On Whitney Houston.

Its February 2012 and Whitney Houston has died. It's a popular fad for the contrarian set to be vocal about their disinterest or happiness. I assume its mostly affected; I say that, I'm accused of being an asshole and met with graphs and chart about how its perfectly reasonable to feel that way.

The internet takes another chunk of civilities face to an early grave.

If you didn't see it on MB (and I didn't check to see if it happened) you probably saw it somewhere else or around the office place. its not unreasonable, Newton's Law of Motion says "o every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction." This is no different.

But if there was something to be gained from a senseless and early death, or at least something for us to chew on at the musical trough its at least these two things: The existence of the genre "Adult Contemporary", and American Society's need to dig up the past to show homage when its, at best, niceties in the wake of a passing, and at worst, the Grammys trying to make a buck.

But first things first. Adult contemporary. Ostensibly there to fill the dead silence of department stores and to drown out the screams of dental patients to the waiting and terrified patients in the lobby. If this were Luther Vandross I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But only the aforementioned contrarian set would posit that Houston didn't have talent. The woman was called "the perfect instrument" and while she isn't my cup of tea, and she's inspired to many rehashed, half-assed imitators on the Idol shows, theres no denying she could have done nearly anything with those vocal chords.

When writing on a music form on the internet, it most likely takes a Jesuits discipline to remember there needs to be a balance to what rattle through out headphones to make the world go 'round. So calling a spade a spade, Houston's work was certainly craft, and whether or not there was passion is for you to decide. It was certainly conditioned ("ok this track needs to be passionate") but it isn't disqualifying. And if anything it harkens back to a time when music was created more like films than the garage-born DIY stuff we see today. Houston's music was "American Graffiti" while many of what would follow her reign at the top sends to be the sonic equivelent of a soap box racer. Tin Pan Alley was written by Writers, played by Performers, and sang by Singers. Why is this different than Houston and why do we consider it less?

If there is any performance that settled the argument it was her Super Bowl performance of the Star-Spangled Banner. A song crafted with such a ridiculous arrangement (vocally) one might be on to something to refer to it as the vocal equivelent of the Rach 3 (Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 3).

No jingoism intended. The song happens to be very difficult to sing correctly, and as an American, we've been punished by countless no-talent hacks botching the god damn thing so badly they ought to be tried for treason. But I digress.

Its a curious thing to say, 50 years on, that what we appreciate in the here and now (the 30's) is more valued than what we've seen since the Studio's of the 70's mastered shlock. Theres some digging done on this issue that requires more time and interest than some mad jackle on a throw away blog of rambles and grumbles.

and further more, is it this too-little too-late mentality that requires that we go to the grave after ever artist dies and dig up some deep respect we have for them? As one friend posted on his Facebook "Who intentionally listened to Whitney Houston in the past 12 months?" if we're being honest with ourselves, it was probably less than 1% of the American populous.

So why the Grammy play-up? Is it just the human condition of wanting what we've lost? Is it a postmortem concession for an industry that abandons as quickly as it propels? Houston's is a genre that no longer carries water. While it may have been the Resurrection of Tin Pan Alley (or 2.0 as it were), it didn't survive the 80's. It had something of a revival in the late 1990's with a coffee house make-over. But by then the game had changed, and the nation had clearly changed. Houston was good, but in the newest incarnation she wouldn't be taken seriously.

Talent had gone, surplus to requirement. Good players were not needed to play boring chords on an acoustic guitar. Was what we're seeing sweep across the landscape a human lament for a genre that, having left its own for dead, had played by the rules so well, did everything right, and were still abandoned by a disinterested public?

The question that should remain is not about Whitney Houston but about music in general. Is there a purpose in sticking within the western scales and digestible time signatures? Has music moved well beyond craft in an age where I can get 12,000 views singing off-key versions of Foreigner songs into my webcam.

If Whitney is to be mourned, then let her be the figure-head of craft. Let her not represent a genre lost to time and filled to the gills by throw-away, over produced garbage. Instead let her be a symbol for everyone who worked their figures to the bone to be a session musician. Is there no room for them any longer?

Is there No Country for Old Men who play the saxophone any more?

The future of discussing music...

