To be Fourteen and Inspired

In a New York Times opinion piece last week, David Hajdu wrote about how the music we’re exposed to as fourteen year-olds correlates with the creative output of tomorrow.  Fourteen is an age for developing personal tastes, and as artists like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson turn seventy, it’s interesting to see how rock and roll’s infancy influenced and inspired these great artists when they were fourteen, allowing them to envision a world that up until then didn’t exist.  One minute they were listening to Perry Como and Nat King Cole with their parents, and suddenly Elvis burst onto the scene, forever altering the musical construct.

A friend of mine with whom I graduated high school pointed out this article to me, and then made mention of who was big when we were fourteen years-old.  He wrote facetiously, “Other than Juice Newton and 38 Special, I just don’t see it.”

Perhaps, though when I think back to 1981 and 1982, “Queen of Hearts” and “Hold on Loosely” aren’t the first songs that come to mind.  I’m thinking more like “Subdivisions” by Rush, “Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel, Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out,” Prince’s “1999” and Duran Duran’s “Rio.”  But you could just as easily think of “Back on the Chain Gang” by the Pretenders, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by The Clash or “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes.  There was plenty of stuff – both good and bad – to capture the imagination of a young pimple-faced soul at the time.

You could make the argument that after the initial rock revolution, there were so many genres and sub-genres of music that it was difficult for a particular band or artist to be life-altering the way, say, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis or Buddy Holly were back in the day.  If you ask a hundred 70 year-olds to name the influential artists of 1956, I bet you’ll get the same answers nine times out of ten.  On the other hand, try asking a hundred 43 year-olds to highlight the music of 1982, and I bet you’ll get ninety different answers.  There was just so much to choose from, and so much of it could have been considered trailblazing at the time, inspiring future artists to take up a guitar, a synthesizer or a saxophone, but none of it was MOMENTOUS (with the possible exception of Thriller, though I’d happily exclude this from my playlist).

Today, now that the digital revolution has firmly taken hold, music is even further diluted.  I recall hearing stories about how in 1967 St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band could be heard up and down college campuses, and any summarization of my freshman year of college wouldn’t be complete without mentioning The Joshua Tree leaking through every doorway of my dormitory.  But today, I’m not sure there’s an artist that could command that sort of widespread appeal, not due to a lack of artistry or genius, but due to a fundamental change in the music industry.  My daughters turn fourteen this year, and there isn’t an artist that appeals to their class on the whole – tastes are all over the place.

So what about 1981 and 1982?  Did those years inspire the great artists of the next two decades the way 1955 and 1956 did?

Well, they must have made an impression on someone, because here are the artists who turned 14 during ’81 and ’82:

Kurt Cobain

Dave Matthews

Thom Yorke (of Radiohead)

Billy Corgan

Liz Phair

David Grohl

Gwen Stefani

Perhaps not in the same league as McCartney, Dylan and Simon, but still, not too shabby.

Broadening My Lexicon essay broadcasted on 89.7 WUWM Milwaukee

Press play to listen to my essay broadcasted on 89.7 WUWM's Lake Effect program on May 13, 2011.

May 13, 2011 Broadening My Lexicon

Paul Heinz

A Tale of Two Movies: A Lousy Winner and a Fabulous Loser

I had the great misfortune last weekend of watching what has got to be among the worst Best Picture Oscar winners ever: Chariots of Fire, 1981’s victor in a field of forgettable movies (Raiders of the Lost Ark notwithstanding).  Ask my family to trust me again with a movie selection and you’ll likely start a fist-fight. 

I’ve been trying to get the five of us to watch films none of us have seen before, and it seemed reasonable that a PG Oscar winner with a hummable theme might fit the bill.  After all, we all saw The King’s Speech at a theater a few months ago with great success (albeit with a bit of restlessness from my son), so I know that my kids are able to handle a movie that doesn’t offer explosions, wizards or fart jokes.  And my first attempt to expand our horizons, 1973’s Paper Moon, while not a resounding success, was deemed enjoyable enough to allow me another crack at picking a movie.  Unfortunately, not only does Chariots of Fire not have explosions, wizards or fart jokes, it also doesn’t have Tatum O’Neil and lacks what I deem to be essential in filmmaking: a reason to be filmed. 

