It's time for music to get real weird.
As we hit the half-way point in 2019, let’s entertain the notion that things can only get better.
Fanciful, I know. I won’t bore you with a laundry list of everything I believe is wrong these days. And of course we might not see eye to eye on all the items I’d put on that list. But hopefully we can agree on this general wish: I’d like to see a year filled with music that does more than simply provide solace and distraction. Not that I look down my nose at these things. But in the end, shouldn’t art, in terms of ultimate goals, aim higher than to soothe and distract? Call me an Anne of Green Gables dreamer, but I’m choosing to indulge in visions of big, bold music for 2019. A bumper crop of great songs, made by people I won’t be embarrassed to call “daddy” or “queen” on Instagram.
Here are my five wishes for music—wishes backed by prayer, and, if need be, payola.
1) A funk-metal revival.
Why do you laugh? Look, I won’t pretend this brief, pre-grunge genre was the best musical thing that’s happened in our lifetimes. I mean, I don’t break out my Psychefunkapus cassettes all that often. Like with ska, bands that added slap bass to thrash riffs had an unfortunate habit of shoehorning the word “funk” into their names. It was abundantly silly music that often lacked the lyrical heft of, uh, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
But there was also an appealing genre schizophrenia—a winning duality—that, when thumping in the sure hands of musicians like the dudes in Primus and Fishbone, felt brash and free. Or maybe I’m just bristling at the current nu-metal revival. (For those not following this stuff, nu-metal began with nineties rap-rock bands like Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, and now…it’s back.) If I’m going to have to live through white people with dreadlocks again, I’d like it to be accompanied by a horn section, not a backward baseball cap.
Incidentally, if funk-metal can’t come back, how about electroclash? Adults in crotchless rompers mixing new wave, techno, synth-pop, and performance art—who’s with me?
2) Ex-wife country music.
It would replace bro-country. Yes, I’m listening to the excellent new Pistol Annies album, Interstate Gospel, as I write this. I don’t have any skin in the “real country” versus “fake country” debate game. But I must say, the fact that the songs on this album don’t sound like Bon Jovi B-sides is a real plus. Also, it occurs to me that since there might be two or three ex-husbands reading this, I should probably amend my term and express a wish for…ex-spouse country music. Songs made by grown-ups that put a premium on living lives where love is believed in, at least fleetingly, and the stakes have real weight. People falling in love, proclaiming that love in front of God and family, and then, when it all falls apart, writing songs about something other than a pickup truck and the Daisy Dukes moldering in the cargo bed.
3) Adult-alienating hip-hop.
I’m 43. I don’t want to relate to what the kids like, because that would mean these kids are fucking boring. I want their music culture to baffle me. More face tattoos! More repetition of catchphrases over synth lines written on Texas Instruments calculators! Hell, more nihilism, if that’s what the kids are feeling. Who am I to tell them there’s a whole world of emotions to explore when the benzos run out? I hope that by December 31, 2019, I feel like Frank Sinatra at a Black Flag concert. Bing Crosby at GWAR. I want to be beaten to death by their skateboards as I sputter, “In my day, we listened to real music—like Tone Loc’s ‘Funky Cold Medina.’” Maybe that’s not how you would choose to check out, but I’d be fine getting ushered into the sweet hereafter by Lil’ Transient A$AP Pillduck or whomever.
4) The Chainsmokers get extinguished.
Remember, this is just a wish list. I’m sorry for this negative puff. I’m sure they’re nice guys (not really), this electronic dance music duo from the East Coast, Alex and Andrew, brown-haired young Americans. Unfortunately, their songs make me think of residual STDs scraped off the sides of a communal hotel hot tub during cleaning. And also, I don’t like them very much.
5) Resurgent music gets its due.
I’m hoping that listeners and critics alike realize that “new” is not the most important thing about music. (If it’s even important at all.) Of course, blatantly ripping people off is bullshit, but I wish for the adoption of a folk-music model. Meaning, if an artist today sounds like an older artist, it doesn’t mean they automatically suck. I’m not interested in getting bogged down in, say, the great Greta Van Fleet debate. True, they are most assuredly a Led Zeppelin facsimile, and just as assuredly are not my bag of frost giants. But if this band did exactly what they do with Zep for, say, Roxy Music or Lords of Acid, I’d be delighted.
People should be able to like what they like, and to see and hear that music in places beyond their phones. I just hope for the palette of influential old bands to be expanded beyond what it is today. There’s a bunch of great, overlooked outfits from the past. I hope new musicians buy their records and copy these bands instead. During this process, as a host of young bands inevitably do it wrong, one in a thousand will come up with something truly original. (By the way, if you do enjoy Greta Van Fleet, I highly recommend you seek out the first album by seventies German rockers Lucifer’s Friend.)
While being cool with familiar, comfort-food music, my ears open to the aural equivalent of Waffle House fare, I also hope, finally, that young musicians—safe in the knowledge that the future is grim—consequently get weirder and weirder. And I hope old musicians use their proximity to the grave as an excuse to do the same. The fact that Nick Cave is now a stadium act, to cite one example, gives permission to other aging musicians to do as Cave does and indulge their love of cabaret and ghost stories. Or consider Lorde, the electropop hit-maker from New Zealand, playing arenas on her 2018 Melodrama tour with opening acts Mitski, a New York indie songwriter, and hip-hop supergroup Run the Jewels. Such things tell young musicians that no industry insider knows anything, and that “pop” being short for “popular” can mean anything, now that the industry itself is dead.
The days of Beatles- or Michael Jackson-level communal experiences are over. The kids are making wild noise on computers, powered by dreams and Narcan. Rap doesn’t even have to rhyme anymore, baby. People say algorithms are the future, and they might be right, or maybe that’s just a thing to tell your Uber driver so you seem smart. Predicting the future is like telling God’s doorman that you’re on the guest list, plus one. It’s all pointless probably, but who’s complaining. There’s nothing — least of all money — to lose, so let’s get weird.
