Lamenting Lost Music and Art and their Paradoxes

The state of music today, while diverse in its genres, leaves many of us wanting. We lament the passing of the album as an artistic journey where no fillers are tolerated. What are today's equivalences to 'Pet Sounds' and 'Rubber Soul'?

When I read about contemporary albums being tagged as landmarks, I have a hard time figuring out if this is a hyperbole because we have nothing else, or if I'm just plain out of touch with the music of today. My music collection does include modern critically acclaimed bands and I have given a chance to some fabulously popular bands. Yet, none move me like Bo Diddley. Indeed, nothing can move you like a Chuck Berry tune in the car. And I'm 33! To some, that makes me an unhip-hop dinosaur.

While I may not connect to some bands, I can appreciate and understand when they take the concept of the album seriously, and anybody spending $18 on a cd of this type is bound to derive some satisfaction out of it. Most of the bands out there are just cookie-cutter bands coasting along in pseudo-mode getting their chick-love and money to do so. They make outrageous music with obscene videos to go with it and voila! The voice of a generation. The lasting power is questionable. Some break the mold with Green Day's interesting 'American Idiot' though they are filled with the same lame leftist lyrics. It's ok, at least they tried.

I'm not much into the fatalist rebels and their cynical cries, but hey, that's me. Yeah, yeah Colin Farrell, you're "bad." It's so, so, well, boring.

Lame music award shows never disappoint in displaying pure garbage on the stage. To me, how I determine whether I pay attention to something is purely subjective; if it taps into a mysterious feeling and stirs it then I listen. It's full proof. I want fully integrated music with thoughtful lyrics and compositions and arrangements. With today's music, that feeling is all too rare. It does come (music is a personal journey just like selecting a fine wine) once in a while, but not enough. Then again, they all can't be musical works of art.

That doesn't mean the purveyors of rock manure are not talented. Far from it. They are. It's just that that the industry does not allow for any latitude and instead sell an attitude. The rise of Indie rock is not a coincidence but a reaction to this mess. For music lovers we are forced underground to seek and discover great bands and musicians who are out of the vice-grips of the perpetual sex and violence selling machine. Just like we do in search of a decent film.

Today's state of music can be compared to present-day professional hockey. No one would debate the fact that today's hockey players are superiour to past athletes as they are stronger, faster and generally more talented. Yet, one can't help but get the feeling that hockey has lost its soul. Something is missing. Of course, fabulous salaries are only part of the problem as they become mini-business enterprises onto themselves. Today's hockey players are more than capable of providing superb majestic entertainment. But like their musical counterparts, they operate in a system that discourages it. Their masters have a blueprint for them to follow and if they want to get paid they must follow and conform.

We can also compare the music industry to the paradox of corporations. Today's corporations aim to be more socially responsible. There is a new generation of CEO's that take this issue seriously. However, corporations exist to provide maximum profits to its shareholders. Thus, an immediate conflict of interest arises (like the caring mobster on a soap opera). If being socially responsible affects the bottom line, the CEO has no choice but to disregard it. Though this conflict is increasingly under fire as citizens are beginning to demand that corporations add a moral imperative to their bottom line.

In music, from my observations, we often hear about the caring side of famous musicians. Many take part in various charities, like corporations do, and offer all sorts of cliches about self-worth and the shallowness of the business to which they operate in. Yet, they remain in it. Why? It's their self-interest they are looking out for. They will talk of honour so long as it won't jeopardize their fan-base who have the power to affect their bottom line. Like corporations, they mean well - up to a point. Or else business suffers. Here too citizens and consumers are starting to push back. The problem is that so much of the violence and sex espoused by liberal artists is gratuitous.

The everyone-is-doing-'it' (whether it's drugs or sex)-therefore-you-can-not-defeat-a-vice-so-what's-the-big-deal philosophical line is not acceptable anymore. Besides, this world view confuses me. People go after the corps for being immoral yet they refuse to deal with human vices in any meaningful way.

Just like many people are suspicious of well-intentioned motives of the corporation, I am moved to be suspicious when an entertainer who made a career of selling sex proclaims they are suddenly spiritually guided by the Kabbalah. Maybe their body of work has been less than satisfying to them internally? Rap singers say they reflect the urban ghetto without thought to offering solutions to the nightmare they depict. Some may even exaggerate it. Why? Ka-ching!

It's tough on us out there. It's difficult to figure out what is artistically sincere. In the political realm, liberalism has been hijacked by faux-liberal. Conservatism has been stigmatized by the actions of neo-cons and the religious right. Fundamentalists on both sides seek to impose their world view. It's a similar case with music. It's been hijacked by a creepy culture of know-nothings who know how to churn a buck.

Don't get me wrong. I bleed free enterprise. It would just be nice to see some quality come back into the equation for all the money Ashlee Simpson-types make. Everywhere I turn I am blasted with so many flimsy intellectual debates, music wallowing in mediocrity and athlete disaffection. Guess who and what suffers?