XM Radio: Saving Music One Genre at a Time

I love XM radio. Seriously. And not just for the commercial free playback, but because of the extreme, unmatched variety of music.

Not too long ago, old man Bob Dylan claimed that the last 20 years of music just plain sucked. At the time, I was inclined to agree (although I felt that there was more good music than he did). However, ever since being introduced to the full glut of XM radio channels, I think I have to change my opinion.

It's true that regular FM stations tend to not play the best of tunes anymore. Top 40 all seems like crap, alt rock is becoming way too emo, and even emo is becoming way too emo. Heavy metal is in a sad state of affairs, with most of the new bands just trying to pretend that they're devil worshippers so the freaks come to their local Wal-Mart shows. Even hip-hop is starting to sound decidedly just, well, hip-hop. Most of you know my theory behind why this is, and, combine that with my theory that mass pop culture is mostly contrived programming, and there you are... music sucks.

Well, maybe not.

Along came XM radio, which provides a venue for all of those "not-on-regular-rotation" talents (and I do mean talents) that truly are progressive, truly do know what they're doing, and are truly artists. I can honestly say that I scan almost every XM music station to see what new sound some obscure small-label artist has come up with. Just a few months ago, I was worried that I was doomed to be that cynical, long-haired fruitcake at the end of the block who only listed to classic rock stations. But, thanks mainly to XM channel 50 (the Loft), I have an enormous new music collection that I wouldn't otherwise have.

Once again, I'm rambling... but it all boils down to this. The masses are easily fooled. Everyone bitches about wanting something different, but in the end, the public just wants the same old hits rehashed and repackaged over and over again. Pop has always been somewhat of a bad word in the art and music community, and now I definitively know why. Of course, pop has always been a good word in the producing community, and that's a little sad. Although I do believe that the public is easily fooled and programmed into what they'll end up liking, I don't believe that the public is inherently stupid (well... no comment). They can be "retrained" into recognizing talent, instead of bump and grinding to that inevitable one-hit wonder.

Or maybe I'm too optimistic.

Eh, none of this my concern. I'll let pop culture solve the pop culture problem. In the meantime, I'll be listening to XM.

One-Hit Wonders, the Wave of the Future

I alluded to this in one of my pointless musings, but the current state of the music world is really starting to bother me. Due to numerous factors, many of which I'm admittedly not even familiar with, the quality of albums and singles in general seems to be declining. In fact, I'm finding myself tuning to classic rock stations more often in an attempt to get away from the audible crap that is being piped over our airwaves.

As I mentioned in my pointless musing, the great Bob Dylan even pointed out that modern music is mostly crap. Now, while he went so far as to say the last 20 years have been mostly crap, I'm only going to claim the last four or five. Mostly, since the turn of the century.

Before everyone starts jumping on me, I'm not claiming that all music is garbage... just a lot of it. A higher proportion of it than there used to be. Yes, we still have our superstars knocking out decent to great hits, we still have our "rookies of the year" blowing us away with startling debuts, and we still have our underground movements pushing the mainstream to the brink of experimentation. But... we also have a lot of crap. A lot of it. Usually it goes by the moniker "emo" or some such variation, but they're hardly the sole culprit, and some of it is even quite good.

Here are some of the problems my barely educated opinion has identified:

The proliferation of digital downloads. This is actually coming to a head with the recording industry, as various musical artists are arguing that the art of the album is disappearing from mainstream music. "Albums tell a story" is usually what is said, but again, this statement normally comes from established, "artistic" musicians. The digital era lets us buy music one song at a time, making the necessity of creating 10 to 12 solid tracks less necessary. A band can shoot to stardom with one solid single, and quite a bit of the time, newer bands seem to release "albums" with one absolutely kick-ass track, a couple of good to okay ones, and a ton of crap (OK Go comes to mind, and I'm actually a fan). And, because of the digital era bringing in digital distribution, more and more bands can pull a Kinks on us and just release a ton of stuff, hoping that a few of the songs catch on (sorry, Kinks, I love you, but it's true).

Here's the biggie... I have a lot of friends who are in bands at the moment, several of them signed, close to being signed, or otherwise on their way. Their main problem? They can't read music. Seriously. Now, I understand that talent and "ear" go a long way towards making a rockin' song, but not being able to read music? This is, most likely, the single most predominant reason that modern bands become one-hit wonders. They can knock out that one rockin' song, but lack the musical knowledge to create a distinctly different follow up.

See, how it normally works is that "jam bands" improvise their songs together. But after a while, their improv loses variety (as improv usually does) and everything starts sounding the same. Take my favorite band, U2. Early on, they weren't all that great at reading music, and most of their stuff sounded the same (the stuff that didn't benefited from having Steve Lillywhite onboard). By the Unforgettable Fire album, however, they took the time to learn formal music, and soon gave us The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, two very different albums that benefited from studying music, not just emulating it.

Jazz and Blues fans know what I'm talking about. The stuff that's "jammed" usually sounds the same, and it takes performance and talent to give it that nuance that makes one Jazz/Blues song different from another. But... it still sounds quite a bit alike. However, for Jazz and Blues, this is usually the point, as John Fogerty has testified to. For modern pop and rock, this only leads to disaster. That one hit, followed by a slow fade into obscurity, playing local bars and colleges to your fans who are probably your drinking buddies anyway.

So, come on, people now, smile on your brother and learn how to read music. Learn how to properly write music. Study the shit... that's what will let you avoid being some flash in the pan. That's what will make you great.