12.31.13 The Last Day Of 2013 - The Year Of Music

The Set Up

I initially left December 31st, the last day of 2013 – The Year Of Music, TBA because I thought I’d listen to something special. I kinda wanted to, but I just didn't feel like it. I farted around with the thought of just replaying the first day of the year, but that seemed hackneyed.

One year ago today I embarked on a journey to listen to three albums a day for an entire year! Two classic albums that had either lost their significance to me or that I had never actually heard, plus one new album a day. That lasted longer that I thought it would, but soon I was down to two albums a day and nothing on weekends. I took off July and September and limped into the end of the year by binge listening to whole weeks at a time in a day or two. As I write this, I’m listening to the third playlist of music from last week. So, that’s what I listened to on the last day of the year... what I was supposed to have already listened to.

606. When I finish listening to Ween’s Quebec, I will have listened to almost 606 albums this year. Minus a couple of shitbombs, I listened to over 600 albums from front to back in one year. How many did you listen to?

However, this isn't about tooting my own horn. I really don’t like to do that. *WINK* But, I do love listening to music. So, let's try and figure out what I learned this year. Or, just go off on a self-serving rant. Either way. 

I’ll preface what you’re about to read with, “I have no idea where this is going to go. I’m just thinking out loud and there will probably be NO point to any of it.” So, you can stop reading now. 

The impetus of the argument I'm about to unfold came from listening to all my favorite albums of 2003 and slowly realizing that the philosophy of music being cyclical is now forever broken. There ain't going to be another golden age of music. This mainly pertains to my beloved Alternative Rock… which is dead, has been dead and I don’t see coming back.

One of the many reasons I decided to do this whole Year Of Music project was because I have been operating under the assumption that today’s music sucks and today’s music has sucked for years. I have been disenchanted with new music for so long that I thought I needed to start making a bigger push to find the “good stuff.” I had to stop waiting for the cycle to come back around and just drop great music at my feet. With so much music out there, I needed to get off the proverbial bench and get out on the field! If I stopped bitching and started doing, I’d find what I was looking for. I was wrong. It is really terrible and either I’m too old to “get it,” or everyone that loves Alt J, Sleigh Bells, and Django Django are a bunch of dipshits.

I honestly believe that everyone is a dipshit. Here's why... I've deduced that music sucks today because at the turn of the century, Millenials were listening to Emo and Hipsters couldn't get enough of Electroclash.  (I may have to put a Glossary at the end of this rant.) In short, two unbearable sects of people and their undying love of two dead genres of music have conspired to fuck everyone in the ass… forever.

The Sidebar

Do you know the story of Richie Incognito? He is a 30-year-old man and a veteran in the NFL. Incognito is currently suspended from the Miami Dolphins for allegedly bullying 24-year-old Jonathan Martin. A candy ass Millennial, Martin was raised by two Harvard graduates, is a rookie in the NFL, and to lay the foundation of my argument... He is the problem with the world today.

Millennials are today’s 18-20-whatever-year-olds. I don’t even know what their bracket consists of nor do I care. Just to put ‘em in a nutshell, they’re entitled little know-nothings that want the world handed to them. Obviously, not all of them are like that. Their whole attitude and very existence is a knee-jerk reaction to raising children brought about from a generation of hypersensitive douche bags. Parents that got smacked, got humiliated, and were raised in the 60's and 70’s by lousy parents – drunks, misanthropes, wife swappers, and probably worse. I get it. I don’t want to raise children the way I was brought up, but you can’t schedule play dates for 12-year-olds and give every loser kid a trophy and not expect repercussions in the long run.

I don’t want to go into the specifics of the Incognito case here. I don’t care who is right and who is wrong. I’m more concerned with the system. Getting the chance to play in the NFL is not a right, it’s a privilege. It’s an exclusive club that has given birth to legends. Honest to God fucking legends! It’s a long hard road to get there and it’s a longer harder road to have a career there. Anything worth doing, right?

Now, here’s what I believe. I believe that rookies in the NFL have been treated like shit for eons. I believe they've been hazed and dumped on in ways we cannot even imagine and then they come out the other side seasoned veterans – Men. You don’t walk into a very exclusive club and just become a member. You gotta pay out the ass.

In 1991 a friend of mine told me about the end of his basic training in the Navy and getting his first post on a submarine. Everyone on the sub wore a two pronged pin on their uniform as a designation of what ship they served on or some shit. When they were presented the pin it was pushed directly into their chest and then twenty or so guys walked by and “welcomed” the newbies aboard. “Hello, Sailor!” KA-POW! The whole crew had the scar to prove their service. Does that suck? Sure. Is it wrong? Fuck no!

