Where Did the Music Go?

By TRB

I remember Kenny, the sales manager at a large Boston FM station and how pivitol he became in bringing Reggae to America's shores.Of course we used to drink a little too much back then, so maybe some of this isn't as accurate as it could be. But at the time, I was sitting outside someplace across from the Casablanca restaurant on Mt. Auburn St. in Harvard Square, where it seemed the city fathers and mothers were erecting monuments to the invention and existence of the red brick.

I don't remember what month it was but all that academia-loooking red brick was heating that square up like a skillet. I think I was on leave fromThe Stars and Stripes European Edition in Darmstadt Germany. But I had known Kenny since I was a longhair getting my butt kicked by the Cambridge police for being a longhair. I was just about to leave this sidewalk cafe when Kenny appeared with reggae singer Peter Tosh and another man, who took a lot of notes.

Kenny had fallen in love with this music while down on the islands and he wanted every person in America to have a chance to listen to it. There was some kind of game plan that involved getting reggae songs onto the play list at the station where Kenny worked. Of course there was no money exchanged.This was a straight deal where Kenny wanted reggae on the air and was talking the DJs to death until they agreed. They agreed. Reggae took off in America and that is how Kenny got a lot of gold albums in frames on the walls of his dining room.

But naturally the story had to begin sooner, way back in the culture of the islands. It was imbued with politics from the beginning. It was the poor and the downtrodden on the island of Jamacia turning their pain into music. Just as the American blues was the African American in Jim Crow America transforming his grief and anger into the blues. Music comes from people and their feelings or it really isn't music. It is something else. Something like disco was.

We have it coming now from three directions. First there is this thing called Romantic Music, which is so bad I wouldn't mind if they brought disco back as long as they took Romantic Music away. Then there is this "almost Disco" thing that is emerging with stars like Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. And, even more bizarre and removed from humanity than the other two is Trance Music.

It is the worst music I have heard in my lifetime. It is exactly what they call it. Music that might put you in an intellectual trance if you listen to it long enough. Drugs are not required, but I am sure the experience would be enhanced with them. The drug woud probably have to be be administed by an anesthesiologist. We're not talking magic mushrooms here. Trance Music will drive you crazy then drop you off on the corner.

Music is a product, but so is a Picasso. Canned beans are a product. But not the same kind of product as a Picasso. Not a product of the minds and experiences of men and women music artists. But then there is the promoter of fake music, music that is made up out of nothing, that is purely product and not art. Music that has no real soul.

America is not producing extremely good music at this time - or at least not in the vast quanities it once did. Our music has taken a nightmare turn for the worse with a man-made, machine finished kind of elevator music that would even seem unhip on elevators. The unhip population, being as large as it is, has developed a (so far) small crush on this fake music. But it could take off.

Disco did.

There are basically three kinds of viral music out there that threaten the musial legacy of The US, Canada, England, the Islands, Mexico, Central America. I will describe them one at a time.

Romantic Music, is like the Romantic Novel. It is a tease. The video consists of a half dressed man and a half dressed woman in various stage of faking it. It sometimes consists of drawings and is sometimes shot on video. The soundtrack, in this case the "song," is almost always badly written and badly sung. Last night I was watching a Romantic Video in which the singer was singing Neil Young's "Heart of Gold," while two half nude morons made futile attempts to take their clothes off, probably afraid they wouldn't know what to do once undressed. Romantic Novels are not true novels. Romantic music is not true music.

Almost Disco is an attempt by its promoters to bring Disco back because the playing field is once again in its favor. Grunge, Alt Rock, Rap and a few dozens sub-divisions of the same got rid of Disco last time. Rap is still around, but it is more like a commercial for Pepsi than a street product or art form. So Almost Disco has a chance against Romantic music. How are they doing? Extremely well. This time out they have Mark Anthony and other Latin hearthrobs. Even Jennifer Lopez has hopped on the Almost Disco machine.

Then there is Trance Music. Which is the same as saying then there is hype. Because Trance music is nothing. Trance Music is repetition, that's all. You believe you are hearing something profound, but all you are hearing is repetition. And if it sounds familiar that's because you can find very similar "music" on the soundtracks of nearly every sci fi movie made in the 1950s.

As you might imagine these types of music have to be sold and sold hard, almost like soap because they won't just catch on like good music does. Instead they will be blasted at you from every angle in hopes that you will eventually believe that you are really listening to Real music, which of course you are not.

Real music springs up from the countryside snd the city streets as a combination of our shared experiences in life. Sometimes it occurs spontaneously, like a group of people who suddenly burst forth singing their national anthem on some historic occsasion. When that happens, it is an expression, a way for people to express that their feelings are in the same place. Sometimes it builds up over decades of history. Like Rock 'N' Roll, which is really a fusion of many expressions and definitions of American, Canadian, Mexican, Island, British and African culture all rolled into one.People never really say it but it has to be said. Rock is world music. Its sound comes from just about every nation and culture.

But today people are selling so-called "music" out of briefcases. It is generic, it is pale, it is indifferent, it is common. And it is product and not art.

Who knows what will emerge in the future. Girl bands are large in LA and NYC. It is a trend. There are other trends out there too. And if all this fake music has got you down, just remember, the cream always rises to the surface.