The Melody and the Music

Someone close to me once told me that a lot of the current music out there makes you want to get up and dance. They were obsessed with Lenny Kravitz at the time (and remembering a song from High School that Lenny was wailing at the time I broke in, I can understand why) and of course I get to deal with Michelle being a music junkie of a friend too but I just can’t grasp the music and these times.

Why?

I posted on here a couple of days ago the lyrics to God Only Knows by the Beach Boys. I also have been playing the MP3 repeatedly along with some other stuff by the Beach Boys… It’s a good compliment to the Beatles, I guess, seeing that the music is fine and the lyrics can be clearly heard. The melody carries and you get lost in the lyrics.

“An endless refrain of Na-Na-Na’s” is how I’ve described the Beatles (Hey, Jude) and to describe the Beach Boys, it would be something outside of that but the same emphasis on the melody to go along with the music (“Mmmbop-bop,” perchance? Sounds like I am talking about Hanson but I’m just trying to give you a clue that I am talking about some of the backing vocals on Good Vibrations). You hear the name and you start thinking of surf music and I hate that. But even THAT had an emphasis on the melody. The problem was that it was vanilla flavored music.

So I’m thinking a lot about what I like and then I am thinking about what I get to see from music today — I don’t see a lot of innovation, I don’t see a lot of melody. I see a lot of performing and I see a lot of jamming but to find a pop song that is by an original artist, has a good tune, a backing melody… It just seems like it’s not going to happen. That’s my ignorance being re-introduced to sound after years of silence. I won’t totally grasp everything I hear but I know I can enjoy some of it.

One thing I know I like is a clear and concise lyric to a song – and a lyric that isn’t covered with slang in order to add grit to the song. I was reading a thread on Skyscraperpage about favorite lyrics and some of the shit posted is…. well, shit! ” Nigga’ ” “Fuck” “Bitch” — they’re all key words in some of what’s popular with young people today and it’s like these kids never heard MUSIC before… I mean something that blows them away. Something where they can see a couple of layers of music in the music and enjoy the song for what it possesses…. The MELODY, not going-through-the-motions singing. Not a beat box driving a song.

I might be praising songs for being clear but it’s not like I respect the canned-singers that are all voice and nothing else. I’m not a fan of American Idol-like pop where you just sing and have someone else write lyrics for you and someone else perform the backing music for you. Part of the reason I have such an affinity for the Beatles is because they did everything on there own. Brian Wilson was and is one of the Beach Boys and did a hell of a lot on his own but also had help here and there… So they are in the same area. U2 does it on there own. Nirvana did it on there own… But then again, Nirvana played loud and hard. U2 has one clear vocalist…

Good music in general makes you want to get up and dance, get up and sing… SO most of my opinions are worth shit because I’ve had every single type of music want to make me sing and dance… But I know my oldies are easier to touch and appreciate because of there ingenuity and their inventiveness… You can’t find musical inventiveness like this any more and if you can, I haven’t been made aware of it.