Society pushes music….but sometimes music pushes society
The hallways of my Junior High School and probably yours, were filled with concert t-shirts. Motley Crue, Ozzy, Run DMC, Aerosmith and Kurtis Blow were a few you would see. The way we dressed, the way we wore our hair, the “kicks” we wore and the attitudes we displayed could easily been seen in our movement between classes. The “Heads” (The Rockers) of the school were big on wearing long hair, black concert shirts, faded jeans and Vans shoes. The “Rap”(The Rap-Hip Hoppers) crowd would wear their parachute pants, with lines cut out of their haircuts, colorful shoes and their favorite Rap groups on their t-shirts.
The music of the MTV generation moved people in a direction by what we saw our music heroes were doing in their world. The clothes, the hair, the personas being thrown at us by the music industry were pushing us all to want to be like what we saw on music videos and what we heard in the lyrics of the music. “My Adidas” bumped into the speakers at a Junior High dance would make us crave the brand the boys from New York were singing about. When the LA Heavy Metal group Quiet Riot yelled those words, “Bang Your Head”, we all wanted to do the same. Music mattered. Today music matters. But I see that one of the two big 1970’s-1980’s genres of music fell out of the mainstream, while one evolved and is now one of the most influential cultural molding triggers for the new generation.
Rock and Roll music was the buzz of the entire country of the 1970’s and 80’s. There was Rock, Southern Rock, Heavy Metal and what some call “Hair Band” music. The music was all about the famous, “Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll” mentality. Loud guitars, with guitar solos and guitar “Gods” laying the licks on the fret boards. The crazy and out of control drummers. The fixture was the longed-hair, good looking, screaming front man setting the tone for the band with sexy, partying lyrics. Most of the bands were white kids from all across the country. The majority were either from the Los Angeles Sunset Strip scene, or got there as fast as they could. The influence of these “Party all-night” bands that saturated MTV and Headbangers Ball were a staple to a youth growing up at that time.
There was also an inner-city movement of lyricist coming out of the Brooklyn-Queens area in the 1970’s that would change the game for music for decades. Disco music was tearing up the New York scene but at the same time there was new sound coming just a few neighborhoods away. The bass, the hooks, the beats and the raps were all something new to hear for the young people. It was dance crazy, with a little sprinkle of lyrical rhythms, added with a story of the hard times of the day in word. What used to be inner city youths standing on a street corner battling back and forth rhymes was now coming through the speakers of the big city radio stations. And it was about to spread to the west coast, the south and even the Midwest over the next decade. A movement-culture was about to sweep the nation. Not just the black community….but to the white suburbs. Neither side was ready for the full impact.
At the height of the Rock and Roll-Heavy Metal rage it was in full effect. Arenas, shopping malls, outdoor music festivals and stadiums were being overflowed with the “long haired hippie people” and the culture was eating it up. It was so fun and so happening. It was songs about “Tommy and Gina” trying to make it. Songs about rebellion, innuendos about sex, running away and coming back. (The Boys are Back in Town) We were skinnier, and we all smoked Marlboro’s. We drank Budweiser and held up our lighters for the “Heavy Metal Ballad”. It all felt good. It all felt like it would last forever. But….it didn’t. As Seattle was about to launch a angry anthem of bands to the world….Grunge was about to kill Rock and Roll.
Hip-Hop was just getting bigger and louder. The west coast scene of NWA, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, Too Short was sparking something that was truly a phenomenon. These street lyrics about the hardships of the neighborhood, police brutality, the economic struggles of the time and the need to be heard was strolling straight out of Compton and flowing through the speakers in places like Indiana, Kansas, Texas and Florida. Smaller towns across the country were getting thrown right into the sounds of the Hip Hop game by mainstream radio. A lot was changing, and it spread like wildfire. What started in New York and spun into California was now spreading to talent in Houston, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit and Chicago.
While Hip-Hop was building and evolving, Rock and Roll was dying. Grunge had stopped it in its tracks. What once was the culture setting music, was now being remember as the “Has been”. Grunge didn’t have the same good feeling as Rock and Roll did. Grunge was darker, even at times angry and depressing. The clothes weren’t the craze anymore; just like the guitar solo wasn’t either. Bands weren’t less talented, but they weren’t interested in showcasing the instruments as much as they were a message about the society. Not the partying society and culture, but the spotlight went to the dark side of society. No longer was music being made to take your mind off your problems and tell you to go “Rock and Roll all night and party everyday”, it was telling you to talk and think about your problems and concerns about society.
Hip Hop kept the peddle to the metal and by the turn of the 21st Century, Hip Hop was King of the two genres that rocked the late 20th Century. Hip Hop did something that Rock and Roll didn’t do, it evolved. It became a huge influence not just in the inner city, but with all parts of our country. I would be at a red light waiting for it to change and I’d here, “Nothin but a G Thang” bumping and look beside me and it’s coming right out of a jacked-up, Chevy Truck with 24-inch rims and a Redneck-White Boy singing word for word with Snoop. The way we talk, walk and dress is now more determined by this music genre than any other. It’s a hard pill to swallow, not because of what Hip Hop has done, but in reality, it’s what Rock and Roll didn’t.
Name one Rock and Roll band with its members in their early 20’s today that play guitar solos? How about a drum solo? Heck, I’d take a song with a fun-filled chorus aligned with a distortion peddle rocking the treble of my speakers. In all reality that music is gone, except for the old school rockers of the 1970’s and 80’s that are holding on with the resurgence of what I call “The old guys tour”. Rock and Roll is dead. Dead and gone. The guitar sounds and the harmonizing choruses are a thing for SiriusXM, not for the new kids learning to be the next Randy Rhodes or John Bonham. Musicians have been replaced with sound boards and beat machines. I don’t like it. Hell, I don’t have to like it.
Our culture and our country have shifted in our music as well as our diversity. Evolution is that way. Nothing stays the same but sometimes you hope for the same thing getting better. Hip Hop found the way to continue the movement. Rock and Roll did not. No more Rock and Roll Anthems or Head-Banging, hands in the air pumping to a guitar solo. Blame Nirvana if you want. Even Peral Jam or Stone Temple Pilots. But in my mind blame society because it changed the music buy what the music did to society. Don’t be mad at Hip-Hop. You might as well sit back, relax and “Let’s chill ’til the next episode” of the evolution.
The Coach John Brent
