Am I too old ?

Most of my musical preferences were formed by the time I was eighteen. Although I have continued to explore widely since then, the enjoyment from music I have discovered along the way has its roots in the tastes and aesthetic worldview I had developed as a teenager. So when I say that I think that 50s rock’n’roll is the greatest thing ever, and that the rock music of the sixties and seventies which derives from it is far superior to nearly all music produced after 1980, is this just me being old, jaded, and nostalgic ? Or are there actually some valid grounds for believing this ?

To put it another way, are there any objective grounds for assessing music, or is it purely down to subjective individual preference ? (in which case why bother to write about it as there’s nothing to say beyond “I like this” and “I don’t like that”).

The fundamental job of any artist is to move people, so, being a populist, that would lead me to conclude that the music which reaches the largest number of people is the “greatest”. That notion has its attractions for me – a) it is simple and easy to measure, and b) it is in line with my view that all art should be inclusive. But there are dilemmas with this :- 

1. Madonna and Michael Jackson have sold far more records than Elvis, Dylan, and The Beatles, and yet few music obsessives would content that the former are “better” than the latter.

2.This perspective justifies the view of the music snobs who were prevalent when I was growing up, i.e. that Classical Music, because it has stood the “test of time”, is far superior to music arising from (largely American) working-class culture such as Blues, Jazz, Country, Folk, and Rock (however the advocates of the “test of time” argument ignore the fact that, in the pre-technological era, what lasted and what didn’t was largely down to the political and cultural patronage of a particular artist, and this was determined by the privileged elite).

So I would like to also consider the concept of the quality of the effect music has on people as well as the quantity. Bob Dylan changed the world because he put poetry – previously the preserve of the educated classes – into the pop charts. Without him I and millions of others from working-class backgrounds would never have experienced the sheer joy of words. The Beatles synthesised more and more elements into their music without ever losing the common touch. The track “Revolution 9” on the “White Album” is the biggest-selling piece of avant-garde music of all time. Would any modern major act dare to be so extreme ?

But now we’re into subjective areas. I am saying that music that has meaningful lyrics or is radically-challenging has a “better” effect on people than music that gets people dancing. So we get to a point where we say all music has its function (listening to, thinking about, dancing, accompanying sex etc.) and as such is equally valid. So it’s all just down to what people like to do !

It does seem that rock’n’roll and what followed in the sixties and seventies had a dramatic effect upon people – could you imagine someone going through Adele’s trash looking for “clues” to her lyrics the way that people did with Dylan ? Is some lunatic going to assassinate Will Young in twenty years time, uniting the world in grief and loss ? Here’s some of the many, many positives arising out of fifties/sixties music :-

·         Formulas in music were progressively challenged and eroded – “we liberated rock from the four-minute song” as Pete Townshend wrote.

·         The repressive conformity of the fifties and early sixties was blown apart by the energy and boldness of Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan.

·         Great songwriters – people whose work will last forever, kept on emerging week after week. Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Goffin/King, Brian Wilson, Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, Gene Clark, David Crosby, John Sebastian, Marriott/Lane, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Roy Wood, Holland/Dozier/Holland, Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Bruce/Brown, John Phillips, Garcia/Hunter, Brooker/Reid etc. etc.

·         The quality of musicianship developed radically, and some unique musical geniuses emerged. As well as the well-known guitarists such as Clapton/Hendrix/Beck/Page etc, there were keyboard players like Winwood/Emerson/Ratledge/Kopper/Hudson, bass players like Jack Bruce, Phil Lesh, and Jack Cassady, and unique individual drummers such as John Bonham, Charlie Watts, and Keith Moon.

·         It became a voice of political and moral protest and dissent, and spoke for people alienated by capitalism, macho culture, and materialism.

·         Black and white music came together organically, not out of “political correctness” but out of a simple unified desire in peoples’ hearts to live in a more loving fashion.

·         Most important of all, the music really mattered to the people who heard it. It inspired millions of people like me to look more deeply at life and understand that there was more to it than money/cars/success/family.

Of course there is still a lot of great music coming out. However rock music now has become ‘just another genre” like Blues and Jazz before it. There are only brief flash-points in history where an artistic movement erupts in conjunction with the mood of the times and genius after genius emerges. One might think of late 5^th century Athens or classical music in the late 1700s / early 1800s. Even people who do not “like” rock would be able to see the power, seriousness, and intensity of the music that arose from that era, just as I can acknowledge the greatness of classical composers without being at all moved by their music. In both genres, at its best there is an ambition, a yearning to reach beyond the prevailing values of the day, a spiritual excitement which just cannot contain itself. There is also the craft and discipline involved in writing a symphony or working for years “treading the boards” as a touring rock band.

In a nutshell, these are the things I look for in music, and this is the reason I continue to write about it. If it really is totally subjective and “purely down to personal taste”, then it has no more value than fish’n’chips or popcorn.