(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
Technically, I think a decade is ending tonight. Or maybe it ended on Dec. 31, 2009. I don’t really care- New Year’s Eve 2010 feels like the end of a decade, and a good excuse for a random pop culture apocalypse: the decade in music.
Ten years ago, I was a thirty-three year old hipster-doofus living in Austin Texas soaking up all-girl Japanese speed metal bands at SXSW. These days as a busy father of three, I don’t get out quite as much. That’s okay, as all-girl Japanese speed metal bands are only good the first time anyway.
Anyhoo, here are what I think are a few music highlights from the last decade.
The biggest change in music over the decade was a shift in the industry itself. The rise of Napster, Ipods and Itunes has killed/is killing the era of record labels getting bands to put one or two popular songs on an album/cd with a collection of lesser efforts and sticking the fan for $15. No thanks- we’ll take the good song for 99 cents, thank you very much.
I came to appreciate what a huge change this was years ago when I a buddy of mine were in Rain in Vegas and we witnessed a basketball arena sized dance club of 20 somethings completely freak out when the DJ played “ABC” by the Jackson Five. I asked a guy next to me “how do you kids even know about this song? Was it on the O.C. or something?” He just said “Dude- this song is totally awesome!”
My next experience along these lines was in a karaoke bar in DC with a group of friends. As a canary in the coal mine for what was to come, a 21 year old looking kid from Georgetown sang “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, and the place went bananas. Kids were jumping on their chairs, people were going nuts, and I was stunned. “This song was released when I was in 8th grade- how can these kids even be aware of it?” I asked.
“Get with it grandpa!” came the reply.
After that, Don’t Stop Believing went through a pop-culture renaissance that I never would have dreamed possible, led of course by this:
It’s tempting to crown Don’t Stop Believing as the techno-zombie resurrection song of the decade, but there was some good original stuff. I was in a hotel room on business in 2009, and was watching the MTV video music awards out of sheer boredom. I was feeling my age: the whole thing seemed entirely juvenile and absurd. I was watching it mostly out of morbid fascination. The host, that British guy who is currently married to Katy Perry for the next few months, is distilled obnoxious in a bottle.
Anyway, the big build up, Mr. Perry announces that Jay-Z is in a car in Manhattan on his way for the final performance. The tension builds- scenes of the limo driving…Jay-Z walking through the building…
I thought to myself “This is going to totally suck. There is no way this is going to deliver on this much hype.” Early in the song, Jay-Z refers to himself as “the modern-day Sinatra” and I thought “I knew it- this guy is setting himself up for failure.”
But then, about a third of the way in, I started to change my mind. By the end, I was blown away by An Empire State of Mind:
Jay-Z may have 99 problems, but being unable to deliver aint one.
Despite Jay-Z, there can be little doubt that the music industry is in decline. The biggest grossing tours from this year: Bon Jovi and AC/DC. No, that is not a misprint. The fracturing of music into micro-genres makes it difficult for any new act to rise into Rolling Stones/U2 type of global dominance. I heard Alice Cooper discussing his I-tunes inspired popularity in Europe (who knew?) and he basically said that the new acts are at a severe disadvantage these days, because they must compete with the greatest hits of the past, not just with each other. I don’t think Jay-Z is worried about competing with Alice, but I think Alice has a point.
Dinosaur acts can still rock though:
Some day, I’ll have to write an entire post on why I both hate and dig Robert Plant. In the meantime, this collaboration with Alison Kraus was cool:
I seem to have a fascination with duets, really liked this one from Moby and Gwen Steffani:
Nothing of course beats a good spoof. I thought this one was great. When it came out, one of my 20 something coworkers thought the lead singer was hot, and another appreciated the satire. Mix spoof and nostalgia, drink up a tasty cocktail:
The dropping cost of video production now means people can make their own videos. I get a kick out what a group of California film students did with the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah song “Maps.” Low-tech creepy geeky cool:
Of course, the ability to do inexpensive audio remixes has led to the advent of the mash-up. Also known as “bastard pop” this basically entails taking the music from one song and inserting the vocal performance of another. Most of these are not worth a listen, but when it works it is great fun:
and:
and:
Overall, I’d give the last ten years a B-plus, but only because of resurrection factor. Maybe I’m just too old to “get” Lady Ga-Ga. Feel free to enlighten me with links in the comments!
