Maybe it simply comes with age but I don't seem to care much about music anymore... or maybe I should say new music. I've always been a passionate music fan, from the first time I risked electric shocks on Mom's record player at the age of four to hear Elvis Presley belt out "Hound Dog" and Little Richard wail "Slippin' and Slidin" on 78's. I suppose these feelings of indifference have been festering over the last few years but they really hit home as I was listening to the radio at work today.
One of my favorite bands of all time is Metallica. They have written some of my all time favorite songs- One, Wherever I May Roam, The Unforgiven, Nothing Else Matters and the ultimate, Until It Sleeps. I was listening to C-FOX today and it was the first time I had heard their new song, "The Day That Never Comes" in it's entirety and was mildly disappointed. It's not a terrible tune but it's basically a rehash of the song "One" off the album," And Justice For All." It isn't their fault, I've just heard it all before only better.
More to the point, it isn't just Metallica, it seems to be music to me in general. It all seems over-produced, over-promoted, over-stylized- maybe just plain over. There's just way too much of everything and not much meaning or substance in anything. I heard on T.V. this morning there are something like 35,000 new CD's released each year (who can keep up?). I'm totally open to all genres (well maybe not totally open to Jazz or Opera) and I keep an ear out for new music, but none of it, and I mean none of it moves me anymore. I don't know if it can happen because it seems as though it's all been done but we need a complete musical revolution just like we need a societal revolution- maybe the two go hand in hand.
AM and FM used to be the place I'd find interesting, new music. Now radio is dead- a vehicle for advertising. Everything I hear I've heard before, only better- better songs, better melodies and better lyrics. I'm all around the radio dial but most days now I listen to talk radio just to have something playing in the background- that or some Classic Rock station (do yourself a favour and check out Big Blue Radio, Classic Rock For Classic Minds, I listen to it on my iTunes internet radio). I keep an eye on Much Music and CMT to see what's new as well as surf around iTunes, Limewire, CITR, and internet radio to see if there could be something out there will move me, give me chills, cry, laugh, feel passion...basically feel something again.
I still know a good song when I hear one but I seldom feel moved- and for me it seems I need a memory attached to a song to really love it... but not always. Maybe as we age those feelings fade like feelings of love and passion we felt towards another as we did in our younger years. I dedicate this blog to the hope that there can be that one new song or new person that can make me feel again. Until then I still have my classics...
2 comments:
Seems like a lot of music is geared toward the VIDEO-- more visual than auditory?
I like to listen to the local 101.5K-ROCK station on Tuesdays, when they play '2-fers'. 2-fer Tuesday--the old rock (Yeah Metallica!) when you get a double whammy of a good/great band.
BD
I agree, maybe I'm getting old but where are any of the artists of today going to be in ten or twenty years?
We used to have 2fer Tuesdays here on Rock 101 CFMI but our classic rock station doesn't play much metal or heavy stuff. Rock radio is far superior in the U.S. and A.
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