I feel bad for the “heard it first” crowd. The internet is expanding quicker than the universe. Indie music, which seemed to be the most genre open to odd arrangements and instrumentation since electronic music hit it big has now been consumed by big business. I find more cooler music on commercials now than I do on websites. The ability to say you heard it months ago is dying. Yesterday is the new “months ago.”

I read once that it’s impossible to remain counter-culture for long because capitalism will find a way to market that culture and make a buck. Not to mention, with the internet allowing everyone to build their portfolio in any capacity they want (advertising, directing, creating music) people who normally wouldn’t have the experience years ago are now proven sensations. Youtube & the Internet have taken the old boys network out behind the woodshed and murdered it painfully.

In a similar comment, I remember some fairly successful mogul (Jay-Z maybe) saying whats wrong with the record industry is that people who had one great find never get fired. That he personally had been told “You can’t fire him, he discovered Motley Crue!” The nerve of some people.

I mention all of this because its leading to one great and final “enough” from the youth of the world that’s going to essentially erase time. The Clash was once called “The only band that matters.” It was predicated upon them living on the cutting edge. But today, that edge is moving so fast that the distance between “Heard it yesterday” meaning current, and “heard it yesterday” meaning forever ago is impossible to distinguish. Hipsters, be forewarned, trying to be ironic about hearing something yesterday is going to land really poorly.

For me, this is all great news. “Heard it first” was always a really poor indicator of music or people who listened to it. It implied you were an amazing scout with a sharp ear for new music; that your judgment was to be higher than those who heard it second or fourteenth. But now you can’t help but trip over some ******* with a rebec backed up with a three-piece brass set walking down to the subway or walking by a television set. If music were dimensions, the days or width would be dead or dying. It’s time to move on to height.

Depth in music is not new. People have been trying to write up the Beatles like they would Shakespeare for too long. It’s not inherently bad, we all start somewhere, but Literature and its critique have evolved as they have because of the type of medium that Literature is. Music, by virtue of its difference, must follow its own path. But it seems only plausible for music that’s old, presumably because we’ve sat with it for a while. Literature needs to allow for time to determine its value to some degree because it is, to steal a line from Christopher Hitchens, “the vehicle by which we deal with questions of ethics and morality.” (paraphrase). Literature is not inventing by refining. It is the Aristotelian Mirror to our human condition. And this differs from music in two very large ways: Music does not give us the same reflection or philosophy nearly as well if at all, and music consistently tries to reinvent the wheel.

You’ve no doubt seen someone try to write something where the words represent the action. Poems about leaves falling throw words all over the page. Shell Silverstein was a master at this sort of thing. But his longevity is not determined by his groundbreaking presentation. And that presentation doesn’t make for good literature. But when music attempts the same concept, that’s what separates the wheat from the chafe. One of the reasons the “heard it first crowd” also held some sway is because they had the potential to bring you not new music, but new sound. Music is like food at times because the same old ingredients you know in parts can be mixed to create new flavors you couldn’t imagine. Do you remember the first time you heard a sound or style that you’d never heard before? There’s a moment there where something ancient and familiar reappears before you, like this sound you’ve never heard before seems somehow natural and refreshing. It is on this ground that music, even in the rapid-paced world of technology, has a future and a contribution to make.

Music going forward should yield a deeper discussion. Without concern about what comes next, we can worry about what will influence “next”; what “next” will reflect of the past. I think it’s best if our discussions of music become richer, that our discussions concern themselves with layers. Depth, arrangement, and scope seem familiar to those who’ve spent time in the more established genres; Classical and Jazz fans probably routinely talk in these terms, but those forms never worried about “next” in the first place. The existed as new at a time when technology only allowed them to be heard places other than in the club live. Today it allows us to auto-tune the news.

As I look around my usual music outlets whether it be friends of forums, I sense a great lull in the conversation. Music, as I’ve said, hasn’t really slowed, so why the conversation? Sloth is natural in a time of transition. No one is looking to commit to things that are on a dead-end. Beta Max, the Mini Disc Player, Google+ -investing in those products was a waste of time for everyone involved. It’s natural to wonder what’s next when the old norms have been worn out and dried up. But I think when the dust clears, technology finally removes “first” from the musical lexicon, we’ll discover that the path forward isn’t “forward” but in fact, its “down.”