Metal graphic by Mat Giordano
Every decade, some music journalist somewhere declares rock and roll dead and buried. This has been going on since the '60s. You know the spiel: corporatism, prima dona artists, greedy producers, the entire industry, take your pick, are all villains. Somehow rock and roll survives. I'm not a music expert. I'm a fan. I love music and have with a passion since my past life as a bush near the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil so he could kick the blues' ass. Even as a young tot, there was something about rock that pulled me in. I clearly remember spinning Elton John, AC/DC, Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf, and Nazareth on my Winnie the Pooh record player. No, I'm not exaggerating and yes, Walt Disney's head is spinning in its cryogenic jar.
Pop music is what happens to good rock. Elton John, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, and Kenny Loggins, for example, morphed from straight-up rock to light, adult-rock pussies. (Note: Phil Collins started out as one so he is not included.) "Selling out" is what people say happens to artists after a while. I don't think it's that as much as plain old burning out. Once they've burned out, it's not rock anymore.
Now that you know where I'm coming from, I'm going hypothesize that we are in the midst a musical dark age. Since everything is a formula and everything has to be about money, music has become canned, uninspired. So-called "alternative" music is just pop music with fake English accents. The hard rock radio stations play bands like Nickelback and 3 Doors Down with straight faces. It's still pop but with formulated guitar riffs and Eddie Vedder impersonators. Sure there are good rock bands, but in the big scheme of things it's a dark time. Producers and corporate suits call the shots. They are all about making music that sells. So for bands to be successful, they play by the rules and become distanced from their own fans and illiterate in the ways of true art. I'm imagining meetings where a group of suits examine a band to see if the hooks in their songs make 14 year old girls scream.
Just like the Irish saved civilization by remaining one of the last literate places on earth during the Dark Ages, metal is going to save rock. Metal is the last bastion for musicians who want to do whatever the hell they want to do and if they succeed great, if not, there are always other bands. The musicianship of bands like Gojira, Revocation, Melechesch, Suffocation, and Obscura demonstrates a new wave of serious musicians making bad ass music. While there is interesting things happening in the indie music scene, the metal scene is breaking out and leading the way for rock to follow.
As a huge fan of rock, I've become the biggest fan of metal in the past few years for the simple reason that it's just good rock music. Today's metal is the way rock is supposed to be. People talk about the quality of the bands and argue technical proficiency and lyrics and stage performance and song-writing quality. The reason people argue so fervently about those things is because it's art. Metal is connecting to fans today like no other type of music.
There's symphonic metal, death metal, thrash, hardcore, metalcore, progressive (or math) metal, folk metal, fusion metal... You get the idea. There is something for everybody. Support your local metal bands and become metal literate. Today's metal artists are blazing trails while other mainstream musicians are still trying to figure out how to get airplay for the love ballad their producer made them record.
See also: Mat Giordano's post "Happy Metal Friday", which is where I got that kick-ass graphic. Also on Twitter, start paying attention to the #metal and #metalfriday hashtags.
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How far back are you going with Phil Collins? If early Genesis is light, adult-rock then Coltrane is smooth Jazz.
Mike: Really as a solo guy. However, I think he's always had that in him.
At first his solo stuff was different (for him) and kind of fun. Then it turned sappy and started infecting Genesis. (I know they really started to change when Hackett left, but I think they were still more of prog band than a top 40 band until the Genesis album.)
Btw, love the post, and dead on about Nickelback and 3 Doors Down.
Mike: I'll admit Abacab is a great (in the true sense of the word) album. Very creative. But I think deep down in Collins' guts, a wimpy, Disney, light adult rock dude was waiting to pop out.
I think you've approached two separate things and welded them into one post. Part A – the industry and "selling out" stuff – true for pop music which has been fairly amorphous for a long time. The idea of bands being pimped by labels for their demographic skew is getting to be old news, though, and the primary reason why labels are failing. It's easy to churn out a big hit but much harder to find a sustainable hit-making artist, so they go for the quick hit now. Especially in an age where you can buy just the one song (or ringtone).
As for metal (part B): it seems to be expanding and growing again. It does seem to be fueled by musicians and fans who are genuinely engrossed in the music and the culture, not just by whatever is on the radio at work. It takes some searching to find these bands. Some of it has gotten old, but the bands you name seem to be pushing forward. It feels like progress, anyhow.
That said, metal has almost always been at odds with the industry. Metallica got mega-famous with virtually no radio play or advertising. This is a good example of "selling out", too. I'm convinced that excessive money has a way of putting out the competitive fire that lots of young bands burn with to get noticed. Maybe it's selling out, maybe it's just that you screamed to be heard, then you were heard. Now what? I know, I'll buy a house.
Also, "alternative" has virtually no relevance these days, so most of the same kind of music is now labeled "indie". Indie music is pretty popular. Go figure.
Chris:
Great points. I only pointed out the obvious because I wanted to just explain where I was coming from. Mainstream rock is now pop. It's all mixed up. You're right about metal going against the grain historically. I think that now it's the one place where musicians feel free to play around. Some of it works and some of it not so much. But I like that.