Soundtracks

Friedrich Nietzsche: “Without music life would be a mistake.”
 
Few new vehicles have CD players as standard equipment. They are regarded as obsolete. The automakers just assume that everyone can link to the car's sound system via a smart phone full of favorite MP3s, and that these plus a Sirius radio subscription are enough. Neither my pickup truck nor my car (both 2021 models) has a CD player, and I refuse to pay a monthly fee to listen to the radio. I do not collect MP3s on my phone or on other devices. There are a couple of local free commercial broadcast stations I find congenial, but when playing music of my own choice I generally prefer full albums to an out-of-context mish-mash of tunes. (When reading, I also generally prefer full novels to a chapter from this book followed by a chapter from that book.) A deeper dive into an artist’s work can be rewarding; OK, after a few full hearings of an album I might start skipping a track or two I don’t much like, but not every time even then. For this preference, a CD format is perfect. Besides, there are plenty of Best of… CDs for when I am in the mood for a more anthological playlist. So, a little over a month ago I bought a little portable CD player for $50. It plugs into the auxiliary jack in the console, which lets it use the car's stereo speakers. It's a small thing, but I actually missed having a player in my car.

Portable player

Anyway, having entered my car to drive to a local diner for lunch the other day I removed a fairly recent CD (Dorothy’s 2018 album 28 Days in the Valley) from the player and replaced it with one by the Animals. 15 minutes later I parked the car, entered the diner, and sat at the counter. The diner plays an oldies channel for background music. In one of those odd moments of synchronicity that statisticians tell us are to be entirely expected, The House of the Rising Sun by the Animals began to play. Apparently noticing my quizzical expression, a waitress decades younger than myself asked, “What?” Instead of just saying “I played this in my car 10 minutes ago,” I instead (influenced, I suppose, by the age spread) commented, “I try not to consider the implications of the fact that I know the lyrics to 50 and 60-year-old songs.” “I do, too,” she said, “because I hear them every day. Actually, I like them better.”
 
Presumably the young lady meant better than contemporary music. That might have been a case of humoring the old guy for the tip, but perhaps it was true. It is no surprise that I find the current Top 40 virtually unlistenable. It’s my generational job to disdain contemporary popular music as my parents (and grandparents) disdained mine. (I do shirk many of my other generational duties, however, such as standing in front of my house and yelling at kids to get off the lawn.) The surprising thing, though, is how many young people agree. Music sales tell the tale. Ted Gioia, a songwriter, worried about the trend in a recent article in The Atlantic titled, “Is Old Music Killing New Music?” Gioia reports that old music now accounts for a whopping 70% of the US music market. The market for new (defined as the past 18 months) popular music is actually shrinking both as a share and in absolute numbers. “The 200 most popular tracks account for less than 5% of total streams,” he notes. He adds that they account for an even a smaller percentage of songs actually purchased. This would have been unimaginable in the 20^th century when the top 200 at any given time dominated sales

There are many reasons proffered by analysts for why the appeal and cultural impact of contemporary popular music have diminished steadily over the past 20 years. I don’t pretend to have expertise in the matter, but many people who are in the industry have speculated about it. Correct or not, this article by Benjamin Groff is pretty representative: 10 Reasons Why Music Sucks So Hard Right Now.
 
In truth, I do like a number of contemporary bands, e.g. Dorothy, Rival Sons, Halestorm, et al. But, while these groups are certainly successful, they are not chart toppers. They offer new material but they have classic rock sounds, and rock is now a niche market that hasn’t put a new album in the Top Ten (based on annual sales) in a decade. It’s a big niche, to be sure, but still a niche. Youthful fans of new rock are ardent but a minority.
 
As for the old music that still sells so well, I’ve come to appreciate it more than (strangely enough) I did when it was new. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the popular music back in the day, and even took it far too seriously in the way that teens do: not just the arcane poetry of Dylan but the lyrics and sounds of the Stones and Joplin and others, too. Yet, I didn’t imagine it had staying power. I figured that, like Nehru jackets, it would be here and then gone. My sister was always more in touch with the Zeitgeist than I was. I remember her saying to me sometime in 1969 that we were in a golden era of popular music when sounds and songs were being created that would last like the standard songbook then being sung by the likes of Frank Sinatra: they would be part of the repertoire of future bands. I didn’t believe it and said so. I was wrong. Sharon, as usual in such matters, was right.
 
Contemporary music forms a soundtrack to our lives. Nothing takes me back to a moment in time as readily as a song that was in (and on) the air at the time. I can’t hear White Room by Cream without a part of me re-experiencing being 17. It seems to me this must still be the case today, so perhaps the naysayers are underestimating the lasting impact of contemporary popular music after all. Will current 17-year-olds decades from now be carried back to 2022 by Smokin’ out the Window by Silk Sonic? Will septuagenarian Glass Animals be filling arenas the way the Rolling Stones still do today? Will Gayle sing ABCDEFU from a wheelchair as Peggy Lee did Fever toward the end? Maybe. If Sharon were here she’d tell me.
 

A Few Seconds Each of 100 Songs from 1969