It was September 24, 1991…Melodic Hard Rock/Hair Metal was dead…pretty much everything else with it…why you ask?... It’s the date that Nirvana’s “Nevermind” dropped and the musical world would never be the same… As someone who was heavily caught up in the hard rock scene this came as a defining moment in my life and many lives of my friends… do we abandon the technical prowess of the shredders and embrace the “Alternative” rock that would soon become the mainstream…much to the chagrin of it’s creators..?....
We fought and bitched and hemmed and hawed…and in the end we couldn’t fight it… Mainstream hard rock was no longer the mainstream…it had to disappear underground for a while in the U.S. and move to Europe and Japan if it wanted to thrive… And out of the depths the “Alternative” was the norm… Which is good. Change is good. We went from the safe happy short haired pop of the 50’s to Elivs and the Beatles…and we changed with it. We embraced psychedelic rock in the 70’s right along side the singers and songwriters like James Taylor and the burgeoning face of FM radio was developing…Punk..Disco…Heavy Metal…Hair Metal…Grunge…Boy Bands…Pure Pop…Dance…Techno…Rap…and the cultural phenomena that would embrace Madonna in the 80’s and Lady GaGa now. Maybe we all have musical attention deficit, or maybe in the grand scope of things…there’s room for all of it... But that is the state of mind of someone in hindsight. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of influences changing over time to get here. I don’t think I missed out on anything, but I do think that I have a greater respect for a lot of different music.
I went into the 90’s with the idea that something was going to change…it was inevitable, and I probably wasn’t going to like it. When the record companies figured out that they could sign a band right off the Sunset Strip and sell a million records they all thought they could do it. And the glut began. There were some great bands, some good bands, and some that probably shouldn’t have been signed. But the labels scooped them all up in hopes of hitting gold. It made for an interesting time, and everyone thought their way to stardom was via Los Angeles, with a nod to the East Coast NY and NJ scene. So they got off the bus just like Axl Rose in the “Welcome To The Jungle” video in search of fame and fortune. Some we heard about, and some we’ve never heard from. Some finished their records only to have the scene change and the album shelved forever. It happened more than you think. It happened with the boy bands in the late 90’s and it continues to happen. Just because one sells does not guarantee one just like it will.
That said, when the jangly guitar of Kurt Cobain [R.I.P] crashed through my speakers and the record labels moved their focus from Los Angeles to Seattle and found Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, that something that was different had arrived. In my opinion I think that they were [and are] very talented, and I’m still a huge fan of Chris Cornell, but for me I think I was too pissed that some of my favorite bands were being forcefully retired.
So I hung up my rock t-shirts, I retired my can of Aqua Net, shed a tear when I hung up the spandex and leather and went out and bought a pair of boots, some wrangler jeans…and went country…yes country. This is not an unusual phenomena, and a lot of people I know did the same thing, maybe not to my extreme, but to some. For as ridiculed as the genre of hair metal was, it was fun, occasionally insightful, and these guys [and gals] could play. When I first heard the “alternative” bands my first thought was “where the hell did they learn to play, or more importantly…why don’t they”…? Narrow minded I know but I was still pissed. And why does everything have to be so dark? These were musicians who were filled with angst, and they let it pour out in their music. Well…I wasn’t angry, I had no angst, I didn’t hate my parents, and I could find the silver lining in everything… I’m a half full kind of guy… so when the music world went dark…I found solace in a most unexpected area.
My dad drove an 18 wheel rig for 56 years until he finally retired. And all he listened to 1050 WHN AM out of New York, and he only listened to WHN. So growing up in the house it was Alabama, and Dolly Parton. George Jones, The Oak Ridge Boys, and Hank Williams. I guess I always had an appreciation for it, but I grew up hating it because my dad played it. No other reason… and a really stupid one actually. So when Nashville started turning it’s sights on a younger audience, there were a lot of us that didn’t want the grunge thing, so we naturally fell into country. Now this wasn’t my dad’s country music. It was Randy Travis, and George Strait, Alan Jackson, and a fellow from Yukon, Oklahoma [not really that far from here really…] named Garth Brooks that turned the whole radio world upside down. It was more pop leaning that it’s predecessors, while still remaining relatively close to it’s roots. And it was happy… for the most part. There were your tear in my beer songs and songs about losing your girl, your house, and your dog all in 3 minutes with a bright and catchy chorus too. But what there was a lot of, was hope. So I joined the wave of people who helped Garth sell over 100 million records. Went to the festivals, and even learned to line dance [pretty well after a while believe it or not…] I couldn’t always relate to some of the themes [I was the white guy from the burbs remember…] but it just sounded right. And in hindsight, maybe it was just that I was [gasp!] older. The words fit better, the melodies were still in tact, and the session players in Nashville are some of the best in the world. Guitarist Dann Huff from Giant [and from Nashville originally] became a hit producer for Faith Hill. “Mutt” Lange went from Def Leppard to producing and marrying [and divorcing] Shania Twain. Together they sold over 39 million copies of “Come On Over” worldwide. I eventually collected over 800 country CD’s and artists like Garth and Trisha, and Clint Black, Brooks & Dunn, Wynonna, Martina McBride and Faith and Tim became staples in my playlists. This country dance party could only last for so long…
Now..guess what happened?…You guessed it.. the glut… After mining every grunge band for profit and signing every guy and gal with a hat and boots the record industry did what it did best…it proved too much of a good thing can be bad. Like that chocolate coma you get in after Halloween and Easter. So grunge went the way of boy bands and pop music again. Country suffered some setbacks, but they are their own world, and there’s always a new batch of artists out there. Most recently Zac Brown is tearing up the charts, and Lady Antebellum is garnering their accolades. In between we had the Musik Mafia led by Big & Rich, and Gretchen Wilson. And you can never go wrong with virtually anything by Brad Paisley. The man is a monster on the guitar and an excellent songwriter.
Eventually I went back to search for the melodic hard rock [which is still alive and well in Europe and Japan] side by side with the country stuff. Grunge is now retro, and you can’t play an 80’s weekend without pulling out the Aqua Net. I guess Rush said it best when in their song “Circumstances” they said “Plus ca change Plus c'est la meme chose”… The more that things change…the more they stay the same. You find a good thing…and then you find more of it…and then it’s overload!... Maybe moderation is the key. I don’t know, I’ve never had moderation in anything.
I guess what I’m saying is keep an open mind. And open ears. Because what is at the top of your playlist today may be in the cutout bin tomorrow. I traditionally don’t get rid of anything, but the used bins at your local cd store show a different picture. Remember that music has an inherent value, and if you love it, that’s all that matters.
It took me a long time to get over being pissed at the grunge movement, and I still think that they mix up “keeping it simple” with “I really suck on the guitar but when I play it I get chicks”… but I digress… They all can’t play like the guys in Dream Theater…
Thanks for coming along for the ride…see you soon.
J.
No comments:
Post a Comment