Topic: Media
What the Twilight Zone and the Evolution of Rock reveal about our stagnant society I love Rock n Roll. However, I feel like that anthem of rebellion and coolness from a generation ago has mutated into something a lot like an episode of the Twilight Zone “No. 12 Looks Just Like You”. When everyone is cool, no one will be!by Russell G. Davis
(centrist)
Saturday, December 5, 2009
When I saw the Christmas commercial for the Beatles Rock Band video game, it looked charming. The whole family gathered around the TV pretending to be the Fab Four. I couldn't help but recall the attitude of the older generation towards the Beatles when they were relatively new. There's a line in the movie Goldfinger where James Bond comments that it simply isn't done to listen to the Beatles without earmuffs. I can remember adults referring to those "freaks from England with hair down to their assholes!" And of course there was the insane pre-Teabagger spectacle of Beatle Burnings in response to John Lennon's quote about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus.
I wonder if any of that is worked into the video game. I'll probably never know, I have no intention of buying it. I'd have to say I don't think it will be included on something that is being marketed as fun for the entire family.
But all of this points to something bigger and more malevolent. The infant that was on the cover of Nirvana's groundbreaking Nevermind album, Spencer Elden, is now 18 and already has something very profound to say on the phenomenon. He said in an interview with NPR, "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays; kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band". Lots of kids, going back way past the 90s, were inspired to go out and make a band.
From the start of Beatlemania in the early 60's to the breakup of Led Zeppelin, there was a wave of changing inspiration in music, art, and our attitudes directly attributable to the art form Rock n Roll. I draw the line of that changing wave of art, music and attitude along that arc. Someone older would probably draw it further back and go all the way back towards R&B, someone younger would probably draw it after the 80's. I will admit to my experience and opinion being colored by age. This era was when I was a kid and I have very vivid memories of this period and it no doubt colors my views on the subject.
Before the Beatles made it big, bands didn't write their own music. By the early 1980's it was expected from Rock artists. To not do so renders you a mere "Cover Band". The Drug culture had yet to ensnare the naive en masse and the consequent exploitation of that problem by the worst parts of our government had yet to begin. Men had short hair; today even Right Wing war hawks Kid Rock and Ted Nugent have long hair.
I don't draw the end of this era with the breakup of the Beatles, sorry. I feel the Beatles were one of five influential bands of this era. The other four are the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Who, and Led Zeppelin. The Beatles were the most influential, by far. But others picked up where they left off after the breakup.
Each of those other four bands lost an important member to drug overdoses. That is not insignificant when talking about this wave of music, art and attitude. As a matter of fact the losses of Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon and John Bonham drive home the point about very real dangers of unchecked appetites. (The Fed and the DOD have no room to judge these men!)
None of it was a deterrent to kids that, to this day, are still inspired by that wonderful wave of art, music and attitude and want to start a rock and roll band. But the easier option of just playing Guitar Hero is now available to all of those who want the experience and don't want to put in the time of learning an instrument and practicing.
Which brings me to one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. "No. 12 Looks Just Like You". To recap this story, in a society that offers everyone beauty and eternal youth (as long you undergo a transformation where you resemble everyone else afterwards) the young heroine resists a homogenized culture and struggles to retain her individuality in system that ultimately forces her to become like everyone else. She cries things like "how will you know me?" and "they're not trying to make everyone beautiful, they just want everyone to be the same!" to an uncaring system that makes her an identical duplicate of her best friend.
The episode predicted the future (it was set in 2000) with comical inaccuracy. But the overall trend towards homogenization was right on the money when applied to music. So much so that that anthem of rebellion, attitude and art has gone from being the voice of a generation to being the bland stagnant deadwood in playlists handed down from corporate communications giant Clear Channel! When everyone is cool, no one will be.
As much as I love the Beatles, it pains me for their video game to become the tool by which talent may be dulled and the cause of people sitting on their ass in front of the TV and not going out to live their lives to the fullest.
Or it may just inspire one or two youngsters to become the next Hendrix while sitting on the couch playing Guitar Hero with Grandma. I could always be wrong. When it comes to this thing I'm seeing an intersection of two aspects, two points of view of capitalism. One I love and one I revile.
I love the marketplace of ideas and talent that was the background for each of these great bands. I love that the top-down forces tried to silence the people and failed. These bands brushed aside some very evil forces in our society (Book or Album Burnings in America=Evil, sorry). And the main reason they did was capitalism. These artists were selling music and there was nothing the State could do about it. Seriously, what's not to love?
