It was in the taxi tonight that much came clear to me. The taxi driver began playing drop the pressure by Mylo and, quite earnestly, rocking out. In his sweetass indian accent, shouting "mahtherfahckers gonna drop that(sic) pressure!"
(really nice video btw, and html coders check out youtube's new embedding technique!)
I really got to thinking maybe, after all this...
Rock and Roll is actually dead. And here we are, stomping casually on it's grave all the time.
Rock & Roll is historical now. It sounds antiquated, pleasantly old school, and requires a revamp to 'hit the clubs' -- a little "my younger cousin telling me to wear a hat I don't understand." Rock music says "hey, why don't my drums work? what's so bad about my bassline & vocals!? I don't need this new song structure and drumline. i'm ALREADY sexy!"
The best way that rock music can be interpreted, in my mind, is as a historical tool. We can use it to understand how people once found freedom in each other, and love, and a variety of desireable, abstract things we're always looking for. No joke, it's a really great lens to see our parents as thinking, awesome people that were trying to like art and enjoy life. Kudos!
But that's more or less where it belongs; in actual museums, and in the strange musical morgue that is sad, often homeless burnout circles in parks. It's not to be confused as an expression of youth. In a sense, anything can be -- but I assure you -- to call it an expression of youth now is to push a forks prongs together and call it a spoon. "Well, it works like a spoon I guess! that counts, but don't they have that... it's called a spork?!
Here, I know this might look crazy, but you can put away your beer opener. There's like 42 on this guy, and it helps you drink faster and gets you more flavor.
And this is more or less the modern young person reacting to classic rock. "Oh! I think I get it. this is about freedom. Why don't we listen to some heavy new shit about freedom, designed that way!"
Enter Mylo. Using the most modern musical tools to make a song and video about basic human freedom. Enter Phonat, to say it more directly, and with guitars.
Don't believe me?
Maybe something mellower would work? Something more abstract?
Not getting that Haight/Ashbury fix? Would some traditional song structure and vocals help? Try this.
What I'm saying is that it's over. It's time for promoters to feature old, dead rock groups as a separate historical exhibit. We use new techniques, new parties, and new drugs. And if you keep pushing it, we'll be forced to talk about how much farther we are now. I speak only for myself when I say these things. The music I love has not decided to lay judgement on rock. I am the bitter one, not house, disco, funk, soul, r&b, and every other genre. But I still care:
It's not a cock-show anymore. It's a gender ambiguous, funky, sexual party and it took more cues from Prince than the Beatles (thank god!).
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Let's get real: more fun to party with? better in bed? funkier dance music? still works at parties?
Male misunderstanding of ever-mysterious women (coupled with our cripplingly deep and always inspiring love for our own mothers) and desire to exert alpha male authority are no longer dominating musical themes in Rock's electronic equivalents. Strange intellectualism, feminist ideas, and the concept of the reinvented world dominate the playing field. Concepts of freedom, love, sex, drugs, are discussed openly, rather than through elaborate story-telling and codewords. You just don't have to listen to some 'prodigy's' 10 minute guitar solo anymore.
Here are some practical and positive take home messages about new music
-takes into account african rhythms and uses african american expression
-takes into account female perspective, and includes women
-takes into account homosexual perspective, and includes gays
Rock spent the better part of it's life ignoring and dismissing other genres, rather than incorporating them. You think I'm lying? I know you've heard of this:
Nothing gets a good homo hate session going like a stadium chant!
Now that the dust has settled, and the last string masturbator of importance has recorded a dramatic biopic about himself, we all acknowledge that it doesn't matter, and we're dancing together now, as a community. This is the freedom music of our generation. Can we let the previous, awesome generation have theirs before we ruin it! The good news is that I've really come to understand rock music. the bad news is that my original conclusion still holds // we should leave it alone!!
The awkward and self-important middle-school dance circle is over, and we're free! Throw your arms up and enjoy the party. Don't waste energy trying to remember how you used to like it. We can discuss it sincerely over coffee tomorrow.
In case the analogies and metaphors above are too confusing/shocking/beautiful, I'll lay this out as an imperative directly: stop forcing rock and roll music to do the things it used to do, but to a new set of people with different backgrounds and references.
Rock is a great thing, and if we actually love it, we'll stop asking it to fight every time there's a battle. there's plenty of young soldiers, and they know how to use the fancy guns (and also the internet...).
They also know how to party hard without destroying hotel rooms, prostitutes and their own bodies. They've learned from some of these mystical gurus we adore from the 70's, and they're prepared to do it better. At least let them try. That's how the rock guys got there.
As a side note: to get the general USA interested in how awesome and futuristic gay electronic dance music can be, two guys had to actually dress up like ROBOTS and not reveal their identities. God Bless Joaq for putting Daft Punk's genre as 'gay disco' on his ipod. I was so proud to see that. Like damn fucking straight it is. You just like to call it 'robot rock' because that's what the songs called -- and because you're stuck in a middle school mindset where you're too preoccupied with your own penis to figure out if you like them or not. I'd rather listen to old paint talking about the time it dried than some indie-ass 12-year-old explain to me why house is about Daft Punk and not about gays and blacks. If you like it so much, why don't you learn what it is instead of silently judging the people responsible for making you happy now?
The poster of this image 'did not like what guy did with his helmet'
shocking. his helmet is now almost as color-loving, fun, and gay as 95% of his musical influences. Actually take that back, Daft Punk is like a combination of Eminem and Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, that's right.
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