Is the title a BRMC reference? If so kudos, big fan personally.
I get that feeling of detachment if I spent too much time inside of clothes stores. A day spent shopping tends to leave me with a gnawing feeling that the world of fashion is entirely ridiculous. It just leaves me thinking along the lines of, “why on Earth does anyone care? They’re telling you what’s cool, then you give them your money and praise them for it”. It’s all just signalling, which I suppose it always has been, but there seems to be an underlying ‘fakeness’ to the trends of today and I can’t tell if I’m right or just jaded and imagining things.
Your posts reassure me a bit on that.
“Rock and roll- being the artform that requires the least objective talent or effort- is a bellweather. Rock is the canary down the mineshaft labelled culture. And the bird is not looking too healthy.” Being a metalhead, blues, rock, punk (basically anything with a guitar) enthusiast, I’m sad to say I agree. Mainstream rock is dead - look at Greta Van Fleet, they sound so much like Zeppelin that I thought they were re-discovered Zeppelin b-sides.
Thankfully there’s life in the sub-genres yet, psychedelic rock, stoner, good chunks of punk, but on the big stage it’s all rock, very little roll. Keith Richards complained about how one-note it all sounds, and pointed out the near-complete absence of syncopation in modern rock songs, and now it’s something I can’t help but notice.
“One thing that instantly struck me was how expensive gear is now. Fenders and Gibson’s- even non-US ones- seem to be way more expensive than when I was a teenager. Even taking inflation into account. Amps too. And pedals.” Les Paul will set you back 10k new. SG, Strat, or even a Tele is about 1k at least, before amps and cables. It’s just mad, and by all accounts the quality is awful compared to the ones they made in the 50’ and 60’s.
“If only those whose parents are able to pay their rent can participate (as this enables the kids to perfect their craft via unpaying gigs at dive bars or comedy clubs or small theatres) then you are going to find that the artists of more humbler means are going to either retreat to cheaper forms of expression or else give in entirely and simply live a 9-5 life instead.” Another possible reason for the immense popularity of hip hop/rap these days?
“Music for most is now an infinite collection of pleasantly meaningless background sounds, rendered essentially valueless by the infinite Borgesian library of tunes that is only a few screen touches away.”
Ooof. Wouldn’t hurt if it wasn’t so true.
“I worry- perhaps without grounds- that kids are becoming mere spectators in their own lives rather than being active participants and creators and collaborators. I worry that teens are stifled, bemused, anxiety-riddled, consumers-in-waiting rather than the rebellious wide-eyes cultural saviours that they have traditionally served the world by being.”
I think you have grounds to worry, it’s been my experience too, and I have a lot of contact with that generation through my siblings. One of my proudest moments to date has been helping my girlfriends younger brother discover confidence in himself through introducing him to Black Sabbath. He was extremely overweight, reclusive and heavily addicted to video games, but all he needed was some sort of a role model (however reluctant) to give him some tips.Video games became a healthy transition into coding, an interest in old school metal led to him discovering the current gen of punk/metal bands and a new circle of friends, and in representing that new identity he started to dress better and exercise more. All he needed was a little encouragement and exposure to killer riffs to start engaging with the world, because he had the confidence to do so. All credit goes to Iommi at the end of the day.
"Because if you can’t have fun being creative with your friends then what’s the point of being young?”
Well ended, and I would add that maintaining that creative spirit is what keeps you from ageing as you get old.
You're right, it seems to miss a lot of the organic, human messiness that made awful angsty garage rock so fun.
It's not all hopeless, though. Did you hear about Dave Grohl and his online drum battle with Nandi Bushell? The old guard is ready for the new members to take over. We may lament the endless drone of new rock bands that sound the same as the last one, but where are these bands coming from in the first place before being plucked and processed by the industry? I suspect there are a lot more that just never get noticed, or who try to make it work in online and in person venues that aren't as conducive to what rock and related music need to survive.
