Friday, February 13, 2004
(1:57 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The State of Sucky Rock
One of the rock stations in Chicago, 94.7, has been using the following promotion:
[Clip from song I like]: This sucks. [Clip from shitty song I hate]: This rocks! (repeat)
Usually the song I hate falls into the "drone rock" category -- a fourth-degree knockoff of a bad Pearl Jam song. Manufactured anger; slick, well-packaged rebellion.
I was a radio whore back in the 90s. I used to think that music was better back then, and it was, but it still wasn't quite "good." I was a huge Stone Temple Pilots fan when I was 16, and listening to them a couple weeks ago, I realized that they were mediocre at best. Nirvana and Pearl Jam (less so) stand the test of time a little better, but that might just be nostalgia talking.
One 90s figure I never want to hear from again is Chris Cornell. I don't know why he deemed it necessary to start a band with the guys from Rage Against the Machine and put out fifteen boring power ballads as singles, but ever since he did, I have hated him. Audioslave sucks. Chris Cornell sucks. Soundgarden retroactively sucks. A pox on his house.
The whole of the radio's "modern rock" is right-wing -- it's completely continuous with right-wing radio. It's all manufactured outrage and anger about shit that doesn't matter, distracting people and allowing those in power to do whatever they need to do -- rebellion in small, managable doses, a chance for white guys to feel alienated from the culture they control (in principle, even if most white guys really are powerless). Conservatism as radicalism, ignorance as strength, artificial suffering flavor.
