“What a sad damn statement this makes about your generation…”
-- Early Cuyler

Those of us that toil round the clock at here at The Phoenix (I type this at 4:19 a.m.) tend to start conversations that we can’t realistically finish in the 18.93 minutes per day that we have budgeted under the line item “Shoes, Ships, Sealing Wax, Cabbages and Kings.”

So it is with the conversation started, oh, several weeks ago, on the front stoop of The Phoenix about music and why 99.99999999999999999 percent of it released after, say, 2000, has been damn-near unlistenable. I’ll spare you the myriad theories discussed, mulled, rejected and refined. I will, since this is my blog, throw my particular theory out for examination.

Music (and by music I mean random or not-so-random noises arranged into certain orders so that they resemble rock and/or roll, or any sub-genre thereof; I stand mute on hip-hop, classical, Peruvian flute bands, yodeling and anything that involves the didgeridoo) sucks right now because it is so intensely self-aware that it’s unable to do much of anything. In short, it has become J. Alfred Proofrock. What dread force has music frozen in place, you may ask? Why, irony, of course. When I listen to what has been offered to me as “good new music,” I tend to get one very distinct impression: that what is coming out of the amps and mouths of those performing is a very low priority for those performing.

Those that know me know that what I listen to requires very little technical skill in order to produce. But it requires something that seems to be nearing extinction: sincerity in purpose and argument. I don’t get that sense of sincerity when I listen to newer bands. Here’s what I get: a cavalier attitude to their particular lyrical subject matter, an embrace of instrumentation chosen solely for its ironic value (Did we really need the two-minute keyboard intro? Did we really need the keyboard at all? Or are we just throwing it into the mix because, gasp, keyboards don’t belong in rock and/or roll songs! How deliciously ironic and, therefore, hip!), and a willingness to throw everything genuine about their music out the window if it means impressing jaded scenesters with how biting and flip they can be about what should be the most important thing in their life.

I won’t name bad band names here, simply because I can’t remember any of them (I have limited storage space these days, and most of it is taken up with line-by-line memorizations of the complete Aqua Teen Hunger Force series; and that I can’t remember any of the names is a shame in and of itself, for good band names are one of life’s little pleasures). I will say that I can only name three or four bands that I have become aware of since 2001 that have started with and maintained a sense of sincerity about what they’re doing, that it’s ALL not just some joke, that this might mean something to somebody in some way.

Without sincerity in purpose, you can throw every single one of my top-five all time records out the window. If Jesse Michaels is joking, Operation Ivy’s “Energy” is truly pointless. If you strip away earnestness and urgency, Minor Threat’s “Out Of Step” is, well, non-existent.

In fact, I dare say that there’s only been one irony-dripping record produced in the past eight years that I do enjoy: The Aquabats’ “Charge!!” Why do I like that record? After all, it is one big joke. Listen to it and figure out who the joke’s on, then you’ll know why I love it.


Super Special Bonus Content

Warning, the following would probably only make sense to a normal person at 4:30 a.m. You should really just come back then.

In doing some research for this post, I stumbled across one good band name which had been culled from the lyrics of a band that is, by far, the best thing that New Jersey has ever produced. It’s a shame the newer band isn’t too great, given that it got its name from my favorite song by the older band, but it got me to thinking that the older band’s lyrics are rife with tidbits that would make FANTASTIC band names. Here’s a sampling of potential band names, along with suitable genres, pilfered from just one song:

- “Burning Hand” (Swedish death/techno pop)
- “Prime Directive” (Math Rock; name probably taken, given its long history as a phrase)
- “Exterminate!” (folk rock bands that have set the collected works of Joseph Conrad to music)
- “Pile of Flesh” (only suitable for the name of a Lamb of God side project, but phenomenal in that role)
- “Pumps In Death” (Screamo, or hair metal when it finally makes its almost-certain comeback)

Unofficial Phoenix Files Contest: the first non-Phoenix employee that walks in the office, talks to me and names the band and song these are culled from, I’ll buy them lunch. You have to have known it without the benefit of Google, however. And I’ll know if you didn’t. Trust me.