn’t the issue.”

HAMAS Money-Mule Yusuf Islam a/k/a Cat Stevens & Family

Yusuf initially ducked public scrutiny when he became a Muslim. . . .

When controversies erupted, Yusuf often served as a Muslim ambassador to the West, sometimes unintentionally inflaming relations (his comments on the Salman Rushdie fatwa), but usually offering healing words, as he did after 9/11.

The terror attacks “were a turning point,” he says. “The message was: We better get to know each other before we destroy each other. The people in the middle, who are the majority, woke up to that. Unfortunately, a few leaders at the time didn’t represent that point of view.”

While he struggles to explain Islam’s tenets, he isn’t an apologist for Muslims and says he’s frustrated that “they can point fingers but very rarely say, ‘Perhaps I can do something to bridge the gaps.’ ” . . .

“We yearn for happiness, beauty, peace, love,” he says.

Okay, so he has a Jewish apologist manager who goes on about him like a bad Minnie Riperton song.

But hmmm . . . he was a money mule for HAMAS (which is why he’s barred from Israel), he supported Ayatollah Khomeini’s death fatwah on Salman Rushdie (and said anyone who  “defames the prophet, he must die”), is all tied up with Al-Qaeda splinter groups in Britain, and doesn’t particularly like Jews, when he writes against ‘em.

This is the guy who “struggles” and “isn’t an apologist for Muslims”?  Whatever.  Time to end the fraudulent gushing over this extremist.  If only Cat Stevens had become David Duke instead of Dawud Al-Duke, we wouldn’t be treated to these endless waterfalls of syrup over a has-been’s bad, anachronistic pop songs.

Cue the Moon Unit Zappa.  Grody to the max.