But unfortunately, these songs became the new Status Quo. Eventually it settled down into a list of about 200 or so songs from that era that can be heard every day on whatever Classic Rock station Clear Channel owns in your town. All of it the same (not even the best stuff from that era in my opinion), after all who doesn't want to be just like everybody else? This is the top-down bureaucratic (usually heavily subsidized) monopoly or oligopoly that I revile!
There are plenty of struggling talented musicians that could use a big break like the ones the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin got. But they're not going to get their break from Clear Channel until the radio market shrinks to a point where Clear Channel and other Big Telecom companies must respond.
Until then, we have a situation on our airwaves too much like the world of that Twilight Zone episode. Why should Marilyn (the heroine of this episode) invest time in coming up with a new vibrant sound when this dark top-down private taxpayer subsidized bureaucracy can give you a procedure where Number 12 sounds just like you?
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The views expressed in this
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Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-12-06 13:34:12
Hi Russell,
The progression of short attention span theater has been remarkable in my lifetime. This has happened simultaneously with an incomprehensible increase in the amount of data, choices, opportunities and threats each individual is faced with.
The third simultaneous factor is the influence of government education to homogenize and stifle creativity over many generations. I don't think tools and education in skills that will make this vast amount of information useful are keeping pace with the explosion.
When the result, or an acceptable facimile, can be acheived without the effort, the effort will be avoided. The value of the effort has been discounted to the point that it is scoffed at. Never mind guitar games, the same thing is evident in politics. If folks think that faith and technology will achieve the desired result, they will avoid the effort. From this avoidence of the struggle comes third parties and independents, Neocons and Progressives. They all use this avoidance tendency in their own special political success, or futility, as the case may be.
Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-12-07 12:49:43
In general I agree with you. The era of faux-accomplishment, satirized by South Park and Simpsons, shows no signs of going away. Take your soma. Everyone gets a trophy. We'll grade in purple because red conveys too much criticism. Lip-synching wins "talent" shows.
On the plus side, my 14 y.o. son, who mashed Guitar Hero last year at Txgvg, picked up my guitar and inside two weeks he was as good as I'd ever been in my 30+ years of playing. [grrrrrr] After 8 months of lessons he's fully as good as anyone I've seen ... who isn't himself a professional. He's got 4 guitars of his own, plays the bass for his high school jazz band, and is getting a drum set for xmas. He's started an alternating weekend band [that's as often as everyone has done their homework enough that parents allow them to meet] and is by far the most talented in the bunch.
Once he learns to get over his fear of singing in front of others and writing his own songs, he'll be virtually guaranteed to be a hit -- everyone else will be lip-synching and Guitar Heroing. I've already told him that I plan to retire on his first gold album.
Posted By: Russell G Davis
Date: 2009-12-07 15:40:46
Jahfre-
We see the unfortunate result of avoiding effort in politics best, lately, in the way Conspiracy Theories are embraced for perceived political gain. The "Impeach Bush" momentum of 2006 imploded immediately thanks to the 911 "Truth" movement. "Birthers" and believers in the Obama Death Panels honestly can not see the way they are helping the Democrats by refusing to live in the real world! That doesn't stop people exploiting ignorance for political purposes. (But that's another column in and of itself)
Ross-
I admit I can be wrong! I your son was inspired, even in part, by Guitar Hero and becomes the next Satriani-best of luck to him! I hope everyone else lip-synching and Guitar Heroing helps him.
I was speaking in broad terms about the way society as a whole was headed. And when talking about large generalizations, there are always going to be exceptions.
Can't wait to hear son's first big hit when the time comes.
Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-12-08 12:44:43
In broad terms, dumbing down helps no one. In specific, it causes some to seek to rise above being forcibly dumb. I prefer to think that I created more inspiration than some silly tech game, by playing and singing "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" [et al] until my fingers got little grooves in them. But then, pride is a pedestrian sin among fathers.
Paul McCartney's father urged him to change the lyrics from "Sheloves you yeah, yeah, yeah", to "yes, yes, yes" as it was more proper and he was, afterall, an Englishman. Paul ignored dear old Dad's explicit advice. I know my son will ignore mine as well; I hope, with the same end result.
Posted By: The Ghost of Brian Jones
Date: 2009-12-18 19:06:49
You only half understand what happened. Giving kids guitars and drums instead of pianos and violins was the beginning of dumbing down. Hey, I like guitars and drums, but that's what it was. We left Western Civilization behind by the end of 1969 and went straight over a cliff. We're not going anywhere from here. Probably the Beatles and the Stones achieved what they did because they had grown up in a traditional culture and not a degraded, destroyed one. Their achievements are linked to the destruction and the degradation, though.
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