Why Rock Music Has Sucked For 15 Years (2009)

Originally posted to LowGenius.Net 6-Feb-2009.  As I’ve been going through this process of tracking down and curating my old content, once in a while I come across something that still makes sense word for word.  This article is now in seventh grade, so to speak – twelve years old – and as I re-read it for spellchecking and so forth I realize that pretty much every word still rings, and I wonder whether that reflects my own stagnation in musical taste, or if I’m unwittingly just being the grouchy old man, or if this is just an ongoing and unfortunate reality that I desperately hope finds a cure. 

In the end I suspect it’s probably a little of all three.  But I still wouldn’t change a word.

And for the record I know there’s bands out there that don’t suck.  Some of them are friends of mine.  It’s a hook to get you to read the bigger point about the emotional commitment of the artist to their art and why that’s required for art to be great.

Yes, I know.  It doesn’t all suck, but there’s not much room for nuance in a headline.

And most of it HAS sucked, and sucked hard.  There’s always been a problem of style over substance in music, and in every other part of the entertainment business.  Unfortunately, over the last decade and a half, the suck has so far outweighed the substance that I’m really afraid a lot of people my daughter’s age (20) [she’s now 32 -jh, 2021] are losing the ability to even recognize quality music anymore.

Why does it suck?  Oh, let me count the ways.  The world is filled with bands and performers who are, at best, marginally talented.  They rely on studio tricks and technology to substitute for talent, but the talent is only one part of the issue, and it’s a small part.

No, the real problem is this:  what we’ve got now, by and large, is an entire generation of recycled imitative crap pretending to be the heroes they grew up loving.  There’s nothing wrong with having influences and incorporating those influences into your work; that is, after all, where everything starts.

All these wannabe’s and pretenders spend years trying to learn how to imitate their idols, getting the chops and the techniques and the riffs and the styles down pat, but they don’t get it.  What makes great music is not how well you play your instrument, or how many notes you can cram into a single beat, or how fluid and tasteful your fills are.  What makes music great is one thing, and one thing only:

The heart of the musician.

THAT is what people don’t seem to get anymore.  It’s all just flash and show and technical know-how, and there’s not an ounce of genuine passion involved, except for maybe the passion for money, ego gratification, and easy sex.  Any asshole with corporate backing can make a record that will sell a half-million copies, but it takes something that you can’t buy, you can’t learn, and you can’t imitate, to touch hearts and move souls.