The evolution of guy to husband to dad: The Music

In the early 90s, when I had just gotten out of college I remember seeing an editorial cartoon.  It showed two slackers at the garbage dump, in front of a pile of old LPs, CDs and a sign over a third pile that said ‘the next music format’.  “What could be greater than CD’s?” I thought.  Until music starts being piped in through brain waves I guess MP3s are as good as it gets.

Of course, over time my music tastes have ebbed and flowed; the base ingredients have remained the same, albeit with more spice here and there.  I’m reminded of this evolution as I hear about The Grammy’s.  There was a point when I owned a majority of the Grammy nominated releases, now it’s not even a blip on the Mojo radar.

I’m not a music elitist, but I did work in radio for a number of years.  I still like music, but it and The Grammys aren’t relevant to me anymore.  Was it The Grammys giving Best New Artist to Milli Vanilli or when they snubbed Metallica in favor of Jethro Tull that finally made me realize it?  I’m sure that the bland programming and vanilla texture of terrestrial radio also had something to do with it, but they are ramblings for another time.

As I said I still like music.  However there are two rules that an artist can break that is almost certain to make them banned from the Mojo house.

1.        Mention your or the band’s name in a song.

A prime example is Wang Chung.  I know wang chung is a guitar term, but they are forever hung with the albatross of Wang Chung tonight. Bad Company’s Bad Company, horrible English with a song that isn’t much better.   Stray Cat Strut, a good band, every once in a while, but that song tainted their pool.  The Monkees are kind of forgiven because they were thought of as a novelty band, so their expectations are lower.   A reference of yourself in the third person point of view works in fiction writing and sarcasm, not in music.

The exceptions to this rule are Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Metallica, because they rock hard and scare me a little.

2.        If you have to have a radio edit for your song.

This has always annoyed me.  Maybe it’s because I find Bill Cosby a very funny man, but if you can’t make me like your music without cursing, then I don’t need to like your music.  Oh, I think I just sounded really old in that sentence…..  Really, if I hear a beep here, beep there, every where a beep beep I’d rather be listening to Old McDonald-and most of the time I am.

The music that I have on my computer or on my Pandora stations reflects these two rules.  As for The Grammys I know that three of the five Records of the Year broke rule #2 for me.    They’ve also nominated Ozzy Osbourne for Best Hard Rock Performance.  The Grammy committee must be trying to make amends for Jethro Tull still, that Ozzy release stunk up the joint  Just because an aging artist release something does not make it good or worthy of recognition.   Grrrr….those young kids today.