And Another Thing

On this little thread of how pop music has changed I forgot a couple of things both big and small. One funny thing is that British singers no longer feel compelled to sing like they are 50 year-old black Americans. Some still do - Amy Winehouse and the cheesy Aretha Franklin imitator Joss Stone for instance – but British rock bands have vocalists that sound, well they sound like they are from Britain. I don't know when exactly this change took place, but beginning with the Beatles British bands tried to pretend vocally that they were from America. I think it was because of the Southern black roots of rock. It was always strange to hear these guys being interviewed after they sang a song, because then you'd hear their real accents. That era has thankfully (for the most past) ended.

With regard to female vocalists, Billie Holiday imitators have recently come to the fore and acts frequently employ heavy Southern accents even if they are from Massachusetts. Madelyn Peyroux has managed to make a good living channeling Ms. Holiday with the addition of 70s era songs and 50s style Ella musical arrangements. Nora Jones is heavily influenced by Ms. Holiday as well and sings with an accent that suggests she was raised somewhere in Georgia (she comes from suburban Dallas).

Finally, lyrics have evolved not only in their heavy use of irony and detachment, but their language has become much more sophisticated. It used to be that all acts pretended they had no education whatsoever. It goes back to the rural Southern roots of rock. You essentially pretended that instead of having a degree from places like the London School of Economics (like Mick Jagger), you left school at eight to pick cotton in the fields. Grammar was lousy (I can't get no satisfaction yada, yada, yada) and words tended to be very short. If you took an SAT and had only read rock lyrics over the course of your life, you'd never score above 400 in the English part of the test.

But that's no longer the case. Education is starting to leak through big time. It isn't just the band The Decemberists that is doing this. All kinds of bands and acts are using five-dollar words in their lyrics and rhyme couplets. People aren't so embarrassed to show their intelligence and education anymore. I think the reason for this is two-fold. One is that more musicians have college degrees. The other is that it took time for rock to step back from its Southern blue roots and use language that reflected the backgrounds of the acts.

It is curious that as much of rock has become more sophisticated and reflects white suburban culture more and more, it has lost much of its audience. Sales and interest have shifted to rap and r&b. Just like when I was a kid, white suburban kids want to pretend that they are black at least when it comes to the music they listen to. They like simple words and big beats. As a result, the standard dream white suburban males kids – to become a "rock god" - becomes less and less possible. When you sell at most a couple hundred thousand records and play before audiences of 2000, you're not a god anymore. You're just an entertainer.

The diminishment of rock as a popular form of entertainment I think is a good thing. Arena rock was always cheesy and bad. With smaller crowds, comes the possibility of decent music. Of course, there will always be a dreadful band like Nickleback around to show that it's possible to be a cheesy rock band and still draw crowds. It's just that in this age of diminished appetite for rock music, there is only room for a couple of lowest-common denominator seeking bands like that. The rest just might have to produce quality music to survive.