(I disagree that it's a class thing that only those with resources can break into, though. eBay, Amazon, garage sales, uncles and cousins who need the wall or storage space - there are guitars to be had, and other supplies too. But when learning to play takes time, and you can be joining your peers in creating the latest TikTok video and get instant adulation, why bother learning chords?)
I suspect it's less that the guitarcase kids are a dying breed, and more that we need to stop feeding it the chemical killer of social media and trying to prune it in ways the machine will accept. Leave it alone, let it go wild, be willing to accept something not quite like the rock we grew up with, and I suspect it will be just fine.
An intimate newsletter this time, I can see. It's funny I had the same tought a while ago. See, when I was younger (currently 31), many of my friends were playing some form of garage rock; some because they liked music and had "the itch" to give it a try; others less good looking to boost their luck with the girls. But it wasn't rare to see guys walking with guitar cases in my high school or in the streets of my hometown. See, this was the era of punk (Blink 182, Sum 41, etc.) and many young lads were joining the ranks of the more "traditional" rock bands. Nowadays, as you said, this is mostly electronic music (everyone wants to be a DJ or, more likely, a "producer").
And I have a few issues with that (obviously). First, there is a dimension of mercantilism right from the start: you produce not for yourself but for an artist; so your tracks must be tailored to a market. Then, you bypass of the socialization/coming of age education aspect of the garage band era, since you work mostly from your little bedroom, in contact with people often far away from you that you'll have trouble visiting (remember, you're a broke 15YO). Many of my high school friends learned how to talk to people, negociate and act around girls through their music practice. This is not impossible with DJing from your room, but much more complicated.
When I find myself wondering how it happened, I think of a few explanations; first, as you said, the price of the gear (no doubt abt that). But also the decrease in popularity of rock music and the rise of electronic music/rap beats. There was still plenty of rock and punk music on MTV in the early 2000's. But you don't see that much of it nowadays on Youtube; music genres have shifted and with them, the interest of the young men (don't forget many are getting into music to have access to girls, so when the rock/punk genres don't draw that much girls to the scenes anymore, don't expect our testosterone driven teenager to sacrifice himself).
Another idea; my history teacher once told me that in the time of Montaigne, all the known knowledge of the world could fit on a 512mo usb key. So the literate of that time felt the urge to create themselves since once they'd read the ~100 books available, there was nothing else to do. When I was young, everything was analog. So you'd discover artists through your parents' music library, the CDs and audio cassettes your friends (relunctantly) lent you, and the word-to-mouth around you. An album CD was ~20€ so you couldn't buy that many of them. Thus, you felt more the urge to create yourself; you could spend 1 month listening the same two albums back to back and "impregnate" yourself enough to copy them, and eventually, give it a try yourself. Now there's just too much choice, too much music to listen to, and too many influences to absorb. You can't be a creator if you consume too much. You don't know anymore what to do and you get paralyzed, in a way: Spotify gives you access to 50 million songs for a third of an album's price.
When we were young, we "knew" that someone else probably tried to cover that song we were in love with; but we (and the people arounf us) couldn't know for sure, so we'd just try by ourselves and be the man with our friends and the girls. Nowadays, you can find 100s of people who did it in just 2 clicks on Youtube. Some will say it's fuel for emulation, but I can see how it can suck some of the joy out of it and just leave you with a "Why bother" attitude.
And if we throw in the mix the abundance of high-grade entertainement available for cheap (video games today are far more complex and addictive than my Nintendo 64/PS1 era), our average young man simply has too much fences to jump over.
Hi Thomas - thanks for keeping my head in reality and a link to the past, such a great observation. Keep up the writing. Simon
Haven't read this email but I read your piece on Quantity Culture. You killed it man. Still processing it, but well done.
Is the title a BRMC reference? If so kudos, big fan personally.
