Most people who know me are aware of the fact that I don’t listen to newer musical artists, with very few exceptions. I do listen to new music, when it’s made by an old artist (Cheap Trick, Deep Purple, and Steely Dan are a few of my favorites that released new material this decade). People always pester me with questions asking why I only listen to dinosaur rock, and accuse me of being closed-minded. So now I’m going to answer the question “Why don’t you step out of 1975 and listen to modern music?”
Because it sucks.
It’s not really anybody’s fault that it sucks; most of the good ideas have simply been used up. As big an ocean as music is, it’s also an ocean that "ends at the shore," as Bob Dylan once sang (decades ago of course). There …show more content…
But last October, I bought their newest album Black Ice and was disappointed. The intro to the first track was a big indicator that guitarists Angus & Malcolm Young are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The opening of “Rock and Roll Train” sounds like a collage of random notes, stuck together in the hopes of finding something remotely catchy. The lyrics throughout the album aren’t anything stunning either; the words of “Rock and Roll Train” are vague and aimless, with lead vocalist Brian Johnson harping about giving it up and giving it what you got, whatever that means. To be fair to Brian Johnson, the lyrics aren’t his (he stopped writing them at the beginning of the 90s, handing lyrical reigns over to the Young brothers). AC/DC’s lyrics used to be clever and raunchy, whether they were about the problems of having a prostitute for a girlfriend (“What Do You Do For Money Honey”) catching VD (“The Jack”) or those pesky critters that dwell in pubic hair (“Crabsody in Blue”). But the song “Rock and Roll Train” is still the best on the "Black Ice" album, and is also one of at least three songs on the disc that contain the word “rock” or a variation of it in the …show more content…
Of course now I’m leading into those who use “sampling” to pass for songwriting. Mostly rap artists do this, but it’s found its way into the pop scene as well. Sampling used to mean covering another musician’s work in the middle of your own song, i.e. singing and playing it yourself. But people like Eminem have become too lazy or uninspired to do so, therefore Aerosmith’s “Dream On” winds up in a rap song. Some other putz recently inserted Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” into their work (I use the term “work” loosely). I don’t have anything against covers; but I don’t think you should draw a check for re-releasing someone else’s recording and putting your name on
Because it sucks.
It’s not really anybody’s fault that it sucks; most of the good ideas have simply been used up. As big an ocean as music is, it’s also an ocean that "ends at the shore," as Bob Dylan once sang (decades ago of course). There …show more content…
But last October, I bought their newest album Black Ice and was disappointed. The intro to the first track was a big indicator that guitarists Angus & Malcolm Young are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The opening of “Rock and Roll Train” sounds like a collage of random notes, stuck together in the hopes of finding something remotely catchy. The lyrics throughout the album aren’t anything stunning either; the words of “Rock and Roll Train” are vague and aimless, with lead vocalist Brian Johnson harping about giving it up and giving it what you got, whatever that means. To be fair to Brian Johnson, the lyrics aren’t his (he stopped writing them at the beginning of the 90s, handing lyrical reigns over to the Young brothers). AC/DC’s lyrics used to be clever and raunchy, whether they were about the problems of having a prostitute for a girlfriend (“What Do You Do For Money Honey”) catching VD (“The Jack”) or those pesky critters that dwell in pubic hair (“Crabsody in Blue”). But the song “Rock and Roll Train” is still the best on the "Black Ice" album, and is also one of at least three songs on the disc that contain the word “rock” or a variation of it in the …show more content…
Of course now I’m leading into those who use “sampling” to pass for songwriting. Mostly rap artists do this, but it’s found its way into the pop scene as well. Sampling used to mean covering another musician’s work in the middle of your own song, i.e. singing and playing it yourself. But people like Eminem have become too lazy or uninspired to do so, therefore Aerosmith’s “Dream On” winds up in a rap song. Some other putz recently inserted Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” into their work (I use the term “work” loosely). I don’t have anything against covers; but I don’t think you should draw a check for re-releasing someone else’s recording and putting your name on