It's suddenly dawned on me in the traditionally premature run up to Christmas and New Year that this decade is nearly over! It's insane! Slightly terrifying! I will have a defined decade of my life, an era of history I have lived through. To quote Velma Dinkley: "Jinkies!"
Now, I am in love with music. Music is an essential part of being human. If you don't enjoy music then, in all seriousness, with no degree of sarcasm and irony, there is something mentally, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually wrong with you. But, as I review the fact that I have defined memories of an entire fixed decade, the noughties, I turn to thinking about the music of this decade and, in turn, the music of other decades.
For the greater part of the last hundred years, every decade has had a type of music that represents the youth, the culture, the wants, the issues, the politics, the social system and many other things of the present generation. Nearly every single decade has had a definitive tattoo of music branded across it. A type of music that cries out the message of that decade's generation of youths, music that SAYS something about the time that it's coming form. Music that all of the teenagers and young adults can unite together and sing, belting out a victorious, relevant chorus that's the essence of who they are as a group. They're united around it. Someone could start playing one of their songs and together, they would all join in, united, whatever their differences, by the message in their music.
The 1920s and 30s were dominated by jazz- the music of the youth, it was young, rebellious and, whilst far from being the most lyrically focussed genre of music, it was carrying a huge message that united young people.
The 1940s were overshadowed by the war. We lost a generation and there's not a particularly definitive musical genre, but there are obviously the war greats like Vera Lynn.
The 1950s obviously birthed rock n' roll in all its glorious poularity, and again we have music for the youth that's fresh, sexy, vibrant and focussing the minds and energies of a generation who want to escape from the shadow of WW2.
The 1960s, undoubtedly the era in which politics most influenced music. The great protest folk singers, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, many more. Hendrix became the precursor for any degree of heavy rock in the near future and Beatlemania obviously engulfed the globe, but they're not entirely relevant to the point I want to make.
The 1970s saw music become a lot funner, largely to escape from the seriousness of the 60s. Pop music as we know it now really began to take over, but it was, once more, fresh and youthful and a UNITING FORCE. The 70s was also the ear of a disco, a genre which has more to it than meets the eye. Whilst, like jazz, it wasn't partiuclarly political or revolutionary lyrically, disco saw black people reclaim the music industry after the glory for rock n' roll had been stolen by the white man.
The end of the 70s birthed punk rock, which carried on into and through the 1980s. Reggae also became hugely popular and these two genres united the youth of the day massively, in a desire to fight against the remains of disgusting racist National Front, in the thick of Thatcher's Britain and the revitalised Cold War (thanks to Reagan). The youth were definitely united and focussed thanks to punk and reggae.
The 1990s saw the rise of alternative rock. Nirvana, almost undoubtedly the single most important music act in the past 20 years, gave a new voice to rebellion and the upsets of youth and their breakthrough led the way for movements like Britpop. Britpop swerved from being intensely political to a way to escape politics, but it united the British youth with some incredible songs that they could all chant along to, take up arms with. It even united people in a good rivalry: Blur vs Oasis.
And so what of the noughties?
Bugger all.
Bugger.
All.
Now I am a massive fan of new music in this decade, I'm keeping up to date constantly. But this decade, the decade in which I have really grown up and lived the greater part of my teenage years, has had NOTHING, barely a VESTIGE of any kind of unifying music. No band who have reached the calibre of the class transcending, boundary trashing groups of eras gone past. The closest we've had has been Green Day with the release of American Idiot, but other factors and over commercialisation hampered them massively.
Why? Why has the generation of this decade not sung out?! It's shameful! It's not as if we don't have anything to sing about and protest against!
A corrupt, unwinnable, American led war being fought in the east, wasting hundreds of American and British lives and thousands of natives. It spawned unmeasurable amounts of protest music when it was happening in Vietnam in the 60s! Oh yes, there are protest songs in existence about the Bush administration etc, check out Bright Eyes' "When the President talks to God". But there's nothing transcendent! Nothing that can unite everyone.
We have the BNP getting more and more influential in Britain all the time. It's essentially the child of the National Front, and resistance against them in the 70s and 80s spawned incredibly unifying music. Who do we get? Jon McClure from Reverand and the Makers. Good intentions don't stop him being a tit and failing to attempt to appel to anyone other than a niche of NME readers
We're in the grip of recession, and I can't even THINK of bands who have really said anything about that!
And there's so much more. The general disintegration of Britian's moral fabric, the advent of political insanity/correctness, the impotence of New Labour and so many more things.
The 21st century has been dogged by leaders who have been unable to stand up effectively to the challenges the world faces. And it's been equally full of musicians quick to criticise them and to point out all of the problems in society. However, clearly those musicians can't measure up because they certainly haven't acheived any kind of unification for my generation. No anthems. No relevant anthems.
We've had our musical breakthroughs.
The Strokes, spawned noughties indie and garage rock revival but are a band who I don't think have ever lyrically said anything and are actually quite unkown to a lot of people.
Anddd... oh. That's it. Really.
I'm devastated that, in years to come, I won't be able to sit around with people my age and recall a song from this decade that united us all, that had a message, that said something about our world and our country and our lives and our problems.
Really, it saddens my soul.
We'll look back and see a void of meaning
A long row of empty coffins, haunted by the ghosts of anthems never written.
An unmarked grave where the truly important music of this decade should have been.
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