comment, opinion

POOR fellow our modern music. Canned crap from rap flunkies who can't sing as they mutter away to a thumping beat - chattering a useless, deviant monologue of prose with an obligatory video of lecherous beauties fastened to the performer, and partying like there's no tomorrow. For them and their careers, there's probably no tomorrow. Pink is one of the few contemporary artists worth listening to, in a vacuous era of music and various hybrid versions, because she can actually sing. But even Pink is already trapped in a dim twilight of orthodox melodies and old-fashioned conventional passion. There's a lingering rhythmic nostalgia out there that makes you wanna grab hold of the past and remaster the tapes as a Blue Ray of sunshine. My young daughter can't stand modern music, but loves U2. Her family's very proud. I don't care that the Beatles' era did whole crops of drugs while penning brilliance like Long and Winding Road and Come Together. Ever since the great poet Judith Wright told Launceston College students, including me, that the pulse and beat of verse was the attraction of music, I understood song. I fear that her talk was also a prophecy of rap. I got it that Bob Dylan not only advised me of my rights but did it to a catchy tune. Or that Carly Simon could delve into the stupidity of male vanity, and Mick Jagger could focus on the plight of housewives popping pills. In the '60s, whenever Beatle albums were released, we would sit round to evaluate the lyrics and marvel at the tunes. The Beach Boys' hit Good Vibrations made us think sex was poetic justice. The Animals' When I Was Young was my adolescent anthem. The Moody Blues made me fabulously depressed. Nights In White Satin is my all- time favourite song, while the Beatles remain my all time favourite group. Sorry - band. And, they did it in studios so primitive the quality is miraculous. Today's studio of wannabe rock stars simply learn a Michael Jackson dance routine, dial up a song on auto-tune, and later add voice-overs to a shemozzle of prefabricated sound; like a fault- ridden bongo organ, thumbing over programmed rifts of beats and notes. The rap raiders replaced song with such mindless drivel they ought to hide the lyrics, if there are any. They call it rap because that's what you want them to do - wrap it up. Rap started in the US in the 1970s as a type of street art (sic), according to apologists. More like a squandered literary licence, hacking into the rhythm of poetry's maligned iambic pentameter. Rap chatter-boxes managed to side-step contests like The Voice and American/Australian Idol, to gatecrash the charts with the phenomenon of some fast talking. Once they signed a recording contract they produced at will a deafening, staccato speech about vomit, violence, blood, sex and dark depression. Rap is the biggest con in the history of music. Rap killed the tune. Imagine Bing Crosby stammering and stuttering White Christmas or True Love. Imagine Stevie Nicks reciting Rhiannon in a droll monotone. Imagine Stairway to Heaven with no chorus and no air guitar. In the 1980s, modern music - let's call it M'n M - hijacked the world's sweet melodies and lay siege to song. Generations of cashed-up, lost teens are using their iPods to block out the truth while they throw away good money after bad. Thank God for the last vestige of Pink. Rap is an asylum for slightly agitated nobodies, getting restless with their limbs and getting intense and rich on a one-sided, egotistical conversation. Since when did a heavily choreographed troupe with a provocative dance routine and a heavily tattooed commentator ever properly illustrate a song? Rap is as bad as lip sync, and, just as dishonest.

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