Music Still Matters

Or at least it should matter.

Anyone else tired about music commentators who use their spotlight or bully pulpit to attack and critique rather than inspire readers, watchers and listeners of music? Instead these angry critics just yammer on and on about how no new music will be as cool as it was when they were 19, 21, or whatever mythical personal or musical age that mattered to them once upon a time.  Thing that makes us laugh is these so-called ‘opinion makers’ complain and then complain some more but never offer us any solution to the problems with music that keep them from sleeping at night. It must be a miserable existence for them.  All that anger and nothing good to sit back and listen to when you get home at the end of the day.

Like many of us I used to enjoy reading some of the great music criticism. Lester Bangs hated and loved music.  He held more love for it than hate, that is what made him so perfect.  He burned with a passion for the great song.  Robert Christgau? Terribly overlooked by successive generations and the Dean of music criticism when he wrote for The Village Voice.  JD Constadine?  Amazing critic who knew music history and understood the interconnectedness of all music.  Yeah, could go on and on here… but in the end, what do all of these critics have in common?  Affection for music and the act of creating music, that is what they had.  What do most of today’s critics have?  What artistry do they bring to the subject?  That is, other than anger or strange love for American Idol?

This is why I have to comment about so much raving about the superbowl show by The Who.  First, some respect.  The Who are one of the best live bands in the rock and roll canvas.  Pure and simple.  This is a band that could be beautiful one minute, achingly raw the next, and intense at the end.  Second, the superbowl halftime show is not about music, it is about spectacle.  Do we care if a performer plays medleys or for just a wee bit more than ten minutes?  Does it matter if a halftime performer plays to a click track or incorporates some pre-recorded music? This is not a real live concert. It is a simulation meant to entertain.  And, yes I am bothered when live performers are not playing live music.  But having the time to set up is not a luxury one has at the halftime show of the superbowl.

Third, age does not really matter.  Several so-called music critics are attacking the choice of The Who over choices of younger bands.  Because the assumption is that younger bands are always better than older bands.  What?  Huh?  Really?  As for the whole age thing here, I never hear anyone complain that BB King is still doing shows. Or Buddy Guy.  Bill Evans played a series of show then went home to die.  Let’s not attack on the basis of age, ok?  There are older bands that are amazing and there are younger bands that just simply will suck the life out of your soul and wonder where the time went.

Am I tired of people who listen and write about music but instead of inspiring us to listen to great new and old music and instead just tear down the whole enterprise because they can?  Yeah, I am.