Why Rock Music Has Sucked For 15 Years (2009)

Musicians don’t put themselves in to the music anymore…and what’s worse, the music public doesn’t ask them to.  Instead, it seems like people are going to concerts so they can hear the songs played note-for-note as they sound on the CD.  Not only is that not the point of live music, that’s directly contradictory to the very idea of live music.

VOLUME does not make music good.  There is nothing even a tiny little bit special about seeing an artist go up and pantomime themselves.  If that’s what music is about to you, then you may as well just say to hell with it, save some money, and start doing “listening party” tours where the musicians aren’t even involved – just get five thousand people together in a hockey rink with a giant PA and play the damn CD!

No.  Live music is about broken strings and spur-of-the-moment extemporaneous speeches and singers who are hoarse at the end of the night and blood and sweat and tears and most of all, it’s about power.  Not amplification power, but the power to move human beings.  Speaking as a musician, I don’t much care if I get every note right when I’m playing live.  What I care about is whether I can make you cry, make you laugh, make you angry or sad or wistful or hurt or horny.  I care about making you love and making you hate.  Even agreeing with what I say isn’t important, but feeling what I feel, THAT is what matters.

It seems like today’s crop of musical impressionists have completely missed that point.  You know, Zeppelin had some really terrible shows, from a standpoint of technical musicianship [Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary Special anyone? -jh, 2021]…but people loved them because they went out there and put their hearts in to what they were doing.  They reached down, picked you up, and ripped your face off, and they made you come along on their ride for three hours whether you wanted to go or not.

This is why 4 Peace remains my favorite “Kalamazoo Scene” band even though a lot of people would say they were far from the “best” band on the scene.  Not because they were the world’s greatest musicians – certainly they had legitimate talent and instrumental skill, but that’s not the point.   What made them my favorites was simply that when they picked up their instruments, everything else in their world stopped and for that half-hour or 90 minutes or whatever, their hearts and souls were right there on display, pouring out of their speakers and into your face with all of the fire and fury that four pissed off Gen-Xers could muster.  I don’t take anything away from any of the other bands on the scene, but that’s the band that, for me, consistently grabbed me by the throat and flat-out refused to let go until they’d had their say.

By the same token on a wider scale, that’s why I’m still a huge Pearl Jam fan, and why I dig Chris Cornell much…and why I absolutely loathe bands like Staind and Puddle of Mudd.  I don’t care HOW great they are as technical musicians, all they are is shallow imitations of bands who actually went out and put their balls and hearts and souls in to what they were doing.

Watch this: Pearl Jam, “Alive” (SNL 1992) [Sorry it’s a FB post; NBC yanks this clip within seconds every time it’s posted to YouTube.  Hilarious note: originally it linked to a file on Google Videos, that’s how old this article is. -jh, 2010]

That’s what a band looks like when they’ve got their heart on.  More important, that’s what a band feels like when they’re in the groove.  You can almost smell the nerves and excitement – this was by far the most exposure they’d had at that point – but by the time Ed rips that first “SAHHHHHn” out, they’ve forgotten where they are, they’ve forgotten the cameras, the crowd, Sharon Stone, the millions watching at home…all that matters, all that exists in those five minds for that five minutes is the groove.