Even though I had a pretty good idea what I'd hear, I bought the new Kiss album.
I was hoping I'd be wrong in my expectations. Unfortunately, I was spot-on.
This certainly isn't the first time in the last decade that I heard a disappointing record from a band that used to thrill me when I was a teenager. Strangely, many of my adolescent favourites are still in business today in some form: Kiss, Cheap Trick, Rush, AC/DC, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Journey, Yes, Boston, the Stones – they're all still at it, at least intermittently.
Van Halen is the only one that was able to produce a good recent record, albeit made up of tunes that had demo'd over thirty years ago. Cheap Trick's “the Latest” was fair, and better than their last few outings – but otherwise, those bands are shadows of their old selves. They seem to have forgotten how to write a good rock song.
The question is, did they lose their stuff, or did I just grow up? Or, more disturbingly – are all of us, band and listener alike, just too old for each other now? Perhaps my becoming a musician just killed the romance?
On the one hand, I know I haven't reached a stage where I find guitar-based rock too raucous, loud, primitive or intense. I'm quite happy and excited to sit down with the Mars Volta's first album or any Screaming Headless Torsos recording. Granted, I probably feel a little ear-fatigue after sitting through more than one AC/DC record (especially post-Bon), but I did when I was 14, too. There's just too little dynamic contrast for my tastes.
It is fair to say that I was more accepting and forgiving as a young listener. I assumed that the guys on the record were far smarter and more worldly than I (and more sophisticated as musicians than I gave them credit for), so I gave them the benefit of many doubts when lyrics got impossibly brash, or ventured into the 'deep and meaningless'. Big brave adults must really talk that way, I thought. I now also know what falls under the fingers of a guitarist easily, and what has already been done to death. The price of experience.
Still, even at a young age, I could pick out musical cliches and lack of inspiration pretty capably. I suspect that if someone from 2012 were to hand my 12-year-old self a copy of 'Monster' by Kiss, I'd still be disappointed. Most of its songs are uninspired pandering, especially those by Paul Stanley.
To confuse matters a little, I can still get something close to the kick I used to get from some of those albums from the '70's. Recently, I was marvelling at, for example, “Heart of the Sunrise” by Yes, as it shook my car speakers. What an inspired, original, exciting, dynamic, complex, poignant, varied and deliciously long piece of music. Yes isn't exactly music for all occasions, but sometimes – it sure does hit the spot. Has Yes produced any music that comes close to such inspired originality in the last decade or two? Unfortunately, not. Yes' original drummer Bill Bruford claims that he left Yes over money in 1973 – that is, he was in danger of starting to make some. He feared that as soon as Yes started making serious revenue, they would start to repeat themselves and lose that great spark of originality. I don't think he was entirely correct – Yes kept making good records well into the early 'nineties, in my humble opinion ('though at an increasingly slower pace)– but Heart of the Sunrise was certainly a high-water mark (Bruford went on to join the longest-lived line-up of King Crimson, where he might have made a buck or two, much to his dismay).
I am painfully aware that music has emotionally imprinting capabilities. The music we hear in our adolescent years seems to wrap around our hearts more tightly than music we hear before or after that heady time. The Beatles might have as much significance to a Baby Boomer as Nirvana might to a Gen X'er, and sometimes, we may even hold the music from that time in our lives in higher regard than it deserves. I know Curtis scratches his head at my soft spot for Kiss as much as I do for his fond memories of Judas Priest, but I'll certainly admit Curtis spends far less time looking back at his own musical listening past than I do. This does raise another issue, though.
I clearly remember the times in my youth when I'd come home with a new album – I'd put it on the turn-table, sit back and – listen. I might fidget or doodle, but the music would have my undivided attention, by and large.
I can't remember the last time I did that, but I'm guessing it was at least a couple of decades ago.
These days I do almost all my listening in the car. Otherwise, it's during household chores or making a weekend breakfast. Time is short and life is busy.
As a result, I haven't done much digging over the last many years to find the next great brilliant band. The old heroes aren't writing em like they used to, and I've found few contenders to take their places here and now. Might this also be because no band I hear today will get the same kind of repeated scrutiny that they would have received from me (or anyone, for that matter) decades ago?
Then again, most of my old heroes aren't on major record labels anymore – they're on their own labels, with (at most) distribution deals with the Majors. They're in comfortable middle-age, and can't get dumped by their labels. They also have enough nostalgia-loyalty (thanks in no small part to the internet – you never need to ask 'where are they now' anymore) to keep touring and music sales at a respectable level no matter what their quality of output. I doubt Paul Stanley comes away from a writing session thinking 'well, it's basically crap, but it will sell well enough', but he certainly won't be motivated in the same way he was when he was just a singer in a ferociously ambitious band that no one had heard of. Perhaps being unknown or enjoying the novelty of fame and fortune are fertile conditions for a songwriter – but being used to easy street is not.
No matter what reason there might be for the old wizards (or their beholders) losing their magic over time, one eventually reaches that perennial observation: all good things come to an end. Better to marvel at the presence that was than mourn the absence that is. Equally applicable to old bands and young selves.
