This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. One of those cable stations that Ted Turner owns always had a feature called, "New Classics" with movies released in the '80s or '90s that could be considered classics. Last year, Entertainment Weekly put out a list of the best films from the last 25 years and called it their very own New Classics. Film people seem to be doing pretty well with this process of naming new classics in their medium.
Popular music people, on the other hand, aren't doing so well.
Why is that?
Wired Magazine had an article around Thanksgiving time that discussed the musical misfires of this past year, and even this past decade, claiming we had no classics. Arguably, 2009 has been a pretty damn good year for music, even as noted in the aforementioned Wired article.
And forget what was great about the year - let's think of what we didn't have to put up with. I'd take Taylor Swift over James Blunt anyday. Lady Gaga may be overexposed, but upon further reading, she's got quite the story. I haven't seen any rap dance craze birthed this year. Although audiences are constantly pummeled with beer commercials featuring arguably the worst rock band of the decade, if not ever, it seems as if Nickeback's star is fading. When I look to buy notebooks at Walgreens, I see Jonas Brothers merchandise everywhere, but musically speaking? I don't hear them anywhere. I couldn't sing one of their songs if you asked me to, nor recognize their voices - anywhere. And I teach middle school. I even listen to pop radio occassionally, and I couldn't hum a Hannah Montana tune if you offered me money. 2009, strangely enough, offered hope for music and the music industry.
But we have no "classics". The closest to a true phenomenon we've had this year as been Susan Boyle.
At the start of last week, Carrie Brownstein wrote an excellent piece on her NPR blog about the whole world loving a record. It responded to this idea of no new classics, using Susan Boyle as a reference point. And truthfully, she's right. There are no new Beatles. And I believe there never will be new Beatles.
This is for two reasons. Firstly, if we look at the world of classical music and how highly certain composers are regarded, there has never been another Beethoven. This was not only because of the quality as well as quantity of his output, but because he changed the way that music worked. He was history's first truly successful "freelance musician". He wrote for commissions, but he was not bound to any specific church or patron. He was the first classical composer to truly experience freedom.
In terms of popularity, Tchaikovsky comes close but in terms of music historians, his academic reputation is starting to grow as the tide of homophobic outcry against him fades. Phases of music have come and gone, but in the minds of many classical music fans, music has never been better than in Bach's time. In popularly regarded classical music, many people consider the three "Bs" to be the most important composers in history: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. But while its easy for the lay listenener to recognize more than one piece by the two former composers, people most widely connect Brahms with lullabys. The classical music world hasn't had a true phenomenon, beloved by audiences and popular culture, since Aaron Copland, and he died in 1990. (His later work also bore more resemblence to Webern than "Rodeo".) Let it also be known he was an American composer, and while he is extremely highly regarded here, I have no idea what his reputation is outside of this country.
To refer again to the Beatles, we consider them the be all, end all rock band and they were truly international, but different composers (just like different pop acts) have different reputations depending on the nation. Talk shit about Villa-Lobos in Brazil, or Edward Elgar in England, and see what happens. And hell, David Hasseloff thinks he and his light up jacket/piano scarf combo singlehandedly brought down the Berlin Wall.
As far as "rock 'n' roll" goes, I think the Beatles were as worldwide and as well known as the musical medium will get. We won't get beyond that. I don't think it's going to happen. The music industry has changed to the point that John Lennon wouldn't recognize it today. (And I don't think George Harrrison would, either.)
Which brings to mind the question of how many albums were released in the 60s. That's what is considered The Classic Rock'n'Roll Decade, it seems, but the avenues by which music reached the public is so different than now. Can you imagine any rock critic coming up with 100 terrific albums that were released in 1964? Actually, there were less than 70, and records by the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Frank Sinatra account for at least 10 of them. In the year 2000, there were probably that many albums released in the month of May. Pitchfork, NPR, and your average Joe Schmo record geek music blogger all pick their hundred favorites every single year now.
Overall, tastes and genres of music have splintered so much that I think it's a nearly insurmountable task to come up with any new classic. I can think of some songs from the last decade that can bring a room of divergent populations together. Gnarls Barkley, Outkast, and M.I.A. come to mind -- generally speaking, rock needs to get its act together because hip-hop seems to be kicking its ass as far as uniting people.
That said, history is also our judge. Who would have known 20 years ago that Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" would be the massive singalong/cultural touchstone it is now for hipsters, old folks, TV mafia men and self-absorbed MTV teenagers alike? And in 1991, many critics were so confounded by Nirvana's success that no one would have ever thought Nevermind would now stand on a critical consensus as a "recent classic". Would it have been had Kurt Cobain not met such an untimely end?
I don't think that we've got many classics coming down the pipeline. Michael Jackson is dead, and people united for the sake of remembering his ouvre fondly for a month or so. Pop radio played a song of his every hour, hipsters had not actually ironic Jackson dance parties, and pop culture literati analyzed the importance of what he accomplished both as an artist and as a marketing force. But not for long.
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