When The Music's Over (or Just Leave Those Old Records On The Shelf)

This piece first appeared in May 7th, 2009 edition of the Pioneer Tribune, a weekly newspaper from Manistique, Michigan. Please visit their website: http://www.pioneertribune.com/

I was listening to some country music the other evening. It wasn’t by choice. Those of you who know me know how much I loath country music. No, it was being force-fed to me at high volume, while I was walking through the aisles of the grocery store.

While looking for Rotel diced tomatoes my ears were being assaulted by the volume of the music while my intelligence was being insulted by nasal incantations that described love affairs with pick-up trucks.

As I was about to succumb to this audio version of a pre-frontal lobotomy, it struck me just how many references modern country music makes to rock and roll. For nearly twenty years I have commented on how modern country musicians are just doing all of the things that rock musicians did in the ’70s.

I think it kind of started in the late ’80s with Garth Brooks running around on stage like Ted Nugent and smashing guitars like Pete Townsend.

I’d hear people say things like, “Garth is great! He runs around instead of just standing there.”

I’d think, “Wow, that is great. I wonder where he got that idea. Springsteen should try something like that running around business.”

I don’t really mean to kick country around here (yes, I do). Country isn’t the only genre of music that rips off other forms.

I’m not even sure that I believe that there really is any ripping-off going on. I suspect that the well is just starting to run dry.

I remember reading a letter from a reader in either the 20th or the 25th anniversary edition of Rolling Stone magazine. The letter was actually reprinted from an issue from the early days of the magazine, back in the late ’60s or early ’70s. The letter writer stated that he had made some calculations based on the number of musical notes and possible combinations of these notes and concluded that at the current rate of music production, all possible combinations would be used up by 1974 (or thereabouts).

The possibility of writing new music beyond that point would end.

Obviously, the calculations were wrong. New music has continued well past the mid ’70s, but by much?

It seems to me that at about the time Garth started doing his country-rock thing, the rest of the music world hit the wall, as well. It all started to sound the same.

Bands like Aerosmith have been rewriting the same music since 1987, and they are arguably more popular than they have ever been.

I avoid the music stations on the radio like the plague (my apologies to my friends in that medium), because it all sounds like songs that have been done before.

“Sampling,” the process of using bits and pieces of older works of music and incorporating it into “new” songs, is perhaps a prime example of how dry the well is getting. Sure, there is an element of creativity in making music using songs that have already been recorded, but where do we draw the line between creating new music and covering old songs?

Last summer, Kid Rock had a big hit with a song that sampled not one but two “classic rock” songs. “All Summer Long” borrowed heavily from Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” (a song that I have never understood the popularity of outside of those who call Alabama their home).

Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. It is abundantly clear that people do like to hear the same thing over and over again. How else can you explain the continued popularity of songs like Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll?” I’ve heard that song so many times over the years that it has been permanently engraved into my brain. I don’t need to hear it with my ears; I can hear it in my head, crystal clear. In fact, now that I’ve mentioned it, I can’t get it out of my head. The only difference between the “in my head” version and the recorded version is that I have changed the lyrics. In my head, the song opens with “Just leave those old records on the shelf.”

Maybe the letter writer to Rolling Stone was right about using up all possible music combinations, only he was off by about 40 years as to when it would happen. I’m guessing that the well of music will be pumping sand by 2014.

With any luck at all, my hearing will be failing by then and I won’t have to listen. If I could just figure out a way to turn off the music in my head…

... and at the grocery store.