And the Winner Is?

Next week is the Grammy Awards.  You and your Water Cooler Club watching?

I might.  I’m undecided.  I haven’t watched for the last few years. Some say it’s because I’m bitter ever since I lost my music industry job. Some also say that Pete Rose was bitter after they kicked him out of hockey, and he was a lot closer to the puck than I ever was to a Grammy, or the music industry, really. Trust me.

No, my “music industry” gig was playing “name that tune” for the radio machine, and selling playlists to the highest bidder. I was a sort of a radio & record James Bond, without the Martinis, the guns, or the women. Still, a pretty good gig while it lasted. It lasted till the same technology that brought you Shazam (the song identifier, not the super hero.) started naming all the music for me.

“Shazam! Shazam! Shazam!”

Yah, still wrong Shazam, Gomer Pyle.

And I, like Charlie Bucket’s father and the toothpaste factory, was out of a job. In a way I was bitter, but more like, “wow, that was a waste of time,” and not like “I’m with you Pete Rose! I hate music!”

Still, over the last few years, I’ve have kinda hated music, but that had nothing to do with my old job, Pete Rose or Gomer Pyle.  Okay, maybe Jim Nabors did freak me out a bit, but that was different.

“Well Sergeant Carter, have the lambs stopped screaming?”

Don’t remember that one? It’s a lost episode. Just like my music. 

Music has been on the downbeat for a few years.  There’s nothing new. That’s not to say there’s nothing good. I do like all the artists up for album of the year. Jack White, Mumford & Sons, Black Keys, Frank Ocean, and Fun.? All great. I don’t care who wins. They deserve it, but are they new? Not really. Not even Frank & Fun., who are up for the Best New Artist Award, don’t sound that new.  They sound like every other song on every other radio stations.

Good, but not new, and now it’s good and stale.

The good news is music is cyclical. For every down, there’s an up, and with every beat, there’s hope that things will get funky again and meet on the one. I’ve seen it happen before. When I was a kid, I was lolled into a stupor by disco, but shaken awake by punk and funk. That was the late 70’s early 80’s. The new music came as a backbeat to the gas crunch, high inflation, unemployment, and hostages in Iran. It came as a way to cope, and voice of dissatisfaction.

Then life got softer, and so did the music. Yuppies ruled, and money flowed. By the end of the 80’s a faceless army of hair-bands partied and rappers lost street cred. Paychecks written by mall rats paid for music’s soul and every musician danced to the same lifeless tune.

We didn’t worry, we were happy.

Then we went to Iraq, and woke up next to Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. A new high jobless rate drew us out of the mall in an early morning walk of shame.

“I hope I can get home before anybody sees me wearing Lycra.”

That’s not to say we sobered up, we just needed a new drug, different from the one Huey Lewis had sold us. Some found it the industrial haven of Nine Inch Nails, who built up a sonic wall, and preached the evils of God money. We were all game, until Trent told us what he wanted to do to us like an animal. Then we were really into him.

Nirvana came out sounding like a noise we’d never heard before. Something harmonious and brash and wailing, but always new, even compared to the grunge-clones we tried tying them to.

“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs…”

“Shazam! Shazam! Shazam!”

Tupac gave us California Love, and we only felt a little dirty for accepting it, and Oasis built us a Wonderwall. It was nice a gift.  Then life got better and the music suffered again, and it has been nothing but the same ever since.

Now, we’re enduring the worst recession, the mortgage industry has failed us, and jobs are harder to find than a long term Taylor Swift relationship.

“Shaza—“ It ain’t happening, Gomer. Give it up.

I’ve gone through the old pain and suffering, again. Now where the heck is my new music? Where’s my “Hell yah, that’s how I feel!”?  Where is my frackin’ consolation prize? Something is horribly wrong when so many American’s are unemployed for so long that we have to give them a name (the 99ers), and the only consolation that they get is Carly Rae Jepsen patting them gently on the back and saying, “Call Me, Maybe.” At least with Trent we got a reach around.

“I lost my home in 08 and all my banker got me was this Justin Bieber T-shirt.”

Now it’s Grammy time. I just don’t know if I have the heart to watch, because I don’t know if they’ve got the heart to make new music.