Another decade of music has come and gone. Every one—let's say from the 1950s on—embodies shifts in cultural and technological influences allowing unique artists and stories to develop in pop music. And as much as change is resented in almost all forms, it is inevitable. However, for avid music listeners, it becomes important to separate juvenile fascinations over greatness from truly relatable artists who are relevant to your life in ways deeper than their trendiness and your ability to talk about a band everyone can relate to.
This past decade, we learned to stay away from Auto-Tune as if it were those hyenas from ""The Lion King"" trying to pounce on innocent, unaware consumers. Big record labels became a Scar of the industry in search of the nicest looking pieces of packageable profiteers. And our saviors from these power plays have been the garage-rock and post-punk cats too authentic in their tastes and influences to take themselves as serious as record labels would have them.
These contextual details allow us to come up with modern day Bob Dylans, who stand up to industry and cultural conventions, and Beatles, who melodically strive for pop stardom while refusing to clean themselves. What I came to realize over break is that this means it is only a matter of time before your adolescent first love has to take a back seat to more relatable lovers of your own age.
However, as a friend and I realized when discussing our favorite artists, you are not alone when reapplying the boldest of bold statements. One of us had always proclaimed the Beatles as our favorite of all time and the other Bob Dylan. Boring, right? Nonetheless, they are time-tested, mother-approved and easy to identify with because of their uber-documented contexts and influence.
I initially got into the Beatles after receiving a copy of 1 and listened to see what their name recognition was about. Similarly, I'm sure Bob Dylan was passed down to my friend as a starting block not only in songwriting, but American culture. It was as much status and context as talent that intrigued us, yet they delivered in a deeper way at the time because we came in with this background knowledge, leading to love at first listen.
Yet, somewhere along the way, eclectic puppy love turned into contemporary love affairs and, eventually, long-term commitments. Over the course of our college careers—and I mean whole career, it took both of us years to admit to ourselves (let alone others) that we may want to adjust the top spot in our iPods and hearts—our exposure expanded, and with that came a more self-actuated sense of musical identity, i.e. our tastes became more individualistic and current.
As hard as it is to let your first love go, we acknowledged that at some point you have to grow up and move on. After all, the sonic and cultural revolutions going on in a foreign time period couldn't remain the most relatable and appealing material as long as our ears shall listen. Eventually, both of us simply found an updated style of our original love.
Both of us being children of the '90s, it took a while to find our homes within contemporary landscapes. I went with somebody as melodically talented as (and often compared to) the Beatles in Elliott Smith, while my friend chose to stick with arguably the most culturally relevant band of the era: Pavement.
More than anything, this asserts the importance of challenging your taste and palette as an appreciator of the arts. Luckily, as Mufasa taught us, the circle of life is organic and infinite in its progress. And as rock 'n' roll similarly unfolds before us, all we can hope to do is ""be prepared"" for industry tyrants and ""feel the love"" for new artists embodying our generation.
Still say the Beatles are your favorite band? Send your angry rebuttal to Justin at jstephani@wisc.edu.
