Blundering Through Modern Music

By Mike Fak

[December 28, 2010]  In all honesty, I don't understand music anymore. Actually, I never did. I certainly didn't as a young man, because even then I realized most music was goofy. I think I was the only teenager in America who realized that "Love Me Do" by the Beatles, was a poor grammatical foray into telling a girl you have affection for her and would appreciate reciprocity if plausible.

Most music of every generation actually stinks if you look at it. In the 50's you could understand what a person was singing but the words were primarily stupid. "You Ain't Nothin but a Hound Dog" or "Splish Splash I was Takin a Bath" rests my case on that.

The 60's were full of upheaval in the country and so was the music. The music and words, usually claiming to be honked off at somebody, might have made sense, except they usually were droned out by band members enamored with their new electric guitars. The Vietnam War made many a dope smoking, song writer famous but I don't remember for sure if the songs were any good since I was sitting next to them smoking dope at the time.

The 70's and 80's brought about thousands of artists who had one good song in them, but refused to then quit while ahead. They then drowned us with album after album of pure garbage. It was during this time that the most insidious of all music genres hit the charts. Disco was king for a while just when I was at the age of wanting to hold a girl close on the dance floor but couldn't. I couldn't because everyone was lining up doing stupid gyrations together without getting within ten feet of each other. I had so many good first lines to tell a girl that disco never let me say. I was too busy spinning or twirling or dipping when all I wanted to do was grab the girl around the waist and tell her she was magnificent. To this day my perception of Hell has disco music piped into the rooms filled with fire and brimstone just in case the latter isn't enough to make one miserable

The 90's till now of course, have been primarily Hip Hop or Rap music. I'm sorry, but people who can't sing become rappers. Now I was a huge fan of the Temptations, and Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Otis Redding and Sam Cooke and Smokey Robinson. I could go on and on, but the point is none of those artists did rap music. It wasn't because it hadn't been invented yet. None of the great artists of the past did rap because they didn't have to. They could actually sing. So they did.

Rap music is like abstract art. If you can't do something right, then do it so bad, with such confidence, that you can fool people into believing you actually are good. It's sort of like my writing.

I find myself gravitating towards Country Music these past few years. I do like the women who sing country music and not because most of them are good looking, although that never hurts. The women of country; like Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Carrie Underwood, and let's not forget Reba and perhaps as many as a dozen more, actually have world class singing voices. The songs they sing often are a beautiful blend of vocals and music and message which is missing in the other genres of music right now.
 

I don't think the same about the male country vocalists however. I think most country songs offered by the males are goofy. I do have to admit I don't like most male country singers because of their stupid hats. Now maybe some of them have ranches and ride horses often, but that doesn't mean they have to wear those goofy hats everyday, everywhere.
 

There are people in the national guard that from time to time wear a steel helmet, but you don't see them walking around all day wearing one as they go to the grocery store or when they go out to eat. Construction workers have to wear a hardhat on the job but they don't wear them to their kid's graduation. If one of those "cowboys" had walked into my Irish grandma's house with their hat still on, she would have lectured them about taking their hat off in the house all the while she was beating the crap out of them, of course.

I firmly believe the reason Country Music has their own separate awards events is because most people, including musicians in other disciplines, wouldn't put up with not being able to see the stage because some scrawny male singer sitting in front of them, showing off his 10 inch biceps, won't remove his cowboy hat. It will never happen, but if there are ever "joint" music awards and a fight breaks out, I'll bet on the rappers.

It appears I digressed a little. As I was saying, I don't think the male country vocalists are anywhere near as good as their female counterparts. Their voices for one thing aren't very good, with many of them having a twangy kind of voice that sounds like a beer truck hitting the brakes on a wet pavement.

The male singers also don't offer songs anywhere near the quality offered by the Females. For every "Independence Day" by Martina McBride or "I Feel Like a Woman" by Shania Twain or "Breathe" by Faith Hill, the males offer up such outstanding repartees as "I Spent my Paycheck at the Girlie Bar" or "My Wife Kicked me out fer Spittin Terbacky Juice in the Goldfish Bowl".

Like I said: I don’t understand modern music

 

Archived columns