I get that feeling of detachment if I spent too much time inside of clothes stores. A day spent shopping tends to leave me with a gnawing feeling that the world of fashion is entirely ridiculous. It just leaves me thinking along the lines of, “why on Earth does anyone care? They’re telling you what’s cool, then you give them your money and praise them for it”. It’s all just signalling, which I suppose it always has been, but there seems to be an underlying ‘fakeness’ to the trends of today and I can’t tell if I’m right or just jaded and imagining things.
Your posts reassure me a bit on that.
“Rock and roll- being the artform that requires the least objective talent or effort- is a bellweather. Rock is the canary down the mineshaft labelled culture. And the bird is not looking too healthy.” Being a metalhead, blues, rock, punk (basically anything with a guitar) enthusiast, I’m sad to say I agree. Mainstream rock is dead - look at Greta Van Fleet, they sound so much like Zeppelin that I thought they were re-discovered Zeppelin b-sides.
Thankfully there’s life in the sub-genres yet, psychedelic rock, stoner, good chunks of punk, but on the big stage it’s all rock, very little roll. Keith Richards complained about how one-note it all sounds, and pointed out the near-complete absence of syncopation in modern rock songs, and now it’s something I can’t help but notice.
“One thing that instantly struck me was how expensive gear is now. Fenders and Gibson’s- even non-US ones- seem to be way more expensive than when I was a teenager. Even taking inflation into account. Amps too. And pedals.” Les Paul will set you back 10k new. SG, Strat, or even a Tele is about 1k at least, before amps and cables. It’s just mad, and by all accounts the quality is awful compared to the ones they made in the 50’ and 60’s.
“If only those whose parents are able to pay their rent can participate (as this enables the kids to perfect their craft via unpaying gigs at dive bars or comedy clubs or small theatres) then you are going to find that the artists of more humbler means are going to either retreat to cheaper forms of expression or else give in entirely and simply live a 9-5 life instead.” Another possible reason for the immense popularity of hip hop/rap these days?
“Music for most is now an infinite collection of pleasantly meaningless background sounds, rendered essentially valueless by the infinite Borgesian library of tunes that is only a few screen touches away.”
Ooof. Wouldn’t hurt if it wasn’t so true.
“I worry- perhaps without grounds- that kids are becoming mere spectators in their own lives rather than being active participants and creators and collaborators. I worry that teens are stifled, bemused, anxiety-riddled, consumers-in-waiting rather than the rebellious wide-eyes cultural saviours that they have traditionally served the world by being.”
I think you have grounds to worry, it’s been my experience too, and I have a lot of contact with that generation through my siblings. One of my proudest moments to date has been helping my girlfriends younger brother discover confidence in himself through introducing him to Black Sabbath. He was extremely overweight, reclusive and heavily addicted to video games, but all he needed was some sort of a role model (however reluctant) to give him some tips.Video games became a healthy transition into coding, an interest in old school metal led to him discovering the current gen of punk/metal bands and a new circle of friends, and in representing that new identity he started to dress better and exercise more. All he needed was a little encouragement and exposure to killer riffs to start engaging with the world, because he had the confidence to do so. All credit goes to Iommi at the end of the day.
"Because if you can’t have fun being creative with your friends then what’s the point of being young?”
Well ended, and I would add that maintaining that creative spirit is what keeps you from ageing as you get old.
Great post as always Tom.
Scott Adams describes music as a raw form of persuasion.
Perhaps the youth of today prefer watching as opposed to creating.
The biggest losers are audiences that connected with the performers and fellow fans as they moved in unison, together, and connected.
Analog concerts are have been replaced with digital headsets and the creators (bands) have faded to a memory of the past.
You're right, it seems to miss a lot of the organic, human messiness that made awful angsty garage rock so fun.
It's not all hopeless, though. Did you hear about Dave Grohl and his online drum battle with Nandi Bushell? The old guard is ready for the new members to take over. We may lament the endless drone of new rock bands that sound the same as the last one, but where are these bands coming from in the first place before being plucked and processed by the industry? I suspect there are a lot more that just never get noticed, or who try to make it work in online and in person venues that aren't as conducive to what rock and related music need to survive.
