I regret today, that I have to be the bearer of bad news. Sadly,
the inimitable duo of Donald and Double had to go back to
Princeton.
After they experienced the enlightenment of classical music,
they decided to go back to school and impart their wonderful Los
Angeles knowledge to their less fortunate East Coast peers (also
their moms found out where they were and told them to come back or
else).
Henceforth these precious few lines of entertainment journalism
will be devoted to a more straight ahead and regrettably less
narrative critique of the phenomenon gamely referred to as popular
culture.
Popular culture is an ever-changing phenomenon. Popular opinion
sways at the drop of a hat, changes from year to year and even day
to day.
Or, that’s the general theory anyway.
I have a different idea. Changes in popular culture tend to come
in quick waves, but this only makes a dramatic impact on the
culture when the art behind the cultural shift is substantial
itself. In fact, if big business’ (which, let’s face
it, is for better or worse our pop culture provider) product lacks
any real artistic merit, they start to mine the past. What could be
easier than recycling old money-makers to make more money?
Exhibit A (and this is a big one, so don’t get all excited
for exhibit B because there isn’t one; deal with it): this
week’s Billboard 200 album charts. The list is filled with
all different genres of music, whatever the public (populous)
happens to be buying.
It’s funny because this week the public is buying two of
the hottest artists ““ from 30 years ago. That’s right
the top two billboard chart positions are held by those rascally
young kids, Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones.
It’s funny because Elvis hasn’t been alive for 25
years, and the Rolling Stones hasn’t released any music of
artistic or cultural relevance for at least that long. This is
purely an instance of recycling icons.
By mining these ancient artists’ old catalogues and
finding the relevant, youthful and fiery-spirited music that
affected generations past, corporate culture has an easy way to
affect the current kids who don’t know better. Now,
it’s not strange that greatest hits collections are moving a
lot of units. Artists from the Eagles to James Taylor have had
massive success with similar compilations.
The incredible thing is that both the Stones and Elvis have
numerous greatest-hits collections already out there, which have
sold well. The success of these collections is not a total surprise
since they both seemed inevitable after the juggernaut Beatles
“1” collection.
The saddest thing is that if you take a quick look at the rest
of the top 10 albums on the chart, it makes perfect sense that the
old classics are No. 1 and 2. Originality and popularity have never
necessarily gone hand in hand, but in these oh-so-conservative
times, big business and the masses have agreed on not pushing those
boundaries.
I’m with the general public since I agree that buying
Stones and Elvis records is a much better option than the
manufactured muck that passes for mainstream music today. But
it’s regrettable that people are getting their quality
“classic” rock in such formulaic doses, and even more
so that people don’t give a collective middle finger to the
mainstream, and insist on buying their music at elitist independent
establishments (idealistic, ain’t I? Fight the power! Rock
‘n’ roll).