Corporate rock gave ’80s pop a bad name
These days, very few people have any use for Winger, Bon Jovi,
Poison or Motley Crue. The Whitesnake Fan Club no longer has need
for a large office. The possibility of White Lion putting a record
into the Billboard top 100 is about as likely as Newt Gingrich
lobbying for the legality of gay marriages.
I assume if you read this column on a semi-regular basis, and
perhaps even occasionally enjoy it, you’ll probably agree with me
when I say that the death of this so-called music represents a
quantum leap in good taste for humankind.
The corporate pop of the late ’80s  I hesitate to call it
"rock" because it had nothing to do with the form  saw the
rise of empty-headed, impotent posers who had more interest in
hairstyles and groupies than music. The decade vomited a whole army
of shallow, pretty-boy panderers who could only communicate at the
level of the lowest common denominator, either because that’s all
they felt their audience could understand, or maybe perhaps it was
because that was all they could understand (I choose the
latter).
It set new lows for marginally literate lyrical banalities and
clichés, and established new Guinness Records in the areas of
musical and emotional dishonesty. These bands had only one method
of expression: sentimental machismo, a stance invented by none
other than Journey, who have the dubious honor of being the Worst
Rock ‘n’ Roll Band Of All Time.
Is it fair of me to pick on music merely because it is
non-threatening, one-dimensional and blatantly commercial? I think
so. Is it too much for me to demand that rock music and the lyrics
that accompany them be sophisticated and creative and witty? It
shouldn’t be.
True, attacking such an easy target goes against all of my
principles as a writer  why waste my time and yours? As I’ve
claimed time and time again, a rock ‘n’ roller must challenge his
or her audience for his or her art to stay vital, a dictum that
should hold true for my art as well. By telling you Bon Jovi was an
abominable pseudopop outfit that took more from the world than it
gave, I imagine I’m telling you, my audience, nothing it doesn’t
know already.
But this week, I can’t resist.
Lovers of corporate ’80s pop argue for its superiority on the
basis of its lyrical simplicity, as opposed to alternative rock’s
complexity, which challenges the intellectually impaired through
its use of metaphor, ambiguity, irony and convoluted meaning.
Corporate pop fans accuse alternative rock stars and their fans for
being cynical, which in this context must mean that the alternative
crowd has the nerve of actually choosing to think.
Claiming that ’80s corporate pop is worthier than today’s music
for these reasons is ludicrous. Why on earth would you claim that
you’re not intelligent enough to be able to comprehend something
deeper than Whitesnake’s breathtakingly poetic "Now you’re gone / I
can feel my heart is aching?"
It’s like claiming John Grisham is superior to James Joyce
because Grisham utilizes smaller words and shorter paragraphs and
deals with concepts a two-year-old could understand. It’s like
claiming "Peanuts" cartoons are superior to the works of Picasso
because Charles Schulz draws in shapes that look like "real
things." It’s like claiming television is a superior medium to
print because with watching TV, you don’t have to bothered to put
forth any intellectual effort.
One could counter that ’80s rock dealt with political issues. I
mean, please. Poison’s insufferably pathetic "Something To Believe
In," to cite one of many odious examples, told the story of a
Vietnam Vet. Well yeah, so what. So did Danielle Steele’s "Message
From Nam." Who cares? Did either work (or perhaps I should say,
"product") add anything new to the great store of human knowledge?
As I’ve argued before, addressing social issues does not give your
art legitimacy, particularly if addressing them in a banal and
hackneyed manner is your idea of deep insight.
And as rock pundits Jimmy Guterman and Owen McDonnell have
noted, the less controversial a cause, the less likely the
respective artist will be committed to it. Take White Lion’s
"Broken Home." Is anybody, even White Lion’s most brain dead fans,
really in favor of child abuse? In the case of the Poison song,
everyone and their mother was writing anti-Vietnam songs in the
’80s  it’s not like Poison went out on a limb writing one.
And let’s look at the context these lyrics are in: as Greil Marcus
noted, bad politics (like the Sex Pistols’ horrifying "Bodies") can
sometimes lead to great art; bad art will always lead to bad art,
no exceptions.
Personally, I would have loved to have seen Skid Row write a
song condemning violence against homosexuals. Now that would have
challenged the ’80s corporate pop audience. Instead, I got a
neanderthal lead singer named Sebastian Bach who wore a shirt that
read AIDS KILLS FAGS DEAD. I would have liked to have seen an ’80s
corporate pop video that wasn’t insulting to women, but instead I
got a
million videos that prominently featured a scantily clad,
scorching hot babe preening for the camera.
It seems redundant to pick apart ’80s corporate pop lyrics,
since doing so requires more thought than the lyricists in question
put into them. How about Bon Jovi’s terminally lame "Livin’ On A
Prayer," in which Former Big Thing and Eternal Meathead Jon Bon
Jovi bellows, "Cause it doesn’t make a difference if we make it or
not … Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear." As other writers have
noted before, if it doesn’t matter that they make it, why is he
asking her to try? Why not just sit at home, drink beer and shoot
pool? And what the hell are they trying to accomplish in the first
place? Hey, forget internal contradictions and vague sentiments
 I’m just trying to score a hit single with pre-pubescent
boys and girls of all ages!
But rock critics, rock fans and others capable of rational
thought didn’t despise this stuff merely on the basis of its
sometimes asinine, sometimes hateful, always stupid lyrics. They
despised it also because of the music itself, which took all the
elements essential to good rock ‘n’ roll and puked on them.
Through slick production and assembly line guitar work, ’80s
corporate pop sanded down all of rock’s edges and cooled down all
of its fires, and turned it into a flimsy parody. It’s called
"corporate" because it’s standard issue, generic bombast that
sounds like everybody else who churns out that tripe.
Say what you will about alternative rock, but does Nirvana sound
like R.E.M. or Beck or Soundgarden? No, not in the slightest. If it
weren’t for vocalists, I wouldn’t be able to tell Whitesnake from
Bon Jovi from Winger: same guitar sound, same drum sound, same
clothes, same hair, same blondes populating their videos. Corporate
’80s bands are about as distinctive from each other as paramecia,
which is probably an insult to single celled organisms.
If ’80s corporate pop is the highest level at which you can
grasp entertainment, you and I have absolutely nothing in common,
intelligence included.
Yes, alternative rock is the current trend, and it is possible
that it will fade as a moneymaker. But it will never fade from rock
history; it has already made an indelible mark on musicians,
critics and fans in a way that Winger never will.
Still, I’m sure there are some of you are waiting for the day
when Whitesnake will make a comeback and their ilk will the rule
the charts again. If you’re one of those people, just remember that
you get what you deserve.
Tatum thinks that the Indigo Girls and all of their overwrought
fans should just lighten up. His column appears every
Wednesday.