Melophobia

I tell you,
I can't hear
a song that
doesn't crack
me up. It's
all funny
to me.

I mean,
seriously?
We're going
to pretend
that in a
hundred years
people are still
going to care
about the music
acts more than
the music?
That's a failure
of the music,
or a failure
of the acts,
to be something
that transcends
experience and
becomes part
of our
cultural
experience.

Tell me how
many acts
from even
a hundred
years ago,
when recording
was already
in full bloom,
that you can
name. I mean,
even Sinatra,
who became
perhaps the first
breakout act
to be put
on record,
was known for
and performed
standards, which
is just another
name for what
every song becomes,
even if it's not
the cool way
to refer to them,
folk music,
just something
someone will
casually
incorporate
rather than
obsess over
its popularity
because of the
act that makes
it famous.
Bob Dylan?
That's the guy
who blew the lid
off the myth,
and he's still
not being
understood.
No wonder
he plays the blues.

The only thing
from the age of
recording that
will still be
around in
a hundred years
is film, and we
know even now
in what form,
as a curio
still more will
be doing over
again, because
unlike books
or even paintings,
it was born in
a time of great
transparency,
when DeMille
was remaking
his own Commandments
(and making it
more popular
the second time),
when the great stars
were cemented,
at least for
a few years.
As the techniques
evolve, so will
the interests,
which is not to say
something once
revered will become
irrelevent, but rather
will lose the mystique
that just because
it was a first,
it was among the best.
People will still
make these things
and there will
still be audiences
and all these things
will just sort of
linger and be
appreciated
like old books.
The classics are
only beginning
to emerge,
despite what they say.
The medium is young.
And there truly is
always a second time
to get it right.

In music, the second
time and the third time
and every time after
is a continuing test,
because in music,
it's a constant
understanding, in
whatever form, that
must take place,
either by the artist
or by the audience.
You can get it wrong
a million times and
still get it right
and that product
can outlive a bloodline.

And yet, all you hear
is how much better it is
to like an act no one
hears now and still won't
long down the line,
an act of self-loathing
because popularity
is anathema
unless you see
that you too can cash in.

It's a hell of a time
to be alive.