(I disagree that it's a class thing that only those with resources can break into, though. eBay, Amazon, garage sales, uncles and cousins who need the wall or storage space - there are guitars to be had, and other supplies too. But when learning to play takes time, and you can be joining your peers in creating the latest TikTok video and get instant adulation, why bother learning chords?)
I suspect it's less that the guitarcase kids are a dying breed, and more that we need to stop feeding it the chemical killer of social media and trying to prune it in ways the machine will accept. Leave it alone, let it go wild, be willing to accept something not quite like the rock we grew up with, and I suspect it will be just fine.
Tom, were you listening to U2's "Kite" as you wrote this? :-)
Life should be fragrant
Roof top to the basement
The last of the rock stars
When hip hop drove the big cars
This song is from the year 2000, which seems like it means something for your narrative here, although I'll leave it to you to discern what it is.
Hey Tom,
An intimate newsletter this time, I can see. It's funny I had the same tought a while ago. See, when I was younger (currently 31), many of my friends were playing some form of garage rock; some because they liked music and had "the itch" to give it a try; others less good looking to boost their luck with the girls. But it wasn't rare to see guys walking with guitar cases in my high school or in the streets of my hometown. See, this was the era of punk (Blink 182, Sum 41, etc.) and many young lads were joining the ranks of the more "traditional" rock bands. Nowadays, as you said, this is mostly electronic music (everyone wants to be a DJ or, more likely, a "producer").
And I have a few issues with that (obviously). First, there is a dimension of mercantilism right from the start: you produce not for yourself but for an artist; so your tracks must be tailored to a market. Then, you bypass of the socialization/coming of age education aspect of the garage band era, since you work mostly from your little bedroom, in contact with people often far away from you that you'll have trouble visiting (remember, you're a broke 15YO). Many of my high school friends learned how to talk to people, negociate and act around girls through their music practice. This is not impossible with DJing from your room, but much more complicated.
When I find myself wondering how it happened, I think of a few explanations; first, as you said, the price of the gear (no doubt abt that). But also the decrease in popularity of rock music and the rise of electronic music/rap beats. There was still plenty of rock and punk music on MTV in the early 2000's. But you don't see that much of it nowadays on Youtube; music genres have shifted and with them, the interest of the young men (don't forget many are getting into music to have access to girls, so when the rock/punk genres don't draw that much girls to the scenes anymore, don't expect our testosterone driven teenager to sacrifice himself).
Another idea; my history teacher once told me that in the time of Montaigne, all the known knowledge of the world could fit on a 512mo usb key. So the literate of that time felt the urge to create themselves since once they'd read the ~100 books available, there was nothing else to do. When I was young, everything was analog. So you'd discover artists through your parents' music library, the CDs and audio cassettes your friends (relunctantly) lent you, and the word-to-mouth around you. An album CD was ~20€ so you couldn't buy that many of them. Thus, you felt more the urge to create yourself; you could spend 1 month listening the same two albums back to back and "impregnate" yourself enough to copy them, and eventually, give it a try yourself. Now there's just too much choice, too much music to listen to, and too many influences to absorb. You can't be a creator if you consume too much. You don't know anymore what to do and you get paralyzed, in a way: Spotify gives you access to 50 million songs for a third of an album's price.
When we were young, we "knew" that someone else probably tried to cover that song we were in love with; but we (and the people arounf us) couldn't know for sure, so we'd just try by ourselves and be the man with our friends and the girls. Nowadays, you can find 100s of people who did it in just 2 clicks on Youtube. Some will say it's fuel for emulation, but I can see how it can suck some of the joy out of it and just leave you with a "Why bother" attitude.
And if we throw in the mix the abundance of high-grade entertainement available for cheap (video games today are far more complex and addictive than my Nintendo 64/PS1 era), our average young man simply has too much fences to jump over.
My 2cts anyway