by Mike Madrid
Recently, my dear friend Marlene called from New York. We always have a great time catching up and having a laugh about the absurdity of adult life. At one point, my cell phone went off in my pocket, and I couldn’t decide if I should take the call, or let it go to voice mail. As I struggled with my decision and the phone kept ringing, Marlene laughed on the other end of the line and started singing, ”Don’t leave me haangin’ on the telephone…” This perhaps was inspired by the fact that I had a Blondie ring tone on my phone, or the fact that we are both huge fans of the band.
After I sent the call to voicemail, Marlene asked, “Mike, What was the next song after that?” referring to the track listing on the Blondie Parallel Lines album.
“One Way Or Another”, I replied.
“Ai, and then Fade Away And Radiate.” she said. We then proceeded to go through the remaining songs on side 1 of the album, talking about which ones we liked, which lyrics of Pretty Baby that we had misunderstood when we heard them the first time. Then, we went on to side 2, and discussed the songs track by track, in order. Which song wound up having more personal ramifications, 11:59 or Will Anything Happen? What was the meaning of the third verse of Sunday Girl?
Marlene and I grew up on opposite ends of the country, she in Florida, myself in California. Yet, during our separate formative years, we had similar experiences with this pop music album, one of many, that changed our lives. The songs on this album, as a whole, shook us out of the suburban worlds where we had grown up and set us off on a journey that would shape the next phases of our lives, and the people that we grew up to be. And it was at that moment that, in the back of my head, I felt Father Time slam yet another big door slam shut on my life. I realized that I was now a relic from a different age, and that I was fundamentally tied to that age. I remembered albums, vinyl or not, and that was how I still thought of music. Marlene and I may just as well been reminiscing on a visit from the chimney sweep for all of the relevance that our discussion of albums had on the world of today. The world of music that we grew up with was gone, replaced by one that is perhaps more easily accessed, but one perhaps not so brimming with ideas.
Growing up in the 1970’s, the album was the thing, as far as music went. It was more than a collection of pop songs, it was meant to be an experience. The Beatles had raised the stakes with their Sgt. Pepper album, which had redefined music. Up until then, pop music albums were usually a couple of hit singles, with some filler tracks to fill out playlist to 10 or 12 songs. I can still remember the Christmas of 1967, when my sister got the Sgt. Pepper album as a gift. We had never seen or heard anything like it. The intricate cover artwork, the Beatles with moustaches and strange satiny uniforms, and the music. These weren’t the kooky, loveable Beatles from the Help! movie anymore. This was mysterious, campy, psychedelic, and indecipherable. And, utterly fascinating. It was an experience, way beyond a three-minute pop song that you heard on the radio. There weren’t even any songs that seemed like they would be radio friendly chart toppers.
As teenagers in the 70’s, my friends and I rarely bought 45’s, unless it was just a throwaway pop song that didn’t justify spending the $5.00 for an album. Instead, we bought the entire albums of our favorite artists, which were thought to be their statements. You would go over to a friend’s house and listen to an album by Led Zeppelin, or Queen, or Cheap Trick, Van Halen, or Earth, Wind & Fire. Beginning to end, every song. We’d talk about the music; you’d turn your friends on to your favorite albums, and vice versa. The album was thought to be more the whole collection of songs, but something that was meant to transport you, inform you, provide you with an experience. Pretentious perhaps, but when you’re a teenager in 1976, it did the trick.
Keep in mind that in those days, we weren’t inundated with magazines and interviews; there were no entertainment television programs. Recording artists didn’t have blogs or MySpace pages. So, aside from an occasional Rolling Stone or Hit Parader article, all of the insights into the world and minds of your favorite artists had to be gleaned from the album’s music, from the cover artwork, from the liner notes. Todd Haynes’ underappreciated 1998 film Velvet Goldmine captures this idea perfectly in a scene where the protagonist, Arthur, comes home with a new record album purchase. He carefully removes it from the bag, gently slides the record from the sleeve, places the needle on the first track of side one. As the first song unfolds, he reverently studies the seductive portrait of his idol, stretched odalisque-like across the gatefold album cover. And, with this, a new window on the world is opened for him. These record albums were the only contact that we would have with our favorite artists. After he record’s release, they would recede into that mysterious world where famous stars went until they would resurface in a year or two to give us another record album, and tell us something new.
By the late 1980’s, the compact disc (cd) had replaced the 12” long play record album as the desirable way to buy music. The cd was more durable than the fragile vinyl album, took up less space, and was easier to carry with you when you left home. This efficiency also diminished the artistry of the album, as the cd case only allowed for a small amount of space for the cover art. Gone were the elaborate covers, foldouts, and illustrated sleeves with lyrics. However, it was the CD player’s shuffle feature that was the death knell of the concept driven album. Now the listener could hear the songs in any random order, not in the order that the artist intended them to be heard. Imagine listening to The Who’s Tommy completely out of sequence, or the The Beatles Abbey Road. Now the isolated song was the ideal format for popular music, and the downward slide began to take speed.
