Random Old Person Rant

I was in the gym at school, working out to still the steady advances of old age and arthritic decay, when I made the mistake of listening to the music playing in the weight room.

Now, usually it's a mistake because the music is fill of unspeakable profanity and misogyny.  But today it was filled with techno-crap.  I had to listen to a song where I believe the only lyric to the whole song was "Take my shirt off".  And it was done through Autotune, which synthesizes the voice.  Then, I had to suffer through Like a G6.  No, I don't know what a G6 is.  If I had to guess, I'd say it was a BMW model, but I don't care enough to look.

I do not think all contemporary music is garbage.  I love The National.  I love needtobreathe.  I sort of love Arcade Fire.  They are interesting.  They write good music.

Why do I have to hear Ke$sha or Lady GaGa?

I hope that these college bound youngster will abandon the insipid dreck they listen to and seek out music that has some soulful quality to it.

It's not just about rap.  I don't have a problem with rap as a musical form.  I like some  rap songs.

But there is a rap culture that's gone beyond the anger of groups like NWA and Public Enemy and just embraced a sort of moral nihilism.  Rather than embrace a political or racial agenda, they just want to engage in musical dick measuring.  It's not interesting, nor is it musically valuable.

And then this new techno-crap takes the worst parts of rap - the rhythmic monotony and the tendency to sexualize everything in the crudest possible form -  and then deprive of even the emotion and anger that makes decent rap interesting.

When social historians look back at this era, they will probably note that one of the more important figures of this era was Jenna Jameson, a porn star who broke through to the main stream and even had a show on E! for a while.  I don't know if it's the Internet or rap or what, but porn culture is now mainstream culture too often.  Porn loses its ability to titillate when it's available 24-7 and can be seen in most music videos.

There used to be boxes.  There was a reason it was called bathroom humor or locker room talk.  Now those boundaries are gone and we are assaulted by porn culture in the music that blares around us.

I once saw an article from the 1920s where they took the word "jazz" and substituted "rap".  It effectively showed the resistance to new art forms.  But that was a dozen years ago.  We haven't moved from the whore house rags of Jellyroll Morton and Scott Joplin to the approachable music of Louis Armstrong, much less the esoteric stylings of a Miles Davis.  We've simply spiraled down into the gutter.  The one rap artist held up as intelligent and interesting most often is a blatant narcissist whose only subject matter is himself.

Of course, as I said, there is good music out there.  And in the '80s, we had to listen to Madonna and Tiffany and all sorts of unbelievable crap, while the Talking Heads and early REM labored in relative obscurity.  This is hardly new.

But I still feel stupider having listened to "Like a G6".  Measurably stupider.

And given my declining physical ability and poor economic prospects, my mind is all I have left.

I must remember to pack headphones the next time I head to the gym.