Nobody needs to tell you that this year was a downer in everything. Nobody needs to say that the music of 2008 was probaly the worst it has ever been in the history of music. Sales were even worse than last year, the quality of top forty was twice more than last and all it generated to me was a big headache. But actually the wheels were beginning to fall off back in 2005 when SONY/BMG and EMI gave us copy protected CDs that ended up making our computers a big virus magent and once credibility was lost, CD sales went down year by year. Let's face it, the CD is just about dead, but downloading lives on and thrives! Thus signaling the end of the CD buyer since Wal Mart and Target are providing less cd shelf space and more for DVDs and the independent record store can only be found in college towns. Doesn't mean that's that end for the CD bargain hunter since Half Priced Books in town continue to have a decent used CD selection but even the minimum wage earner at CDs Plus is even lamenting about the impending death of the CD.
Let's face it, there's still a lotta music released this year, most of it sucks. There's hardly any outlet for new music to be heard from the rock artist. The Telecommunications act of 1996 killed radio to which nobody can get their new music out there unless you become a big hit on My Space or You Tube. The Telecom 1996 gave Clear Channel, Cumunius (SIC), and other media overlords to buy up the alt radio stations and now everything sounds the same today. And you can blame Bill Clinton (and the Republicans that were in office back then) for the downfall of music today. Not that everything sucked, there's still a lotta good music out there, you just don't hear it on the radio all that much.
I think it was five years that Mya made that godawful My Love Is Like ...Woo that popped up as one of the most annoying songs of 2004. Four years later, you have to google that song since top forty radio played it and moved on to the flavor of the month. At least twenty years ago you can remember a top forty song but try to remember anything from this year outside All Summer Long or I Kissed A Girl and you'll be doing better than I am. Used to be that I would slam Kid Rock on every turn but listening to his past couple albums and it appears that he's more in tune with Rock n Roll than what is played on KRNA or Rock 108. But Kid Rock had the brains to merge Warewolves Of London and Sweet Home Alabama to create the perfect sing along song of summer. And although Katy Perry is destined to be a one hit wonder artist with her Benetar lite version of I Kissed A Girl and championing the wonderful taste of Cherry Chapstick on a female, to which I'm sure guys (and dolls) probaly stocked up on Cherry flavored Chapstick. Maybe it might work for me. Probaly not.
This year, the music world had the better artists on the country side of things. Not all the hats won out, Taylor Swift came out to be the IT girl for a year with a big selling debut of two years ago that kept selling right up to her new release of Fearless and still remains the IT girl. In some ways Taylor wins over Katy Perry in terms of being honest and there for her fans, fact was that she was the first performer to perform in Cedar Rapids after the historic and destructive floods of 2008. Most of the year we were treated to too much Hanna Montana and just in time to be replaced by the odious and isn't her fifteen minites up yet Britney Spears who represents the worst of music and why people don't pay attention to anything new anymore. Because what the major labels promote, or the reality channel MTV or VH1 no longer are music first but rather bores us with spoiled rotten has beens, never was or TMZ approved trainwrecks who can't keep a marriage after six months. Who use MTV to try to make themselves look good and in the process managed to get their album debut at number 3 on the Billboards before it slides off the charts, and into the dollar bins at all finer pawnshops.
This year we finally got to witness Guns And Roses Chinese Democracy after 17 years and countless release dates and canceled release dates and it didn't mean squat, although most music best of lists put the damn thing on their ten best list of the year. I listened to three songs and thought that was two songs too many to listen to. True Axl Roses still screams like a baying mule then and maybe some critic will call it a lost classic but in essence The Spegetti Incident will remain GnR's epitaph, unless the original members get back together. And anything is possible. Even The Smiths since Morrissey and Johnny Marrs are on friendly terms now.
But there were much better albums out there this year. AC DC came back and made the same album they been doing for over 30 years but it turned out to be their best album in twenty five. Mettallica finally quit plandering for the radio and returned to make their most intense album in twenty, only to have it blown by a crappy mix. On the local front, Bo Ramsey made his first album of orginal material in ten years and was more rock and roll than John Fogerty's last album. Senior citizens Willie Nelson and 84 year old BB King made their most enjoyable album in years. Even old crank Wreckless Eric Goldman married cult artist Amy Rigby and put out a decent album. There was no shortage of dinosaur rockers this year, Steve Winwood, REM, Motorhead, John Hiatt, all made good albums and for a brief moment Winwood's Dirty City got airplay on the radio for a change.
