Irrelevant Elephant? That's How I'm Tellin' It

Pop music is at a weird place right now, and critics are set on ignoring this fact. All you have to do is look around at the teens and early 20-somethings who were once immersed in everything pop music-related, who defined themselves by it, but who now seem to be wandering the streets of Brooklyn, or Minneapolis, or L.A., unsure of where to direct their energy.

These kids might have started to listen to music under the spells of Kurt Cobain and Spin, then maybe were drawn into the world of Lester Bangs' criticism and the rock-and-roll of their parents' generation, and then came back to the present to find that grunge was gone. Since Elvis, pop music seems to have moved forward vigorously, branching off into new forms: British mod and glam reigned; Dylan hung with the folkies; the Stones kickstarted late '60s/early '70s rock; Led Zeppelin led early metal; CBGB housed punk and art rock; the '80s brought a new type of punk and the beginnings of hip-hop; the early '90s gave birth to grunge, and then there was a rupture somewhere, a loss of momentum. Maybe grunge was already in the early stages of the recycling process, but if not, then everything that came after it sure was: techno, rap-metal, the ska revival, emo, indie rock, and post-punk, all of which are all prevalent now. So, when these kids came back from the past, from educating themselves in music history, they were rudely displaced by the present. Some fell into the indie movement, some completely invested in hip-hop because it seemed to be the only musical form with a present and a future, and some just lost interest. What's clear is that, unlike our parents, there was no obvious solution, no movement that we could turn to and unashamedly call our own.

This column is about that issue. It is about the state of pop music today, and its possibilities for the future: what's wrong with a lot of the current trends, what's right with them, what's wrong with critics, and what the basis of judgment is for all of this. This column is going to be about the odd nature of the cultural moment in general, because pop music has always been a good mirror of the times. The reason I love listening to '60s and '70s rock is not for the music alone; it can't be separated from all the historical associations, from what was happening back then in politics, art, and thought. A band has to be judged in the context of the history of which it is a part, and critics today are ignoring this principle.

One way to introduce all these issues is to look at the genres that have emerged recently. The genre that is really working is hip-hop--and not that indie/underground bullshit like Atmosphere--but real, mainstream hip-hop: Missy Elliot, Jay-Z, OutKast, Snoop, Lil' Kim, and 50 Cent. What these artists are doing is fun. Hip-hop is more original then anything else being produced right now, it's taken shape into a cohesive movement--it clicks with the current moment. Is there an element of nihilism in embracing the hip-hop that's all over the radio, the kind that isn't really about anything except drugs, sex, and letting it bump? Probably. Does it still rule, at least for right now? Definitely.

If hip-hop is the strong, popular kid, then "indie"--Cat Power, Bright Eyes, Belle and Sebastian, for instance--is the nerd. For a while, I thought the nerd was kind of endearing, but now I'm just sick of him, especially when I realized he was never that smart. The rappers I listed are so effective because they don't care about being poets, and they ignore that annoying post-modern tendency toward endless self-consciousness--sorry, but it's hard to talk about this without acknowledging the context of post-modernity. These seem to be two opposing currents in pop music today: flaunting your earnestness (indie) vs. maintaining an ironic distance (post-punk). Only hip-hop has found a way to skirt these stances and avoid the problems that come with them. It might be going too far to say that hip-hop is becoming post-race, post-feminist, and post-class, but it's at least post-giving a damn about being any of those things.

Rock, of course, needs to be addressed. It has been declared dead almost every year since I can remember. The weird thing is that there has, in fact, been a lot of good rock in the last couple of years. As lame as it is to admit it, The Strokes were pretty good. The White Stripes, The Hives, and The Libertines were all good. But what else is there to say? They were all missing something crucial, and they fizzled out or imploded, at least in the eyes of the people who had put the most faith in them. For a while, it looked like post-punk might go somewhere, but that "movement" turned into exactly what the "post" in its name indicates: it hung onto what was good in the past, but never quite fit in with the present; or, if recycling is, in fact, the spirit of the age, maybe post-punk fits our times all too well. The failures of these movements, imploding before they even get off the ground, seem to reflect a difficulty both in the cultural and political moments, but also a difficulty in pop music's development as a form. The initial stage, when new genres were exploding left and right, has been over for at least 10 years. So far, hip-hop alone seems to have found a way to deal with the next stage successfully; what will happen to it, and the other genres, remains to be seen and heard.