Rock And Roll Part Two

What's Wrong With Kids and Music These Days, a.k.a. The Death of the Album

By Me, A Grumpy Old Man Shaking His Fist in the Air

I mentioned earlier that I'm getting a kick out of seeing the kids enjoy some classic rock via the game Rock Band.  That doesn't obviate the fact that they're missing out on a major pop music form, the album, aided and abetted by the playlists on their iPods.  Just because you can play a bunch of songs in random order doesn't mean you should...

Bands used to make a musical statement with each album -- at least some bands, some of the time.  (Some bands still do, I suppose -- Radiohead comes to mind.)  These hung together thematically, and hearing one song plucked from the album and not in sequence with the other songs seemed...wrong, or at least a little unfulfilling.  Some completely subjective examples:

• Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" captured the band's thoughts on insanity, colored by the fact that founder and former bandmate Syd Barrett was crazy.  The songs flow together beautifully.
• U2's "The Joshua Tree" was a completely new sound for them, and came from their tours of the western U.S. and Central America.
• The Clash's "London Calling" -- I don't know where to start, except that I'll always remember where I was when I first heard it in 1980, thinking "Wow -- what's that?"
• Los Lobos' "Kiko" really showed them branching out from the pure Tex-Mex sound they were known for.
• Almost anything by Bruce Springsteen.  His "Tunnel of Love" is about, well, love, and loss.  His 9/11 album "The Rising" really hangs together as well.
• Ditto for the last 5 Beatles albums or so.

I could go on and on, but I hope that gives you the idea.

And I don't think I'm being inconsistent in citing one of my favorite collections, the complete recordings from Stax Records in Memphis.  This is a 9-CD set, with every single recorded by this label, in order, from 1957-1968.  It's a lot of different artists, but the same Memphis Soul sound throughout -- Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Booker T and the MG's, etc.  It's all I listened to for a while in the early '90's.

Back to those children of mine: It probably makes sense to just buy a single song from an artist via iTunes if it's the only good song on the album, but then, who cares about an artist like that?  When there's so much else to choose from?  If you do own the whole album, you're missing a lot by shuffling it up with the rest of your music.  I fear that this is a trend, not a phase, and not just my gang, which is why it's worth ranting about.

And don't get me started on the lack of patience/short attention span that causes someone to not even be able to finish a song before switching to the next one...

There -- I feel better.  Now you kids get off of my lawn!

Pat