I was hoping I'd be wrong in my expectations. Unfortunately, I was spot-on.
This certainly isn't the first time in the last decade that I heard a disappointing record from a band that used to thrill me when I was a teenager. Strangely, many of my adolescent favourites are still in business today in some form: Kiss, Cheap Trick, Rush, AC/DC, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Journey, Yes, Boston, the Stones – they're all still at it, at least intermittently.
Van Halen is the only one that was able to produce a good recent record, albeit made up of tunes that had demo'd over thirty years ago. Cheap Trick's “the Latest” was fair, and better than their last few outings – but otherwise, those bands are shadows of their old selves. They seem to have forgotten how to write a good rock song.
The question is, did they lose their stuff, or did I just grow up? Or, more disturbingly – are all of us, band and listener alike, just too old for each other now? Perhaps my becoming a musician just killed the romance?
On the one hand, I know I haven't reached a stage where I find guitar-based rock too raucous, loud, primitive or intense. I'm quite happy and excited to sit down with the Mars Volta's first album or any Screaming Headless Torsos recording. Granted, I probably feel a little ear-fatigue after sitting through more than one AC/DC record (especially post-Bon), but I did when I was 14, too. There's just too little dynamic contrast for my tastes.
It is fair to say that I was more accepting and forgiving as a young listener. I assumed that the guys on the record were far smarter and more worldly than I (and more sophisticated as musicians than I gave them credit for), so I gave them the benefit of many doubts when lyrics got impossibly brash, or ventured into the 'deep and meaningless'. Big brave adults must really talk that way, I thought. I now also know what falls under the fingers of a guitarist easily, and what has already been done to death. The price of experience.
Still, even at a young age, I could pick out musical cliches and lack of inspiration pretty capably. I suspect that if someone from 2012 were to hand my 12-year-old self a copy of 'Monster' by Kiss, I'd still be disappointed. Most of its songs are uninspired pandering, especially those by Paul Stanley.
To confuse matters a little, I can still get something close to the kick I used to get from some of those albums from the '70's. Recently, I was marvelling at, for example, “Heart of the Sunrise” by Yes, as it shook my car speakers. What an inspired, original, exciting, dynamic, complex, poignant, varied and deliciously long piece of music. Yes isn't exactly music for all occasions, but sometimes – it sure does hit the spot. Has Yes produced any music that comes close to such inspired originality in the last decade or two? Unfortunately, not. Yes' original drummer Bill Bruford claims that he left Yes over money in 1973 – that is, he was in danger of starting to make some. He feared that as soon as Yes started making serious revenue, they would start to repeat themselves and lose that great spark of originality. I don't think he was entirely correct – Yes kept making good records well into the early 'nineties, in my humble opinion ('though at an increasingly slower pace)– but Heart of the Sunrise was certainly a high-water mark (Bruford went on to join the longest-lived line-up of King Crimson, where he might have made a buck or two, much to his dismay).
I am painfully aware that music has emotionally imprinting capabilities. The music we hear in our adolescent years seems to wrap around our hearts more tightly than music we hear before or after that heady time. The Beatles might have as much significance to a Baby Boomer as Nirvana might to a Gen X'er, and sometimes, we may even hold the music from that time in our lives in higher regard than it deserves. I know Curtis scratches his head at my soft spot for Kiss as much as I do for his fond memories of Judas Priest, but I'll certainly admit Curtis spends far less time looking back at his own musical listening past than I do. This does raise another issue, though.
I clearly remember the times in my youth when I'd come home with a new album – I'd put it on the turn-table, sit back and – listen. I might fidget or doodle, but the music would have my undivided attention, by and large.
I can't remember the last time I did that, but I'm guessing it was at least a couple of decades ago.
These days I do almost all my listening in the car. Otherwise, it's during household chores or making a weekend breakfast. Time is short and life is busy.
As a result, I haven't done much digging over the last many years to find the next great brilliant band. The old heroes aren't writing em like they used to, and I've found few contenders to take their places here and now. Might this also be because no band I hear today will get the same kind of repeated scrutiny that they would have received from me (or anyone, for that matter) decades ago?
Then again, most of my old heroes aren't on major record labels anymore – they're on their own labels, with (at most) distribution deals with the Majors. They're in comfortable middle-age, and can't get dumped by their labels. They also have enough nostalgia-loyalty (thanks in no small part to the internet – you never need to ask 'where are they now' anymore) to keep touring and music sales at a respectable level no matter what their quality of output. I doubt Paul Stanley comes away from a writing session thinking 'well, it's basically crap, but it will sell well enough', but he certainly won't be motivated in the same way he was when he was just a singer in a ferociously ambitious band that no one had heard of. Perhaps being unknown or enjoying the novelty of fame and fortune are fertile conditions for a songwriter – but being used to easy street is not.
No matter what reason there might be for the old wizards (or their beholders) losing their magic over time, one eventually reaches that perennial observation: all good things come to an end. Better to marvel at the presence that was than mourn the absence that is. Equally applicable to old bands and young selves.