Being a fan of rock and roll from the 1960s, I occasionally visit YouTube to listen to albums and songs from the decade. Sometimes during these digital jaunts (and against my better judgment) I make my way over to the comments section to see what my fellow YouTubers have to say about the music. Usually all I find are genuine words of approval towards the music and its creators from die-hard fans, but every now and then I come across a particularly cantankerous individual who has taken the commenting opportunity to bemoan the state of contemporary popular music.
As anyone who’s ever witnessed the level of vitriol exhibited by some YouTube comments can attest, these users employ derogatory and polemic language to describe the ways in which they feel the quality of music of yesteryear far surpasses that of today’s musical offerings. What individuals such as these fail to understand is that music quality is an implicitly subjective concept, meaning that all music has been forced to contend with what came before and to be judged in relation to contemporary assumptions about what constitutes quality music.
I should probably clarify at this juncture that I’m not personally in love with today’s popular music. My purpose in writing this isn’t necessarily to legitimize or valorize the likes of Katy Perry, One Direction, Miley Cyrus, or whoever else the radio feels compelled to run on a seemingly endless loop. Instead, I assert that music should be judged for what it is by listeners with their own agency in deciding what music means to them and to not be measured against some perceived notion of what ‘good’ music must sound like. After all, many who are sure about what is great music today would be scorned had they lived just a few decades earlier.
Take, for example, the opinion of the Los Angeles Times regarding British boy band One Direction: “Obviously a press agent’s dream combo… they project a certain kittenish charm which drives the immature, shall we say, ape.” Feels a tad harsh, right?
It seems even worse when you realize that it’s actually the paper’s February 1964 assessment of The Beatles. As Cary Schneider writes in the Los Angeles Times nowadays, “Today, the Beatles hold an exalted place in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. But 50 years ago, when they first crossed the Atlantic to perform in the United States, the reaction was decidedly mixed.” Mixed may be putting it lightly. As William F. Buckley, Jr. practically snarls in the September 13, 1964 edition of the Boston Globe, “They are god awful... They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music.” Upon hearing Sgt. Pepper a few years later Mr. Buckley exiled himself to some remote Caribbean island, I presume.
Critiques such as Mr. Buckley’s provide a much-needed lesson in context for those Beatles über fans that lament the death of ‘good’ music when presented with contemporary popular music. I love The Beatles and regard them as possibly the best musical group to yet inhabit existence, but my entrancement with the Fab Four doesn’t blind me to the fact that they were just as disparaged in their time as many pop artists are today.
Miley Cyrus’ MTV escapade might not seem so shocking when one imagines how incredibly perplexing it must have been for the generation that fought and won World War II to see its sons and daughters writhing to the strange, unpleasant noises emanating from the four mop topped young lads singing openly about lust and longing on national television (a device that didn’t even exist when they were teens). Hell, when asked about Miley Cyrus’s risqué “Wrecking Ball” video Paul McCartney himself remarked, “I don’t think it was explicit at all. You couldn’t see anything!”
New music will always be measured against and expected to justify itself in relation to music that came before. To argue that contemporary popular music is some horrendous departure from the seemingly eternal perfection of music from, say, the 1960s, is to ignore the reality that quality has always been a process of negotiation rather than one of strict rules and standards.
Cultural reactionaries decrying the demise of quality music should understand that liking one particular group or style of music does not entail the delegitimizing of other kinds of music or artists simply because they are different. After telling the audience at a show in 1965 that the band was about to play their latest song, “Help”, John Lennon quipped, “Or our latest electronic noise, depending on whose side you’re on.” Just you wait. It won’t be long before the YouTubers of the future are exhausting their comment space pining for today’s electronic noise.
How do you feel about today’s music? Tell us how you feel and please send us your opinion and all of your feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
