Waiting on second coming of Rock gods

by Thomas Mooney, staff writer

Rock n’ Roll is on life support.

It’s a dying breed on the brink of extinction. Everything and anything has affected our music today. Why aren’t there any new Black Sabbaths or The Whos that are coming to save the day? I wouldn’t say that we are on the edge of catastrophe yet, but it’s making its way toward that.

The ‘50s had Chuck Berry. Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix brought in the ‘60s. The ‘70s had Jimmy Page on top of the world. The ‘80s rode the wave of Angus Young and Eddie Van Halen. And our generation, has…umm… John Mayer?

As you can see, the guitar god is dead, as we have known it, and it’s making rock music suffer. These days, I can’t listen to the radio without hearing the same old lifeless cliché garbage that everyone is passing off as great rock music.

There are many reasons and factors that go into this. They range from the rise and creation of the horrible sub genre “rap-rock,” to guitarists going from electric to acoustic.

The one thing that I believe is lacking most in our generation of musicians is that we don’t have a “band of the times” or a revolutionary guitarist who makes others want to replicate his work.

As early as the ‘30s, there have been guitarists who have been admired for their work. Robert Johnson, a blues player from the Mississippi Delta area, was among the first. There are only roughly 40 song recordings of his that exist today, but the impact that they made on future guitarists is immense and immeasurable.

Clapton, probably his biggest disciple and fan, has called Johnson “The most important blues musician who ever lived.” Although there is a lack of material, there have been many covers by Clapton and Cream, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.

Another guitarist who caused a stir in music was Chuck Berry. Berry essentially sped up the blues into early rock. He was able to make blues standards radio-friendly. With songs such as “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” Berry stepped in and became a guitar legend. John Lennon summed up Berry’s work with the simple line, “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.” 

Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, many guitarists were admired for their work. Clapton, Page, Hendrix, Keith Richards, Duane Allman, and Stevie Ray Vaughn have all been considered the top guitarists at one time or another, considered by many to be timeless guitar gods.

 In August 2003, Rolling Stone released its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.  Out of 100, only nine guitarists were selected who began playing after 1990. The highest ranked among those was Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs and John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at No. 17 and No. 18, respectively. Mayer wasn’t anywhere on the list, although most people would think he is a much better player than both White and Frusciante, since the media plays him up and doesn’t give White, Frusciante, or any of the other great guitarists of the day, the same exposure. The truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. The media is partly to blame for not exposing these guitarists, and there is a lack of skilled guitarists out there.

Another small factor that has had an affect on present rock music is that a ton of artists are going acoustic and playing more from a singer-songwriter style or easy-listening style. In recent years, even Clapton has gone to a sound that is much more of an easy-listening style that is more similar to James Taylor rather than his Cream days.

Plant has joined up with Alison Krauss and released the remarkable folk album “Raising Sand.” It’s a great album, but lacks the sting and punch that Led Zeppelin always had in their music. Albert Hammond Jr. of The Strokes has released two albums in recent years that are much softer than the norm of The Strokes. Although it’s not really thought of, this does have a little affect on rock music.

Not only does every decade have its guitar gods, but every decade has a band that comes out and changes the landscape of music and, in the process, becomes the face of that decade. The Beatles did that for the ‘60s, Led Zeppelin did that for the ‘70’s, Van Halen and Aerosmith had that kind of impact on the ‘80s, and Nirvana impacted the ‘90s in just a few short years.

As of now, there isn’t a band that you automatically think of when you think of the face of music in the year 2008. There isn’t a band that dominates the charts and is considered revolutionary. There are a few candidates who come to mind that I would hope become that band. But even if they do, they won’t have the same kind of impact that bands such as The Beatles or Nirvana had.

This decade also has a lack of protest songs. This is one of the main components in rock music the struggle with “The Man.” Whether it’s the Rolling Stones’ anti-Vietnam anthem “Gimme Shelter” or Pink Floyd’s stab at record executives with “Have a Cigar,” they all have the main theme of fighting against the powerful and standing up for the powerless. You really don’t hear that on the radio these days. Most songs are about high school misfortunes and heartbreak.

At the time, it seemed to be a great idea, having two of the biggest musical artists of the ‘80s collaborate on a song. I don’t think that Run-DMC or Aerosmith knew that they were going to influence an entire generation with just one song. The collaboration on “Walk This Way” is such a unique thing that people just wanted to reproduce it.

Fast-forward 10 years, and you have the birth and emergence of “rap-rock.” Bands such as Limp Bizkit, Korn, Papa Roach, and countless others that flooded the radio in the late-‘90s are examples. I’m sure I don’t have to go too deep in the past for most of you to remember how horrendous the lyrics are to these songs by these groups. Fred Durst, front man of Limp Bizkit, is probably the main culprit and offender of the genre, with lyrics such as “people in the house, put them hands in the air, ‘cause if you don’t care, then we don’t care.”  This is from their 2000 single “Rollin,” during which Durst rhymes “here” with “here” over and over again. In reality, this isn’t even rhyming in the simplest form, but clearly using the same word over.

Another transgression against the sub-genre is how much profanity is used throughout every song. If you listen to anything before the ‘80s, profanity was sparse. I’m neither for nor against curse words, but it does make it feel like they are just lazy songwriters who lack the creativity to come up with something that actually has feeling.

Another crime that Durst and others have been committed is they have destroyed songs with their covers. Limp Bizkit did an unbearable cover of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes,” transforming it from one of the most emotional standouts in history into a detached and dull song.