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
One of my favourite trends resulting from cheap video editing has to be alternate music videos, at least when they’re well done. This one is probably my favourite example of it – it actually made me like Troy, which is a truly impressive feat.
I have a theory on your Plant love/hate relationship: your college roommate playing the Physical Graffiti LP ad nauseum during your sophomore year.
The Astley and Nirvana bit made me both see and hear double simultaneously. Exquisitely dissonant in an oddly pleasing way that left a kink in my neck.
Alsadius- I hope prices will keep falling, so I can go and remake the second Star Wars trilogy on my laptop. Goodbye Jar-Jar, podracing and “hold me like you did on Naboo.”
Maximus-after hearing Stairway played every hour on the hour for 19 years, that probably didn’t help.
Daniel- Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirt Up = Pure Genius.
Pure genius indeed… even masterfully edited. Been stuck in my head all day.
Ok — I’m sorry — but you’ve hit a sore spot.
Are you claiming that Empire State of Mind is a GOOD song? That’s just preposterous.
One — It’s a bad song about New York. It does not at all convey the experience of living in New York. It’s a listing of places and things that (sort of) happen there…many of them very trite. It’s actually a version of New York that you would recognize if you have visited a few times and paid attention, but not if you live there and loved it, which Jay-Z did (does?). Yes, Tribeca and Bed Sty are real places. But the song conveys no feeling about what it’s like to actually live in them. For those interested in a song that actually conveys some emotion about the place (though I don’t entirely agree with its argument) see LCD Soundsystem’s New York I Love You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JkBiP7rPt0
(indecently, I’ve never been more upset at a concert then when LCD Soundsystem played part of the Jay-Z song.
Two — the song is horribly trite. “Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of”….”Since I made it here I can make it anywhere” Come on. They couldn’t come up with something less cliche’ than that?
Three — it’s actually an example of just how horribly commercial most music started to get in the last decade. The song is entirely about making money —- Jay-Z had to be sitting around saying to himself, “Gee, I bet if I get Alicia Keys to say ‘New York’ over and over again, put in an ok beat, and rattled off a few things about NYC, everyone in Gotham will buy it and everyone in middle America who wishes they lived in the city would dream about it. In fact, this entirely explains why a born-and-bred New Yorker would write such a trite song about New York — the song is contorted to fit into an Ohio teenager’s preconception of what New York is like so that he will buy the record.
Now, I have nothing against Jay-Z making money, or even with his having entirely commercial ambitions. But acting like what is produced from those ambitions is actually good music is just too much. For clarity on just how bad it’s gotten — entering the new decade the world’s biggest star is Lady Ga Ga, whose entire purpose is to become more and more famous without any other consideration or care about what is being produced.
Lady Ga Ga is the legacy of the last decade of pop music — heaven help us.
Does this song do a better job of reminding you what it is like to live in an Empire State of Mind?
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1931187
Marcus-
I noticed that the song you linked to has 611 likes on Youtube, which makes sense. Yes, a song about how it sucks to live in New York is more authentic than a song about how great it is, but who wants to listen to it?
Think of it this way- do we want to watch movies about real spies? No- real spies for the most part are boring people who do everything they can to avoid being noticed.
We want to watch James Bond movies.
As for commercialism, when would it have been not commercial? Frank Sinatra grew up in New Jersey, but sang at least two songs I can think of about the greatness of Chicago. I saw him substitute “St. Louis” for Chicago to please a crowd in Mizzou.
The shameless gold-digger!