Is music today stale?
Do you find yourself listening to music released that is one or two decades old? Seriously? As I type this I am listening to Imperial Drag. Their self titled debut album was released on Work Records in 1996 which was under the Sony umbrella that eventually folded. On my way to Starbucks this morning I listened to Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt.
New music today doesn’t have the heart and soul Gram or Townes has. Songwriting has changed. Nashville writers strip themselves of substance and then shine it all up and call it “country.” Hollywood’s own Grey’s Anatomy induced Hotel Cafe “I am a songwriter” scene is superficial at best. They worship themselves and believe their own bullshit as if it was written straight from the heavens forgetting the rule that writing is re-writing…
Who’s to blame? Well it starts with the labels. They push shit that they throw into a shiny box and give millions of dollars to radio, film and t.v. convincing you the consumer that their product is the best of what is out. …After all, what else are you gonna buy?
To be fair…songwriters today don’t have anything to say. Anything that any of us want is easily obtainable. That throws “struggle” out the window. Love songs today are mostly two dimensional, written in broad generalizations. We are such a technology based society that life experience is extremely diminished causing the art of a story to be constricted to imagination.
Demand better quality. Songwriters today let any song that they write be published. The editing process is no longer a tool in songwriting today. Look at the Troubadour days. Gram Parsons, Eagles, The Birds, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits, Jackson Brown, Crosby Stills and Nash, just to name a few all wrote amazing songs because they pushed each other to be great. Mediocrity was not acceptable. If we allow mediocre writing to be sold then we only have mediocre song to listen to.
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