Music downloading from the Internet began in the late 1990’s, and would prove to be the final nail in the album’s coffin. People were tired of the high prices that record companies demanded for cd’s, so music made it’s way onto the Internet. Now you could just download one random song that you had heard on the radio onto your computer. You didn’t have to deal with all of the other unpopular “filler” songs from an album. In 2001, Apple made the whole thing legit by introducing iTunes, and providing a pay-per-song way of buying music. This was great. Now you could buy that hit song that you heard on the radio, or that guilty pleasure Phil Collins or Air Supply power ballad that you were too embarrassed to purchase in a store (I’ve, er, been told that some people do this). But it also meant that when you only bought that hit song, you weren’t getting the rest of the album. And unfortunately, often times the best songs on an album were not the radio-friendly hits, but the buried treasures on an album. And these songs would now be truly buried, as they were passed over in favor of the popular song that was the radio hit, or was used as a TV commercial jingle or a date movie theme song. As people got to be super-busy, with their cell phones, laptops, and Blackberries, they didn’t have time to listen to a whole album; they just wanted what was popular.
Now, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking that this is not exactly a news flash. You’re probably also thinking that this is not all that important. Well, as far as saving people’s lives or making the world a better place, it’s not. But in terms of giving people ideas, and inspiring them, and moving them, it is important.
Music is entertainment, but it can be more. Even the most banal of pop songs can speak to you at a certain moment of your life, and really express the things that you are feeling. Music can inspire you, open your world up to new ideas, enrich the good times, and help you get bad times. Unfortunately, as a result of technology and the resultant direction that music industry has moved in, popular music has been turned into yet another form of disposable entertainment, along with reality television, supermarket tabloids, and forgettable multiplex movies.
The goal with most of today’s ‘entertainment” doesn’t seem to be making something significant that will last, or is breaking new ground. The goal seems to be to get in as quickly as possible, fill the media airwaves with a lot of hype, make some money, get out, and move on to the next thing. So, we get a string of forgettable movies, TV shows, and a media machine that hypes it all through magazines and entertainment news shows.
Music is part of the machine as well. The music industry churns out radio-friendly pop music that is familiar and will not make people uncomfortable. It is appropriately edgy or provocative, but ultimately it’s not anything that going to make waves or shock anyone. And, it will work well on the soundtrack of a summer blockbuster or a date movie. And it might get picked up as a jingle for a TV commercial, or a theme song for a TV show. And it will work well on a compilation cd that’s sold at Starbucks. Or better yet, a cellphone ringtone. Harmless, innocuous, and ultimately forgettable, but easily adaptable to so many money making ventures. Better still, we have shows like American Idol to give us disposable singing stars to sing the disposable music, and do a lot of product tie-ins. So now when you hear that over produced hit song on the radio, it makes you think of the soft drink commercial it’s used on, or the teen date movie it’s played in. That’s your experience. You don’t need an album to listen to, because there are so many other ways to be a consumer.
The way that we are listening to music is contributing to this degeneration. People are not generally sitting down and listening to an album of music, as in days of yore. For over 20 years, people have been taking their music with them out in the world. I love my iPod, but it’s not without it’s consequences. I have all of the music in my personal collection on my iPod. Wherever I am, I can listen to any song from my collection, it’s all there. Tryouts For the Human Race by Sparks, The Dope Show by Marilyn Manson, or La Wally by Maria Callas. It’s all music that I like, and I generally shuffle through my entire library of 8000+ songs, which essentially gives me the ultimate personalized radio station. WMIKE. But, I find that I have become infected with what I call The ¾ syndrome. Even when I’m listening to a song that I like, I tend to get bored about ¾ of the way through it. And I find myself instinctively hitting the advance button to see what’s coming up next. Forget casually listening to a whole album of your favorite music. It’s become like a roulette wheel, where I always want to see what’s coming next, and I don’t enjoy living, or listening in the moment. It’s musical A.D.D.
So, what’s the point of this rant? Maybe I’m just too old to relate to what’s going on these days. Maybe grandpa just misses his victrola. But I’m not one of those vinyl snobs still hoarding turntables and styluses. I’ll admit that I miss the beauty of a big album cover, but those days are over, and I accept that. It’s the fact that music seems to have lost its integrity that bothers me. Music, which was once a symbol of rebellion has simply been commoditized, and turned into another disposable product. The music industry has moved back to the days where the goal is to produce some hit singles, with some filler tunes to make a cd. This is probably not such an issue, since music, as a concept, seems almost to have lost its importance, especially to young people. MTV, which was intended to be a music television network, barely features any music-related programming. It’s all reality shows and dating games. Perhaps, with all of their white iPod ear buds firmly in place on all occasions, young people merely want background music, or BGM. The message of the music may not be that important when you’re not really paying that much attention anyway.
So music has become disposable, along with fashion, movies, and celebrities. It’s just a series of blips, meant to trigger you to buy more disposable products in other categories. Certainly there are still artists that are trying to produce more meaningful work, and create bodies of work. But with the overabundance of junk filling the airwaves, and the industry’s policy of only pushing predictable, familiar fare, it’s become much harder to become exposed to music with some integrity, and originality. So with the emphasis on disposable, hits songs, sun seems to have set on the era of the music album. What we have is generations that are essentially listening to random songs, which may as well just be commercials.
Or ringtones.