WE ARE LISTENING!

I just read NO DEPRESSION's review of the new JD McPherson CD. In the article, it alluded to the reviewer's friend declaring JD McPherson to be "the future of R&R". The reviewer questioned that but personally declared McPherson to be the "present".

Don't get me wrong. I love JD McPherson's music and wish him continued success. But...always a "but"...let's hope he doesn't make it. In this industry, makinging it means the artist becomes part of the corporate machine...nothing more than a commodity. The corporate record company would then go out of it's way to mold him into a safe-as-milk, pleasing to the lowest common denominator version of what he could be. In short; they'll make his music suck. And most of us won't buy it.

Here's where the record companies go wrong. Rather than permitting an artist to flourish and grow on their own, they prefer to rehash the same old schlock over and over. Long gone are the days of hearing great new music. Unless you hunt for it or happen to have a friend or two who routinely introduce you to new sounds.

Roots rock is nothing new but it always seems to be in the background. I've been loving that style of music most of my life. Think about it, whenever the corporate music industry takes a chance and allows something to slip through, the public usually eats it up! Think back over the years; Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Stray Cats, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Georgia Satellites, Chris Isaak, etc. All of them are/were big sellers. If you think about it, they weren't the 'norm' for their time but that music reached inside of us and touched that spot that we all relate to. Call it primal.

Watch a movie made in the past 20 years. Good directors know that this music touches that spot and therefore, a smart director will include some roots music in his/her soundtrack. Hearing "Dark Night", possibly my favorite song ever by my favorite band ever, The Blasters, in "Dusk Til Dawn" just about made me jump out of my seat! That popular vampire show (I can't recall the name...there are just too damned many lol) routinely uses swampy, rootsy music. So now it's reaching a whole new generation.

JD McPherson isn't alone. Imelda May has been knocking the world on it's butt for a few years now...and deservedly so! I first heard her on a track on one of her hubby's records. She was still going by the name Imelda Clabby at the time. That was 10 years ago and I thought she was special then! The whole retro/rootsy sound seems to be what people want. James Hunter, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, hell...even Amy Winehouse's big hit, "Rehab"...all based on that retro/rootsy vibe. Sadly to say, one look at Winehouse's career shows what happens when the corporations get their hands on someone good.

What is it about this music that makes it so popular? Sure...it has a ring of familiarity to it...but is that all? No, I don't think so. I think it goes deeper than that. Like I said before, there's something primal in it. There's something that gets deep inside of us and starts a fire. If you look back at 20th century Western music, its the thing that always made music popular and marketable. WC Handy knew it. Jimmy Rogers knew it. Muddy Waters knew it. Hank Sr. knew it. Sam C. Phillips knew it (and seemingly did more with it than anyone else...and he wasn't even a musician!). The Beatles knew it. John Fogerty knows it. Stevie Ray knew it. So many bands/musicians know it. We know because we play this music to YOU, the listening public, and YOU respond.

The record companies will never understand because they sit in offices. They attempt to calculate what YOU want. It's so simple....that's why they never understand it. They can't monopolize fire, so they sell you a Bic lighter or a book of matches instead. Worse, the music industry will cram stuff YOU don't really want down your throat...just to assert their corporate dominance over you. Big Brother likes to think he knows what's best for you. In reality, Big Brother likes to keep control. Keep that money rolling in. Everything neatly labeled and organized.

Luckily, real music neither wants, needs nor likes labels. If it's good, it's good. If it's rockin', it's rockin'.

The internet has created the perfect loophole for both the listener and the artist to circumvent the corporate entertainment dinosaurs. And the dinosaurs don't like it! But too damned bad...we know what we like when we hear it!

Kudos to JD McPherson and all of the other "futures of R&R". Keep on playing your hearts out! We ARE listening! We may not be buying like we used to (in part because we don't have to anymore) but we ARE, most definitely, listening!

Keep on recording! Use any means necessary to get your music out there! Make a low budget video and put it on YouTube! Put those songs on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, Spotify, etc... WE ARE LISTENING! And in so doing, we are deciding the future of not only R&R....but all music. We are all deciding it together.

Keep the corporate bean counters out of the equation...and if you really want to mess with the dinosaurs, call your favorite radio station and demand that they play the music YOU want to hear. Let them know that you will turn off your radio and ignore their advertising pleas unless they play what we all want to hear.