The Good Old Days of Music.

As this blog has proven over the last week or two, I have been thinking a lot about music and musical tastes recently. I've been in a bit of a renaissance period in my musical listening, so in a given day I am exposed to any number of thousands of different artists across a wide span of genres. Generally speaking, this is a good thing. I pride myself in my ability to appreciate all sorts of musical expression, but this was not always the case. I first began to hone my musical tastes back in the mid-90s, when the battle lines were clearly drawn. I suppose to some degree, those lines are far more distinct when you are younger, as even these days back when I was a substitute teacher I'd have kids say things to me like "So what are you Mr. B? Are you a rocker? I bet you are."

Back in the day, that's how it was: you were on one side of the fence or the other. When I was a sophomore in high school, if anything came on a stereo with anything resembling "beat" I'd bitch and moan and gripe until someone finally changed it. If something had too many acoustic instruments or didn't have a fast enough tempo, I'd usually write it off as boring. If bands had more than two guitars, bass, and drums, I often quipped that "they should go back to art school until they learn how to rock." So, in short, I was kind of a prick. Still, I think this polarizing criticism was truly in vogue at the time. The fact that I was willing to stand up at the age of sixteen and say that Art Alexakis of Everclear stopped writing good music after he kicked his heroin habit shows that there was intelligent thought behind that, since I still believe it to this day. Granted, for the man, I am ecstatic that he was able to get clean and is now living a fulfilling life. But it might be time to put the guitar down.

So what changed? How did we get to this point? I am almost ashamed to say this, but I think a big turning point in music as far as acceptance and open-mindedness was the dawning of Limp Bizkit. They were the first band to really do the rap/rock thing well. Yes, by the second album we found out that their munchkin lead singer was a total douche, but that first album opened the floodgates. Suddenly, pulling out that copy of "The Chronic" that my friend left at my house back in 8th grade isn't so bad after all. There was a brief period there where everyone who played guitar wanted to team up with someone who knew how to scratch to make something new and innovative. Fortunately, that has all fallen by the wayside these days as well, except for perhaps Linkin Park, who still remain on the fringes of popular music.

Then there's the whole emergence of Indie, which happened some time shortly after the label "alternative" became as popular as calling something "radical". Nowadays, you can't swing a Pavement record without finding some kid in girls skinny jeans and a tattered hoodie. It's great, it's in part a side product of the musical "progression/regression" trend, but still, it's interesting to watch. What started with punk, evolved slightly into grunge and alternative has now led to a number of bands with strings and interesting keyboard samples. A music that had been identified with minimal virtuoso talent on an instrument being pressed for the few, in response to the over-technical, over-produced music of the mainstream, has now come into the spotlight again, except this time with a lot more talent. And a lot more facial hair.

Do I miss the good old days when I wore flannel, and the guys who listened to rap wore their pants around their knees? Sometimes. But, now that we're all knocking on the door of our thirties, I'm glad I can wear clothes that fit (for the most part, at least), and don't feel like a wuss or a sellout because I enjoy going to shows where people sing melodies with intelligent music that sounds better in a small room than blaring in a locker room or something to that effect. I still loves me a good pit every now and again, but I appreciate it just as much when I can see a band like Spoon (I use them because they're one of the last bands I saw live) and just hang out and listen to some great music that neither makes me want to kill myself nor throw myself violently into those around me.
Guess that makes me a sellout. Or at least a person that "high school me" would call a sellout.