Tal Bachman says:
But just as a rising tide lifts all boats, a sinking tide lowers them, and the Grammy Awards has become just another degenerating institution within our larger degenerating civilization. It now amounts to an orgy of laughably misguided self-congratulation; cliché-ridden social justice pontifications from multimillionaires living in Beverly Hills mansions; packaged rage; racist guilt-tripping; and pathological female autodegradation.
The most recent example of that last thing, of course, was the pornographic exhibitionism of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. That so many of our cultural overlords have applauded it, and similar Grammy performances over the years, as an expression of “female empowerment,” only shows how perniciously insane our culture has become. I await any intelligible explanation of how women publicly depicting themselves as nothing more than wank fodder “empowers all women, everywhere.” By this dysfunctional standard, Larry Flynt’s Hustler magazine was the best friend your precious daughter ever had.
Of course, this wasn’t the only off-putting thing about the Grammys. The geniuses running it decided to tacitly endorse America-hating, Israel-hating, and Jew-hating by inviting Hate Queen Tamika Mallory to do her standard “Angry Shouting” routine during an anti-cop number (for more on Mallory’s career in hate, see here, here, and here). As if that isn’t nauseating enough, the same geniuses also broadcast—in the same show—a statement condemning hate and anti-Semitism. Nothing like your plate of hate slopped over with an extra helping of hypocrisy.
Even if we could get past this sort of obnoxiousness, the fact would remain that much—perhaps most—of the music now showcased on the Grammys just doesn’t resonate with a lot of people anymore. Ask a hundred ordinary folks to watch any recent Grammy Awards show, and most of them won’t even have heard of 80 percent or more of the increasingly niche nominees. (By contrast, quite a few of those people would have appreciated more respect shown to the late Edward Van Halen, a Grammy winner who revolutionized pop and rock guitar playing, and whom I’ve written about elsewhere. The Grammys all but ignored his recent passing).
Look, let’s not kid ourselves here… Bachman is being gentle with this subject.
The overriding fact is that 99% of the “music”produced today is absolute crap. Then again, it does have the advantage of being a platform for, as Bachman says, American hating individuals.
There’s a reason why the Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, REO Speedwagon, Def Leppard, and even bands whose personnel have almost totally flipped like Boston, Fleetwood Mac and so on, are still touring, and it has very little to do with nostalgia, and has everything to do with the quality of the material produced…coupled with the fact that nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, is coming close to that level of performance. Sorry, they just aren’t getting it done. There’s a reason why 60s 70s and 80s channels, yacht rock, etc are the biggest draws that satellite radio has.
And I won’t even discuss rap, or death metal or anything of the sort.
Personally, I have found myself diving into deeper tracks, of late
.. of 60 60s 70s and 80s artists both familiar and unfamiliar and finding musical Q gems along the way.
Yes, occasionally I find a current track worth listening to, ones that haven’t discovered the non-musical ease of Auto-Tune, (can anybody actually carry a tune without computer aid any longer?).. and artists who don’t sound like pure imitation of other artists, who aren’t spewing hatred for America and it’s people, who actually understand what a Melody is and what Harmony is. I promise you, such an artist will always get my attention.
And no, an answer to the inevitable, this is not merely a grumpy command to get off my lawn, but rather a lament for the actual music that’s gone missing these last 20 years or so.
It was observed in the 60s by several pundits then observing the phenomena that was the Beatles, pop music is the direction America is headed in.
(Alas!, Even that has to some degree fallen victim to this new wave, becoming a caricature of itself in its attempts to stay “relevant” and be seen as “woke”. And yes, I’m talking about Paul McCartney.)
If that statement made back then is true, then based on what’s being produced today I greatly fear for our country, our nation, our culture.