As I was getting ready for work this morning, I had a sudden urge to listen to Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson. I dug out the Bad album on cassette (remember those?) and put it on and you know, despite all the stuff that surrounds him, his music was always f***king good. Everything from Off The Wall to HIStory was fantastic and as a musician, he was simply genius. This got me thinking “Wasn’t music good back in the days?” I mean, I listen to Prince stuff and it is still fresh and better than half the stuff out there right now. Thieves in the Temple, Seven, Pop Life and dozens of others are such good songs on a basic and pure level, is there anything like that out there anymore?
I know there isn’t going be a second Michael Jackson or another Prince but there aren’t even close seconds. What do we have these days? Usher? Justin Timberlake? Yeah, these guys have good songs but compare them to the Greats and they’ll crash and burn. I try to tell myself that it’s just the times we live in now; music is so diverse with hundreds of sub-genres, people just don’t go crazy over one type of music BUT I just don’t believe it. Recently, I was excited over John Legend and Robin Thicke but again, whilst they are hugely and massively talented, they just don’t inspire that feeling. When was the last time you heard a soul-wrenching Under the Bridge or a life-affirming Living on a Prayer? And whilst I understand it’s hard enough for the original artists to match the former glory of their hit singles, you still expect the new artists to strike you with lightning once in a while. Maybe I’m just getting older and music doesn’t excite me the way it once did but good songs are good songs no matter what age you are, right?
I’m actually really interested in this. Contact me and tell me what the last song/artist that really excited you was. I want to see if it really is as doom and gloom as I think. Perhaps it’s not because if you asked me the same question, I could come up with a name. I would probably say Nerina Pallot with Fires and she is a relatively new artist. (If you haven’t heard her stuff, listen to Sophia, Idaho and Damascus. I’m not usually into the whole Tori-Amos-Fiona-Apple-Female-Angst thing but Fires is good.) So, yeah, let me know if you think there will ever be two Princes. Unless of course, you don’t like Prince in which case, we don’t really need to know each other. 😛