One night a few weeks ago, a group of twenty-somethings came into the bar where I was working and headed for the jukebox. It’s digital, which means it’s not curated, which means I immediately felt the familiar knot of dread form in my stomach that’s always accompanied by seeing young people approach the jukebox. It usually means my ears are about to be violated by a string of cheesy Top 40 songs for the next hour or so. Sure enough, Taylor Swift’s voice invaded the room, and some members of the group started singing along. Proudly. Feeling no sense of shame for doing something that, fifteen or twenty years ago, would have gotten them laughed out of the bar. And this wasn’t the first time I’ve noticed this recently. While grocery shopping a few days ago, a shopper started singing aloud to Adam Levine’s latest tragedy that radio tells us is a song. Where’s the dignity!? How can these people, people who moved to a neighborhood because of its supposed “cool” factor, not know that singing along to whatever is saturating the airwaves is one of the uncoolest things they could do?

Patti Smith sporting an edgy personal sense of style - Cool

Grizzly Bear looking like their mothers still dress them - Not Cool

In all fairness, it’s not entirely their fault. They really just don’t know any better. Their lack of knowledge of anything other than that which is spoon fed them is the byproduct of a global media oligopoly. To quote Robert McChesney in his book “Rich Media, Poor Democracy, "it happened to the oil and automotive industries earlier in the 20th century, now it is happening to the entertainment industry.” Media has been completely overtaken by major corporations and unless people choose to think for themselves, they’re going to believe that what’s put in front of them is the only thing that exists. And the talent show hosting, product endorsing “musicians;” along with the latest string of tame bands major labels tell us are “rock,” are unfortunately the spokespeople for getting us to think the music we’re having shoved down our throats is all there is, and that it is somehow relevant.

Shows like “American Idol” and “The Voice” trick viewers into thinking that having a pitch perfect voice is the only skill necessary to be a musician. Content, a message, is not a priority. Imagine if Neil Young needed Simon Cowell’s approval in order to get the label backing necessary to become a known musician. And can you picture Kurt Cobain nervously standing in front of Adam Levine to find out what he thought of his cover of “Man Who Sold the World?” If relevant rock ‘n’ roll were more accessible, I wouldn’t care what goes on in the talent show circuit. But corporate media has made intelligent music scarce, and what does exist is nearly impossible for the masses to hear.

Kurt Cobain - Cool

Adam Levine making grunge-inspired clothing for K Mart - Not Cool

Every recent decade up to the 90s had a music revolution that inspired a counterculture. One that challenged the status quo. Political and psychedelic rock during the 60s encouraged young people to leave the safety of their parents’ homes, fight in the streets for civil rights, and protest war…while taking acid and smoking lots of dope. The 70s challenged youth to question the establishment with punk rock, which was still alive and well in the 80s; and along with it, bands like Devo sang about the devolution of the human race. The 90s had grunge, which was an outlet for the pain and frustration that accompanies feelings of isolation and disenfranchisement. It discouraged consumption and showed that opulence was uncool. Along with the music bands were playing, was a lifestyle that inspired it. Punk bands like Crass lived on a commune to prove humans can govern themselves. Nirvana rehearsed ten hours a day before recording “Nevermind” because their house was so freezing they tried to stay away from it as much as possible. My point being, popular musicians prior to the 21st century were actual artists, on a path of self discovery. They either never had comforts, or they gave them up to pursue their passions and find themselves, not allowing themselves to be told who they should be. The best art is usually born out of struggle, whether personal or sympathetic. And most of today’s popular musicians’ lifestyles are anything but difficult. Their music is not based on life experiences, hard knocks, or political and social themes. It is self-absorbed, mindless drivel that would make John Lennon blush with shame for the human race. Today’s popular “artists” are a constant stream of sell outs who can’t be content with the mansion that their music affords them. They need a fragrance line, a fashion line, a job hosting a talent show, and commercial endorsements so that they can buy even more stuff they don’t need. And too many of today’s millennials buy into it.  They believe that if they keep their noses to the ground, stay out of trouble, never challenge the system, and work to maintain the same sort of lifestyle as their role models, they’re doing the right thing. Oblivious to the fact that they’ve been turned into total nerds.

John Lennon - Cool

Mumford & Sons (we’re supposed to believe they’re a rock band) - Not Cool

So what happened after the 90s? Did musicians just stop caring? Has there been nothing going on in the world that needs to be changed, so therefore no music asking for it? Or could it possibly be the passing of The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that kept inspiring, rule-breaking, boundary-testing music from reaching our ears?  Again, from “Rich Media, Poor Democracy,“ "The core premise of the act was to eliminate restrictions on firms moving into other communication areas - for example, phone companies moving into cable television and vice versa, or long distance phone companies moving into local service and vice versa - and then to eliminate as many regulations as possible on these firms’ behavior…And the one media sector most thoroughly overturned by the Telecommunications Act has been radio broadcasting. The Act relaxed ownership restrictions so that a single firm can own up to eight stations in a single market. In the twenty months following enactment of the new law, there has been the equivalent of an Oklahoma land rush as small chains have been acquired by middle-sized chains, and middle-sized chains have been gobbled up by the few massive giants who have come to dominate the national industry. Since 1996, some one-half of the nation’s eleven thousand radio stations changed hands, and there were over one thousand radio firm mergers." 

So the 90s was the decade when radio stations got taken over by corporate giants (with corporate, not cultural, interests in mind), and, not coincidentally, when radio went to shit. Joy Elmer Morgan, founder of Future Teachers of America, predicted that "as a result of radio broadcasting, there will probably develop during the twentieth century either chaos or a world-order of civilization. Whether it shall be one or the other will depend largely upon whether broadcasting be used as a tool of education or an instrument of selfish greed. So far, our American radio interests have thrown their major influence on the side of greed….there has never been in the entire history of the United States an example of mismanagement and lack of vision so colossal and far-reaching in its consequences of our turning the radio channels almost exclusively into commercial hands…whoever controls the radio will in the end control the development of the human race.” Scary. Especially when noting that Morgan died in 1986, and in 1983, 50 corporations controlled the majority of news media. Now six corporations control it. One of them is Walt Disney, which would explain why Adam Levine is touted as a “rockstar.”

Grace Slick - Cool

Beyonce endorsing a drink that contributes to obesity and cancer - Not Cool

In 1948, jazz critic Sidney Finkelstein summed up commercialism in music superbly when he said it ultimately leads “to what is really destructive in culture: the taking over of an art by business.” It seems that with the advent of the internet, and the seeming freedom and ease it could provide to get relevant music out there, corporations have gotten even more aggressive to keep people’s thoughts on consumption, rather than cultural and social change. And millennials are the ones most vulnerable because they have no personal connection to a time when music actually mattered. When it was the most accessible medium for getting a message to the world. Now corporations have used the medium artists once used to spread a message of social change, to send the message that they need more and more useless shit instead. Don’t believe the Top 40 hype that pushes singing puppets on us and tries to make us believe that their silly antics and extravagant lifestyles are anything but pathetic. Supporting your local musicians by going out to hear live music is a great way to combat the control media has over us. Checking out music blogs is another way to find out about artists who aren’t corporately endorsed. If you can’t find anything on those, ask around to find out who people’s favorite bands are. Just make sure those you ask are over the age of 30. ;)

Rage Against the Machine - Cool

Arcade Fire - Don’t get me started.

Sources:

“Rich Media, Poor Democracy,” by Robert McChesney