You Can't Change the World Anymore

I have heard rumblings regarding the desire to see a new epoch-making moment in rock music, another "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or the Beatles/Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, another event that galvanizes music for a new generation and gives it new legs (see my friend Mike's post here for a more through discussion of this: http://centraltarget.blogspot.com/2009/01/whatever-happened-to-my-rock-and-roll.html).

However, for as much as I would love a new Nirvana-moment, I don't see it happening, but not because "Rock is Dead" or some other pronouncement about the state of music, but about the sheer scope of the media in current times. What made the Beatles on Ed Sullivan so powerful was that pretty much EVERYONE watched Ed Sullivan. When there are only four stations on most television sets, the best show at a given hour is going to be hugely influential. What other options did families across America have to do at 8p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, 1964? If you were watching television at the time, you were likely watching the Beatles perform, either out of genuine excitement, curiosity at the attention the group was getting, or simply because it was the most interesting thing on at the time. Even if you missed the performance, odds were that someone in your circle of friends and acquaintances didn't miss it, and made sure you knew about it the next day at work or school. The limited media options available at the time virtually guaranteed that most people were exposed in some way to the event. It's a perfect storm for a media zeitgeist. What is interesting is that every other group that played Sullivan had the same opportunity, but the Beatles and (giving credit where absolutely due) Brian Epstein, by combining Sullivan's ubiquity with significant media interest, to make the performance a capital-E Event.

Similarly, jumping forward years, Nirvana was able to almost back-into a similar role. While MTV did not control the airwaves like Sullivan did, at the time, it certainly controlled the pop culture landscape among the youth of the time. Having a video in heavy rotation on MTV was a massive deal. While many of the indie-rock and alternative forebears of Nirvana remained stuck in "120 Minutes" limbo, the decision of MTV to push "Smells Like Teen Spirit" into heavy rotation opened their sound up a massive audience, an audience that was being courted by 90% of all advertisers. Nirvana's video happened to hit an incredibly lucrative and influential market at a time when that market was salivating for something different than the umpteenth Motley Crue or Poison clone. Just as with the Beatles, there was some luck involved, but there was some obvious planning as well. After a decade of rock stars trying to out-duel each other in the "acting like rock stars" Olympics, a band playing catchy, heavy, melodic tunes that put forth the image of explicitly NOT acting like rock stars was in a perfect position to be the counter-programming for people who desired nothing more than to be the hip counter-culture (the discussion of the counter-culture becoming the culture can be saved for later, or just go watch Hype!). However, Nirvana would have never become much of anything except that MTV was the place that defined what music was cool, and by extension, had a tremendous influence on culture by having such a unique position. This continued up until the early part of this decade. Total Request Live and its ilk had a huge influence on what kids in my high school thought (and more importantly bought) in terms of music.

What Ed Sullivan and MTV had in common was the ability to reach entire market demographics at once. Nirvana and The Beatles were able to latch onto their medium's power to reach incredibly wide audiences who were receptive to what they offered. Looking around now, I do not see any medium whatsoever with even a fragment of that power. MTV doesn't even show videos anymore (even TRL has died an unmourned death). Late night talk shows still showcase bands, but when was the last time you heard any buzz at all about a band that was going to be on Letterman from anyone who wasn't already a fan of the band? Terrestrial radio is a dying, increasingly static media that has gotten so bad that people have been willing to pay to make it go way by installing satellite radio with hundreds of channels. The internet, be it pitchfork, hypemachine, or last.fm, has become the primary source of music news and discovery for many. In short, there isn't a single unifying force that everyone is aware that can serve as the distributor of a rock zeitgeist moment anymore. Outside of the Disney Channel's chokehold on the tween market's musical taste (and wallets), what other music media outlets have anywhere near the cultural footprint that MTV did less than 10 years ago? One can point at American Idol, but the sales of most of the beneficiaries of that program show that most of the people watching that show are not watching it to get a first glimpse of their next music purchase. In fact, the most effective marketing proposition for music in the current market is to attach it to something else that people like, be it a movie, TV show, or even advertisement. The Shins became famous (to the extent they are) by being Natalie Portman's character's favorite band in a movie - the music wasn't the focus, it was what the music was attached to. See also the numerous careers made by (and, in most cases, limited to) iPod commercials, Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, et al. Movies and TV shows still have a faithful audience, and a popular show still has enormous cultural cache. However, what does it tell us about the cultural power of the music media outlets that the best way to break a new band is to try to get them to play under the cliffhanger ending or the anxiously awaited kiss on a television show? It's marketing music as a means of reliving an experience having little to do with the music itself.

This isn't to downplay the importance of music to actual consumers. I don't think that people in general care less about music now than they did in the past. However, they have so many avenues to find music that speaks uniquely to them that they simply didn't have before that generating a consensus opinion is virtually impossible. Think of it this way, how many of the people that bought Nevermind would really have preferred Superfuzz Bigmuff, had they known about it? As you open up the marketplace and make new music easier to find, it becomes increasingly difficult to build consensus. How many people who bought Revolver were actually more in tune with Forever Changes? How many people who bought all of the MTV approved hair metal of the 80's were just oblivious of the fact that Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du, and the Replacements were actually out there if they looked? Sure, there were ways to find out about these options, they just weren't known by the average consumer. This isn't the case anymore. Anyone with an internet connection has a wealth of information available to them at a click. You cannot buy an album anymore without recieving multiple notices that "if you like this, you might also like this other thing". The ability to find exactly the kind of music one enjoys is increasingly simplified, which inevitably leads to fewer people buying exactly the same thing.

In the end, what this means is the end of the massive cultural phenomenon. There won't be another Nirvana, because technology has made it so much easier to finds one's own unique musical promised land.