Still Kickin’

Popular musicians have existed for all of history, but until recorded music came along (invented in 1877 but not commercialized until 1892), only a small portion of the population ever heard them, and there was no way (other than memory) to compare them to who came before. So, it wasn’t until the 1910s that a younger generation was really able to dismiss their parents music as old-fashioned tripe and for parents to decry their offspring’s preferred music as newfangled trash – and decadent to boot. Both are always right. And wrong. Every era’s popular music is a mix of wonderful and awful with little obvious relationship between one or the other and sales. However, they are more right at some times than others. Some decades really do have something special.

The 40s was a decade with something special – so was the 60s. The 40s had much more than the Big Band sound, but that was the most iconic 40s music. Arguably it was killed by taxes. In 1944 the U.S. imposed a 30% cabaret tax on clubs hiring live bands – a tax not on the profits but on gross receipts. This made hiring large bands uneconomical for most clubs. Perhaps the sound was on its out anyway, but the words “nail” and “coffin” might be relevant. To be sure Big Bands still exist, but no one goes to a Glenn Miller Orchestra concert (yes, it still tours) to hear new music; they go to hear 40s classics. New music is still written for Big Bands, but the audience for it is scarcely large enough to qualify as a niche. The sound is no longer living popular music: it is a nostalgia act.

Rock and roll (particularly in the 60s variants, which my parents hated or at least pretended to hate) fared better for longer. After decades of dominance, however, rock hasn’t cracked the top ten in the singles charts for the past several years. Hip hop and pop dominate instead. (I now know how my parents felt.) So, “rock is dead” as it so often has been before. Or not. Nowadays most music is downloaded digitally (often for free, legally or otherwise) as singles. Rock may not be among the top singles downloads, but rock albums (new as well as classic) still sell strongly, especially as cds and vinyl. Rock bands in toto still sell more tickets for live performances than other genres. Classic bands (those that yet totter on stage) have fans who buy tickets largely to hear them play classic numbers, it is true, yet the genre has not been relegated to nostalgia gigs. 21^st century bands (e.g. The Cadillac Three, Broken Witt Rebels, Greta Van Fleet, etc.) regularly form and win audiences with new material. So, rock remains living popular music, and not just a niche in manner of jazz.

One of the 21^st century bands is Dorothy, who released their impressive debut album Rock Is Dead in 2016 and followed it up convincingly last year with 28 Days in the Valley. The band’s live shows are among the best currently on the road that feature (mostly) blues-based power rock with unapologetic infusions of psychedelia and even (in spots) country. The lyrics contain a full range of passions in an age that too often devalues every one of them but self-righteous anger (the emptiest). I caught the band last night at Irving Plaza, one of the better concert venues in NYC. Amid a crowd of fans overwhelmingly young enough to be my grandchildren (had I any grandchildren), I was pleased for once to be outside the demographic. I don’t even mind that 20 hours later my hearing has yet fully to recover.

It’s possible that rock truly is on its way out, but it is not dead yet. Judging by last night it does not go gentle into that good night.

One of their more mellow numbers: Pretty When You’re High