My daughter’s summation of 1981’s Oscar winner: “It wasn’t about anything.  Nothing happened.  There wasn’t even a main character, really.”  Well, there kind of was a main character, but why we should care about him is beyond me.  The guy has to overcome anti-Semitism, which you would think might offer just a hint of interest for a Jewish family, but…um…no, actually.  And the synthesized music clashes with a period piece that takes place in the 1920s, and not in a cool, ironic “Moulin Rouge” sort of way, but in a “man, this music is just plain awful” sort of way. 

Lousy film.  If I’m being generous, I give it a two-stars on a four star scale, four on a scale of one to ten.

On the flipside, I had the pleasure of re-watching a film that didn’t even make the Best Picture category in 1989: Do the Right Thing (and no, I didn’t watch this one with the kids).  Viewing it for the first time in twenty years, I was amazed at how this movie still cuts to the core of race relations.  When the film was originally released, some reviewers were critical of the tumultuous ending and the motives behind it, and at the time I was probably among those who agreed with these criticisms.  Viewing it again, however, made me appreciate how deftly Spike Lee illuminated multiple sides of racial divide, exposing prejudices and failings of all people while humanizing the characters with witty and biting dialogue. 

The biggest flaw in this film is the same as it ever was: Radio Raheem, whose death incites a riot, isn’t shown to be a fully fleshed out character, but rather a cardboard cutout of a man.  We don’t particularly care when he dies because we’re not given a reason TO care about him.  But never mind.  When Kim Basinger announced at the Oscar ceremony in 1990, “The best film of the year is not even nominated and it's Do the Right Thing.” she was spot-on.

So add Do the Right Thing to the ever-growing list of notorious Oscar snubs.  And is Chariots of Fire the worst Best Picture winner ever?  Well, I still haven’t seen Gladiator, so it’s hard to say.  But I’ve read that Spike Lee likes to refer to 1989’s winner, Driving Miss Daisy, as Driving Miss Motherf***ing Daisy.

So I guess we know what Mr. Lee’s vote is.

A Giant Sucking Sound? What will become of Rock and Roll?

In 1992, presidential candidate Ross Perot warned Americans about the “giant sucking sound” of U.S. jobs fleeing to Mexico if NAFTA passed.  It did, and – for reasons probably having nothing to do with NAFTA – the U.S. went on to have eight years of rapid growth.   Maybe this example of exceeded expectations is reason enough to be slightly optimistic about what will happen to rock and roll once the current wave of aging rockers crashes into a shore of social security, nursing homes and…cemeteries. 

But one could be forgiven for having a slightly bleak outlook.

Just one look at the Chicago area concerts this summer gives reason for concern.  Consider the following acts:

Jimmy Buffet , Paul Simon, Rush, Styx, Bob Segar, Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan, Robert Plant and Journey.

The average age of those acts – not including Styx’s and Journey’s young replacements – is about 61.  Paul Simon will be turning 70 this year.  Jimmy Buffett?  65.  And then there are other aging bands coming to the area: Foghat, Asia, Yes, Nightranger, Motley Crue – the list goes on and on.

In ten years, when all of these acts are gone, what will fill the void?  Sure, there are plenty of popular young musicians on tour this year: Kate Perry, Taylor Swift, R Kelly, Rihanna, Josh Groban, Carrie Underwood…but you have to wonder whether in twenty years people will be willing to shell out wads of cash to see – say – an aging Lady Gaga.

And this really isn’t a knock on today’s artists; there are plenty of bands today that excite me.  But times have changed, and the age of long-lasting rockers with huge followings could be over, replaced instead by musicians who are compartmentalized by geography or niche genres. 

Gone are the days of the nurtured band who’s allowed to grow and audience over time, gaining allegiance and hard-core fans who can name the deep tracks.  Record companies can’t afford to do this anymore, and we as listeners have adjusted the way we listen to music, withholding the devotion, patience and money that music careers so often require. 

Purchasing a song on iTunes for 89 cents doesn’t really ensure a long career or even a follow-up album.  Have you heard anything recently from Daniel Powter?  Do you even know who he is?  Billboard Magazine named Powter the last decade’s top one-hit wonder.  “Bad Day” might have been a huge hit five years ago for Powter, but he couldn’t sell out an arena today, partly because few people actually purchased his album; they purchased his song, and a song does not an arena band make. 

Of course, there have always been one-hit wonders, and one can hope that the Foo Fighters, Kid Rock, The Counting Crows, Kings of Leon, Dave Matthews Band can hang in there for a while and hold down the fort while other acts build an audience.   I’ve no doubt that new performers will rise to the challenge. 

But it could be a couple of ugly years.