Problem #13: Popular Music

Problem #13: Popular Music

OK, I’m not trying to say that pop music is a problem. Or, really, that I even have a problem with today’s pop music. I get it: I’m not a kid, and pop music has always been made by adults performing for teenagers. And, unlike Baby Boomers, I don’t consider myself to be an postdated teenager. Speaking of the Boomers, note that even their favourite musicians were typically not, themselves, Boomers- most were actually War Babies (born between roughly 1939 and 1945). That number includes all 4 Beatles, Bob Dylan, every Rolling Stone save Ronnie Wood, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin… the ends are listless, so to say.

But the mention of the Rolling Stones leads me to a good point: they’re on their 50th anniversary tour. That means that, 50 years after they debuted as 20-something kids in England, they’re still acquiring new fans. Yes, lots of the fans shelling out mega dollars to see them are as old as they are- but not all of them. And that raises a simple point: almost 60 years after blues and jazz mutated into rhythm & blues and then rock and roll, rock’s still around, and popular. From a perspective of popular music, that’s a ridiculously long run. To put it in context, the idea that, today, rock music is popular among teenagers is comparable to people in the 1950s queueing up to buy the latest Scott Joplin rag. Or, in the context of classical music, 50 years takes you from the symphonies of Haydn to Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, or from Brahms’ 1st Symphony to Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night.

I attribute rock’s popularity, not so much to the music itself, as to the fact that, unlike the musical forms I mention above, rock came of age when sound recording and broadcasting was already established, and being improved. Again, for context, compare a recording from the early 20th century to one from the 1950s, then compare one from the 1950s to one from today. The difference between the early 20th century and the 1950s will be shocking, but you’ll no doubt find the one from the 1950s to be perfectly acceptable. And, if you seek out a remastered classical recording from the 1950s, you may find its sound comparable to a recording made this year. Look, especially, for a digital remastering of a Mercury “Living Presence” CD- they are astoundingly good.

Owing to the presence of recording, and rebroadcasting, peoples’ musical tastes have stabilised in a way that they clearly never did before. You can go to a bar in Europe, and hear much the same kind of music you hear in the US- the language will be different, but the music will strike you as being very similar. Had music not been broadcast internationally, there’s little chance of such consistency across space and time.

What could be done to restore musical diversity? It’s simple, really: get an instrument, and start playing. If enough people do that, eventually, someone will come up with something different from 4:4 time, 3 chords, and a cloud of dust. Of course, I write this as a guitarist whose skill level doesn’t really allow me to play much more than that...