Has Anyone Seen The Music?

Has anyone seen the music?

We seem to have misplaced it, and it would be really nice to get it back.  I don’t remember the last time I saw it, but it has been a while.

I was listening to the new Spoon album this week, in preparation for doing an album review.  Sorry, no spoilers.  But one thing that poignantly stood out to me was for once, here was an album that wasn’t overproduced. How novel it is to have an album showcase the music and not the sound effects?

Technology is fantastic, and it has moved us into medical and scientific realms that before, were merely fodder for sci-fi movies.  Technology has, however, crippled the music industry in many ways.  Now don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to go back to albums that are scratchy with poor sound.  I am not saying that. What I am saying is that somehow with all the gizmo’s, whizbangs and flugglehorns, music got lost.  Music is now a matter of market not art, sales not passion, bigger is better as long as is looks good.  I just want my music back.

As a performer you no longer have to have the ability to sing on key.  The technology can fix your bad pitches.  And for all the flack that Milli Vanilli caught in the 90’s for lip syncing, it is fairly common practice now.  If the face and the body can sell albums, it doesn’t matter that the album has no depth of sound.  With enough dance beats and synthesizers, it will all come out in the wash.  Technology hides many flaws, the biggest of which is the flaw of us calling it music in the first place.

I miss lyrical substance. This is one of my biggest problems with music that is released today.  There is more to life than sex, drugs and going to the club.  There is a place and time for dance and club music, but where are the Woodie Guthrie’s and the Bob Dylan’s?  Where are the poets, the dreamers, and the musicians who wrote their own music? Those wrote it from that place deep down inside where it touches on that which it means to be human?  Music should come from the soul.  It should be the audible expression of all of the joys, sorrows, and struggles that are the human experience.  There are musicians out there that still make music.  The problem is that most of them will never be heard by the masses. If the record companies do not see immediate investment returns on them, or don’t consider them marketable, the world loses out.

What happened to the simplicity of a guy and his guitar.? Why can’t a guy with a guitar sing about something that really mattered?  It would sell even today.  I miss those days.  I miss music.  So when you are out and about, if you happen to see music, could you please spread the word that it’s there?  Maybe if you go up and tell it we miss it, it will come back.  God only knows we need more music in the world.