Damn Kids and Their Music

Every year Ottawa plays host to Bluesfest. The name is a bit misleading as it's moved away from it's blues-based roots and has become a full blown music festival. Some huge names roll through here every year thanks to the festival and this year has proven no different. Over the past week I've seen Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, and Rush at the festival and, I have to say, all three are at the top of my list of awesome shows. I can't believe I've waited so long to see them live.

Having the opportunity to rock out like I have this past week has made me wonder why the hell popular music (not just pop, but what happens to be popular right now) is so terrible. To be fair, I prefer rock. That having been said my mp3 player is full of 30gb of everything from Aaliyah to Zepplin. It's not unusual for it to shuffle from Dimmu Borgir to Jimmy Buffett to Beethoven to BT. When people ask me what I listen to I reply, simply, "music."

The reason I say music if that what I hear on the radio now is almost completely devoid of any redeeming musical qualities. It's nothing but auto-tuned crap set to the beat of a casio keyboard with lyrics written by transcribing a voicemail left from last night's drunk dialing fiasco. The rock I hear lately isn't much better. Most of it is your typical whiny little emo kids that learned to play guitar by never leaving their rooms in high school. All they leared were enough chords to string together a poorly structured song about how misunderstood they are. I don't think they realize every understands poor musicianship just fine.

Even the live music scene is dying. My wife and I went to a battle of the bands a few weeks ago to support a friend of hers. His band was awesome. I'm trying not be biased here. It's like I told her, "I'll say so if I think they suck." They were all great musicians, their songs had proper structure, and their lyrics were meaningful. Guess where they placed. 5th ... out of 5. Why? All the little popped-collar douchebags there were voting with their iPods and not their ears. While we were listening to the band that eventually won I leaned over to my wife and said "These guys are bad enough to be in an Apple commercial."

Some will say "to each their own." Learn to read. This isn't about different types of music. It's about good music and good musicians of which there just aren't any anymore. My entire high school career was music driven (read: band nerd) to the point that my university career began with me being a music major. Sure, that makes me slightly more critical of music but there's still no excuse for the crap out there today. For instance, Lady Gaga's got some pipes. That girl can sing. Instead of singing something meaningful, however, shes wasting her breath singing along to beats that feel very much like the throbbing migraines I get from time to time. I'm sure there's a few phenomenal guitar players out there as well that are stuck in apple-tastic bands as well but I can't listen to that crap long enough to name them.

Where am I going with all this? I mean, besides sounding like an old man. Well, I'd pretty much written off live music. I'm not a big concert-goer and would have likely missed out on at least one, if not all three, of the bands if not for my friends and family. Our tenant (the guy who rents our basement) bought us the Dream Theater and Iron Maiden tickets for our birthdays. The Rush tickets were an anniversary present from the wife. I likely would have missed three of the best concerts ever if not for them.

My advice to you: don't wait for tickets. Go out and see the bands you love to listen to. Bands like those mentioned here are unique in that they sound fantastic live. The same cannot be said about current popular acts. These guys aren't going to be touring forever. Don't miss your chance to see them live. You WILL regret it if you do.

-N. "Soylent" White