sex, drugs, and ROCK AND ROLL (part 3 of 3)

Let me reach back to the origin of rock and roll as it emerged in the early 1950's. Traditional rock and roll drew upon aspects of blues, jazz, bebop and many of the popular sounds of the 20's and 30's. What helped to really drive this movement forward was the introduction of more predominant back beats, such as that of the snare drum.

During the 1950's and 60's it quickly became the sound of teenagers. As we all know, what is now simply referred to as rock music had a significant impact on the social and cultural movements of the time. Much of the music was used to challenge sociocultural paradigms that existed, and provided a commentary upon the movements taking place.

Over the course of the past 60 years rock and roll has branched out and in turn formed many sub genres from alternative rock, to punk rock, to metal, and of the list obviously goes on and on. What I find disappointing today however, is the sheer volume of rock available to the general public. With programs like garage band and audacity pretty much anyone can make, record and release music to the public.

While what music is considered 'good' is of course relative, the sheer volume of crap available makes it much more difficult to find something truly amazing. These days most rock sounds the same. I seldom hear unique chords, be it progressions, combinations, and the like. As someone who experiments with and composes music when it tickles my fancy, I certainly understand how difficult it often is to try and come up with something unique, that sounds unreal.

Most people I would venture to say will never make it to that point in their lives. I know I have not, and I'm not expecting to. But I'm not about to foist myself headfirst into the music industry and think its amazing. Perhaps at our origins of rock and roll, it was only the lucky few that were able to force their way through that musical barrier into stardom, because they were considered great.

If you compare the amount of technology available at the time to the number of celebrated artists, I'm sure most people could find a correlation. I'm glad that more people are having the opportunity to showcase their music with greater levels of technology, because amongst those that may not have had a lucky break are some extremely talented musicians. It just frustrates me slightly that there are oodles of people who think so highly of themselves and believe that their music is amazing, and we must sift through it to find the greatness.