I subscribe to several newsletters but I usually delete them as soon as they hit my inbox because they’re uninteresting or sharing links to other articles. The only newsletter I read from start to finish is Bob Lefsetz‘s newsletter. Lefsetz is a music industry analyst and critic and the reason I read his newsletter while I delete the rest is because he always has a fresh take on things, whether it’s music, politic or sports or just talking about his life.
Recently Lefsetz wrote a response to an article on the Washington Post about the decline of electric guitar sales. In short, rock is dead. Or on life support. As Lefsetz pointed out, rock is still around but it has all the relevancy of jazz or folk music. Why? Because rock has been so thoroughly corporatized that rock has been de-fanged. It’s no longer dangerous. Songs are no longer crafted, they’re manufactured on spreadsheets and ProTools and and any spontaneity left over is autotuned out. Not only that, rock has nothing new to say. It’s an exhausted genre. Furthermore, rock is reductive. It simplifies more complex music like blues or folk or Cajun music, etc. But now rock is reductive of rock music. It’s become pablum.
The only thing fresh and exciting happening in music today is hip hop and electronic music. It’s taking chances. It’s experimenting. Even the stuff you hear on the radio (who even listens to radio these days?) is more inventive than what passes for rock these days.
The electric guitar is dead. I mourn it’s passing. But to put things in perspective, there was a time when the accordion was huge. Now it’s an instrument regarded as hokey and old-timey.
- Oumou Sangaré “Kamelemba”
- Gordi “Heaven I Know”
- Crooked Man “Coming Up for Air”
- John Moreland “Sallisaw Blue”
- Amelia Payne “Down”
- Army of Lovers “Crucified”
- DJ Cummerbund “Earth, Wind & Ozzys”
Illustration: GDBee ©2017