But the majority of top ten best albums this year, that are on SPIN or Pitchfolk Media will not be on my faves. And begs the question why is Universal is more prone to promote TV on The Radio more than The Fratellis. Even what No Depression posted as their best, most I heard with passing interest but not enough to buy it. I did buy The Hold Steady Stay Positive, played it a few times and shrugged them off although the guy I sold the CD to called it "Their best ever". And the new Ryan Adams Cardinology was met with indifference,not unlike his EP of last year. And the Felix Cavalarde/Steve Cropper Nudge It Up An Notch, which was raved on by another name magazine, when I heard it, I felled asleep and have to play a couple more times and still couldn't keep awake. And the Kings Of Leon still remain a bit overrated although they may have given us their most rocking song since their EP.
This year I bought 69 albums to review of this year, the lowest amount of reviews since 1984 when I didn't have a job and couldn't review as much as I wanted to. This year, with shotty digipaks that fell apart when I got them home, and continuing manipulation by the major labels with expended editions, reissues with bonus tracks not on the original album and simply just bad music all around, it was a chore trying to even listen to what I bought. Certainly not a lack of music, lots of music around but perhaps way too much music and way too many My Space bands trying to get me to listen to their music, and though some of it did catch my ears, the majority of it just wasn't that memorable. And the biggest problem was if there was music out there, Best Buy didn't it, nor Wal Mart. So I didn't review the latest Blue Mountain album simply of the fact that it wasn't availble or it may have been a digipak that was flimsey. Also trying to find the Coolest Songs In The World series, I had to go to FYE instead of Best Buy since BB ended the promtion of Wicked Cool Records but with Wicked Cool going with a very bad digipak that scratched up the CD upon getting it out, chances are not good that I'll continue to review anymore of The Coolest Songs In The World series from Little Steven. Screw with the public and they're save up their bucks in time for the next great depression which is happening now.
If the major labels are worried now about crappy sales all I can say it going to get worse next year. Sony/BMG did slash prices on a lot of their back catalog to which you can buy on the cheap at Amazon.Com and some titles at Wally World but it's too late for them. I think in the end people are fed up, and there's much more in life than going to Best Buy for some crappy, overcompressed sounding new cds anymore. Music is no longer the main thing anymore. Once upon a time we listen to the radio for the new hit single or go to the independent music store to hear a album to impress us to get it. Not anymore. Radio continues to stink, playlist of rock radio are about thirty/forty years old and even the "real rock" stations play more Nirvana than Theroy Of A Deadman or ;-) the new Guns And Roses. We don't hear the new music like we once did, and since the old baby boomers don't care or like the new rap which has been the same old rap for 20 plus years that you hear on top forty, they don't listen to radio or bitch about it when it's played at work. They don't wanna hear it. Even the new kids today would rather fire up a old Led Zep song or Beatles since that music still remains as fresh as it did back then.
Which comes back to the question of My Love is Woo. That 'song' just doesn't have the same staying power as I Wanna Hold Your Hand or Rock n Roll. Which comes back to Rehab by Rhianna, it's a product of this time and it's product not music and nobody will remember it a year from now. The young generation has a big problem now and it's they don't have anybody that will make music with staying power and that includes Kanye West or Britney. Kanye remains the Terrill Owens of music/rap, all mouth and no substance. Britney is like the rash that keeps coming back at certain times, you think you're rid of her then she returns, triumphed in knowning that she scored the number three album of this week. Misson accomplished baby.
Music is no longer the choice of a new generation unless they're jamming to a faux paus band in Rock Star on the Playstation jamming to songs from the past. Maybe someday radio will grant the younger generation their own Kurt Cobain or Elvis Costello, or Presley, or even Jeff Buckley. But judging from what I see or read in the papers/net, or hear that's not going to happen anytime soon.
And so it goes.