I doubt Jonathan Martin is the first little diaper baby that couldn't handle his rite of passage into the NFL, but this whole scuttlebutt he’s started is going to escalate. More and more tender and sensitive and little 300-pound guys are going to make it into the NFL and they are going to turn it into fucking kindergarten. 

Do you think Bruce Smith would have ran and told coach Levy if Thurman Thomas and Jim Kelly got up and left the lunch table after he sat down? Do you think Lawrence Taylor ever hopped on a plane to go home and cry to his mommy?! He may have, but it certainly wasn't because the other Giants were being mean to him! L.T. loves his mama!

Being a man and all, I understand how men act when nobody else is around. I once got sent to HR for ending an argument with a male co-worker with “fuck you, fuckface!” I got suspended for three days for relying on a “he started it” defense, but so did he. I’ll never forget the looks of horror I received from my female PD and HR lady when I explained that we were having a private argument, it escalated, and that’s just how “men do it.” Boy, was that the wrong answer. Apparently, the world had changed since I started my career in radio.

At my very first radio job, another jock in our cluster, told me he would “end me” once. When I was at a radio station in NYC an engineer told me he was gonna “kick my face in.” At both of those jobs, I didn't even know who the HR person was… and that’s how I fucking liked it! I still consider both of those men my friends. The guy that ran to HR and snitched on me, though... not so much.

Chris Rock joked that we need bullies. The reason being is that someday the guy that’s going to cure cancer was probably bullied as a kid.

I'm pretty sure this article has something to do with the point I'm trying to make. Sorry to be so phallocentric, but you got one... you think with it. In that article, renowned feminist and snappy dresser Camille Paglia says that women today are turning boys into little pussies. She doesn't really say it quite like that, but that's the gist of Ms Paglia's argument. She goes on to say some other stuff and "that's how a civilization commits suicide." Society's head right in the fucking oven! Has this what it's come do? We need a pantsuit wearing feminist to tell us to "man up!" 

I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure everyone under thirty is a Vampire loving douche with absolutely zero appreciation for anything created before 1985 and spends most of their time taking pictures of their own assholes. (That's a whole other thing that's wrong with kids today! Pictures of junk show up on their phones, they go somewhere and get laid. Pffft! Where's the fucking sport in that?!)

Take a look at half of the music that’s being called Alternative right now and you’ll find a bunch of wuss-bags flying the self-proclaimed “I’m a Nerd” banner! Remember when everyone was pissing themselves over that band FUN? Pffffft! What is up with their song "Some Nights?" Was the sister raped? Is his nephew really his son, cause when he looks into his eyes, he sees himself? I dunno... they're terrible! The guy in the sunglasses at the bar sounds ten times more interesting than them! At least he knows how to strike up a conversation! The thing that pisses me off the most about FUN is that they came out of the gate as an Alternative band!

Booger, Gilbert, and Lewis pose with their Grammys.. and no socks! Those madcaps!

This is the future of the world and this is the future of recorded music! These are the kids making new music today! 

I’m way off track here. Let me try and pull this all together.

Emo

I thought your mom was picking us up after the show?

Back in the 80’s Hair Metal douches used to dress like chicks to get laid. That was all well and good, because we got “Kickstart My Heart” out of the deal. At the turn of the century, twenty something dorks just figured it was easier to act like a chick to get laid. Which sucked cause all they gave us was never ending song titles, pretentious album names like A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar and cry-a-long anthems called “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.”

This quote epitomizes the entire genre:

"It's the story of being alone and losing my mind and then overcoming that event by learning to trust and let go of that anger and fall in love for the first time. It's also about losing that love and the confusion that entails after, and the nature of first love; discovering what you really want whether it be to give yourself totally to someone or explore the endless abyss and risk losing your mind again and that love." Max Bemis – Professional Crybaby.

Sounds to me like homeboy could have just said, "boy meets girl, boy loses girl," but he went all Danielle Steel on us. Every Emo album cover should have just featured a picture of Fabio.

Kurt Steffek, a record label guy, took me out to see The Used play Jones Beach back in ’03 or ‘04. In the middle of the set Phil McCracken, or whatever the fuck his name is, said “wouldn't it be nice if we could take a break and have a juice box and some graham crackers?” He wasn't kidding. I was in my early 30’s, at the time, and never felt so old… and embarrassed for someone else for being such a pussy. Juice and crackers! Grow the fuck up, kid!

So, there’s that.

Really quick – Conversely, I saw The New York Dolls play a show at Stubb’s during SXSW in Austin, within a year of The Used show and in the middle of the set David Johansen said, “wouldn't it be nice if we could all just go home right now.” You could tell the guy was exhausted. He was 53 at the time, and I never felt so young!