Kid Rock is another who has done a cover without integrity. He ruined the Bad Company song “Feel Like Makin Love” by trying to make it into a present-day arena rock sing-a-long that just missed the same connection that Bad Company had with the song. There are countless other covers that destroyed the originals.

With the creation of rap-rock, there had to be a polar opposite. In this case, it would be indie rock as a whole. When some couldn’t stand the garbage that was taking over their radios, they had to go to an alternative. In many ways, I think this has taken some of the best bands and artists and made them hidden to the majority of people.

Without radio play, bands become indie acts that are followed by only those that dive deep into the music ocean and pull up these hidden “pearls.” Bands such as The White Stripes, Radiohead, and Wilco have all taken back seats to “emo” acts such Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, and Taking Back Sunday.

For the most part, the “emo rock” that is being played on the radio all sounds the same. Indie rock, on the other hand, differs from band to band. All have their different playing styles and different influences that make them distinct and rare. I believe that if there were not any “Fall Out Boys” or “Panic at the Discos” not only would the world be a better place, with bands that actually are creative and aren’t cookie cutter replicas of one another, but music as a whole would be in a better state.

I’ve actually read in an article that Panic at the Disco was signed to a label before they had actually played a live show. This is a travesty and shows just how a band these days doesn’t need actual talent or hard work to become big.

Furthermore, turning your amps up all the way doesn’t mean you’re playing any “harder.” In the 2007 “Rolling Stone” article “The Death Of High Fidelity” by Robert Levine, he talks about how bands are turning up the speakers for two main reasons. One is to get the attention of listeners, and the other is that it saves space on mp3’s. 

Levine interviewed many current producers, including Rob Cavallo, who said “To create an MP3, a computer samples the music on a CD and compresses it into a smaller file by excluding the musical information that the human ear is less likely to notice.”

This process has been going on since the emergence of compact discs, which made cassettes and records things of the past. Now it’s the CD that is headed towards extinction with the use of the MP3.

Led Zeppelin is revered by many as the greatest hard rock band in history. But they didn’t necessarily play at full volume on every song and used many different types of instruments that made each song unique and special in its own way. This made their music more personal, since it relates to the listener on a deeper connection.

Bands such as Fall Out Boy, Green Day, and Paramore play louder than Led Zeppelin but don’t come within a mile of the worst Led Zeppelin song. Some of the greatest rock songs start off very soft.  On “You Can't Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones, Richards and Brian Jones don’t slam on their guitars, but rather take a backseat to the clever lyrics and sharp vocals by Mick Jagger.

Another example would be “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin. Page opts for the acoustic guitar rather than his electric for most of the song. Not until roughly half way through does Page start to play the electric guitar, and even then it isn’t too loud or overpowering.

The rise of the single has made actual albums a thing of the past, giving the artist an excuse for making an album uneven. When you listen to an album on vinyl, it gives you two things that a CD, an mp3, or gulp, a ringtone doesn’t. First, there really isn’t an easy way to skip around, and you listen to the album the way the artist who made it intended. Secondly, you get to hear everything that the band wanted on there. There is a larger variety of sound that comes out of the speakers and makes the music much more enjoyable. 

The huge turnoff about vinyl, though, is the false notion that it’s not as accessible as just clicking on ITunes, buying what you want and downloading it in that very moment. Another reason that vinyl isn’t as popular any more is that it’s not portable. You can’t play a record in your car or while jogging. But, many times when you buy an album on vinyl, they include free mp3 downloads of the album so you can listen to it at home and on the go. Many bands still put their albums on vinyl. Bands such as My Morning Jacket, The Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan, and countless others still have vinyl albums manufactured.

Not only do bands these days make music for singles, but they also just don’t have the credibility that bands of the past do. There is a certain aura and mystique that surrounds bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Rolling Stones.

Bands don’t act remotely the same way as these classic bands do. Chad Kroeger of Nickelback doesn’t have the same savvy swagger of Jagger or Jim Morrison of The Doors. There isn’t but a handful of artists who carry themselves like a rock star should. I don’t advocate the use of drugs, but rock stars are supposed to live in excess and extravagance.

Not since the days of Guns N’ Roses has there been a front man as outrageous as Axl Rose. Now I don’t think that Guns N’ Roses have been the best and greatest band of the ‘90s, but they did carry themselves like they were. Part of being a rock star is having the attitude, as well as the talent.

Another ingredient that classic bands have is the mystery and delving into black magic and the occult. There is a kind of folklore around songs such as Zeppelin’s  “Stairway To Heaven” and Cream’s “Crossroads.” Plant and Page have always been rumored to be fascinated with black magic, and it crosses over into their music. It also puts them that much farther from the everyday person. It puts them on a pedestal and makes them admired by many for rebelling against the conformity of society.

In many ways, Joe Walsh’s song “Life’s Been Good” sums up what it is to be a rock star. Walsh sings, “ I go to parties sometimes until four; it’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door.” Not many bands these days are as extravagant as bands from the past.

One might think that there isn’t any hope for us, and that we are doomed forever, that we will always have to listen to bands from the past to get our fix of great rock music. This is simply not the case.

You have to dig deeper to find these bands. But once you do, they will surprise you and make you want more. Bands such as My Morning Jacket, The National, Bright Eyes, The Strokes, The Flaming Lips, The Arcade Fire and Radiohead are all great bands that make music the way it was meant to be made.  Not only do you have to start listening to legit bands, but you must throw away and ignore the latest trends of “rap-rock” and “emo rock.”

In the end, it’ll always be the listener’s choice as to what he or she wants to listen to. But why put yourself through the misery of listening to My Chemical Romance when you can take the high road and listen to Radiohead?