Hipsters

If you would never get caught, would you kill this guy right now?

Hipsters are literally the best. They’re a bunch of perennial punching bags with a lust for the unknown. They live in a bubble filled with wonder. If it’s in their bubble it’s the best, and if it’s not then it sucks. Even if what they hate, started out in their bubble. They’ll look you in the eye and tell you with conviction that a piece of shit is art. The good thing about the hipster bubble is that good stuff does come outta there. The bad thing is that is less than 1% of that stuff. 

Hipsters have been regenerating for decades and let’s say the turnover for whatever flies in their bubble is ten years.

Now, while all the 13-year-olds were crying at the Dashboard Confessional shows, the hipsters wouldn't shut up about Electroclash. It is a performance art type of crap with a lot of synthesizers and a headache inducing beat. It’s like if Laurie Anderson fronted NIN and Trent Reznor was just a chick in the band that played bass. If you don’t know who Laurie Anderson is you’re probably very offended by all of this.

I guess FischerSpooner was the end-all-be-all of that genre. They were just an awful bunch of self-important dopes that literally rode a crest of fame for fifteen minutes. Under the guise of “performance art” they sucked at will! If you ever see anybody associated with this “band” punch them right in the dents were there junk should be!

Ta-Da! Sadly, everyone in this picture is still alive.

If you wanna go see crazy, sexually charged, whack-jobs with some talent then go to a Scissor Sisters show, for fuck's sake. 

So, then there’s that!

The Conclusion? 

Bear with me here. The 13-year-old crybabies from the turn of the century all became 20-year-old douches in the last few years and moved to Brooklyn! Which makes total sense cause ground zero for the whole Emo thing was Long Island and New Jersey. When they got to Brooklyn, the last scant echoes of Electroclash were still bouncing around the walls of the Music Hall. And that’s all she wrote. You can't throw an empty can of PBR in Brooklyn without hitting a talentless synth-based band with an Emo aesthetic.  

I’ll shit-talk Emo all day, but when I alluded to cry-a-long anthems, they are just that… anthems! Battle cries (Hi-Oh!) for a whole generation of confused fucking kids. I’d give my left nut to write a song a room of 5,000 kids would sing-a-long with and feel every word! That’s a pop-sensibility you can’t learn.

Taking a look at some of the big “Alternative” hits of the year… I give you Capital Cities “Safe And Sound.” A song that started out in the Alternative world and ended up a Pop sensation! “Even in a hurricane of frowns, I know that we’ll be safe and sound,” is a lyric right out of the Emo high school football playbook. Throw in your synthy-dancy bullshit, plus a trumpet and VIOLA! However diluted and completely made up in my head, I just won my whole argument! The prosecution rests, your honor!

I'm so sick of what is passing for Alternative music today. It’s Synth-Pop or just Pop infused with sensitive lyrics, produced by corner cutting Millenials! The problem is radio and the music industry don’t know shit about what people want to hear or like anymore, so new stuff is labeled Alternative until soccer moms decide they like to dance to it. That’s not a necessarily new move, but it’s too prevalent nowadays. Back in the day Maroon 5 was worked as an Alternative band before they broke. 

The first time I heard Lorde “Royals” was over the summer on Alt Nation on satellite radio. I was fucking pissed! Not because I didn't like the song, I LOVED IT, but because it’s not Alternative! It’s a straight up Pop song with an R&B backbone. The Neighborhood “Sweater Weather?” Bastille “Pompeii?” Twenty One Pilots “Shit On A Shingle?” Bitch, please!

Gimme my genre back! That’s all I want! I want Alternative to be what it used to be without all this bullshit! 

Everything that is unfamiliar is not Alternative, it’s unknown. You can’t keep running everything up an Alternative flagpole just to see if the masses will salute it. "Oh, Imagine Dragons is better than we thought?" said the dickhead label boss. "Start getting that on the Pop radio stations so we can make some real money!" "What? Nobody likes The Mowgli’s? Well, just keep telling the knuckledraggers who still believe that it’s Alternative." "American Authors are actually likable hipsters that sing about dancing with monsters? Sign 'em up!" "Group love doesn't suck that much." "Of Monsters And Men live under a bridge?" "Chvrches spells their name with a v!" 

Fuck that shit, assholes. I’m on to your game! I know what you’re up to and it stinks. It stinks like the back alley of the vomitorium on Monday morning... all balls and onions!

I could be wrong… but I dunno, maybe?

Oh, I also learned that Led Zeppelin IV is almost as good as The Beatles Revolver. And Queens Of The Stone Age ...Like Clockwork was the best album of 2013.

THE END!