Music After Plastic Surgery

I’m just having a relaxing day in the 2nd beautiful day of summer, with a cold cola (yes I know it causes heart disease), and my subscribed Rolling Stone magazine.

On the cover is Adam Lambert, a guy I’ve never heard of, but apparently he’s huge  now.  Either that, or Rolling Stone is photographing and writing stories about random people off the street.  So, as I peruse the 4 page spread on Adam Lambert the most interesting thing to note is that “while on a European tour of Hair at age 21, Lambert started smoking pot and went to his first sex club.”  In 2007, after all that, he apparently had a psychedelic drug trip where he convinced himself to do American Idol.  Okay, so now we’re caught up.  But this article isn’t about  Adam Lambert, not even close, It’s just the beginning.

So, what I tend to do is read all the short stories of the Rolling Stone mag, and then skip to the back, and flip the pages backwards and read the remaining short stories that always follow the 4 and 5 pagers tucked away in the middle.  So I’m at the point now where I’m at the very back of the mag, and there’s always the billboard Top 40 Chart. I’m always curious to find out what’s on the list.  THE LIST!

(1)Eminem tops the chart this week with, (2)Green Day slightly behind and (3) Hannah Montana of all things, (4) Marilyn Manson and (5) Lady Gaga finishing up the top 5 until the next issue comes out.

Manson’s single is new, and enters at number 4, which is quite good, because since his last album completely alienated audiences he still has a very big, although mostly cult-following, fan-base.  But what strikes me is the correlation between the classic top 10 albums and what’s currently on the top 40.        Somewhat like the Mad Magazine’s back cover in every issue we get to see two images and two completely different messages all in one place.

This week though, one man who still is on the scene comes in just ahead of Mandy Moore and one slot behind Beyoncé.  Bob Dylan.  Bob Dylan had the number 3 album on June 14th, 1969 as well as his number 24 single (17 last month) on Billboard.

So, I’d like to put this forward as my thoughts towards what’s going on (yes that’s a marvin gaye line) on these charts.  Hey, on june 14th, 1969, the Hair soundtrack was the number one album, and today if that happened I’d probably curse it too, but Hair has stood the test of time, and hey, they had acoustic instruments on that vinyl disc.

Now, the only valid music charts it seems, out there are college charts.  And so few people are buying the albums that are on these charts.  I mean, I have friends who work for college radio stations, and as soon as an album goes top 40, the college radio stations aren’t allowed to play it anymore.  And actually, you’d most likely find the album hair in a bulk bin at some used LP store for 25 cents, and in 5 years, you’re going to see every number 1 single by beyoncé and and Eminem in the bulk bin too.  But are you going to see that Bob Dylan album, that Marvin Gaye album or Metric or Iron and Wine  (college radio #1 this week) selling in the bargain bin?  Probably not.  Infact, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album on LP still sells used for upwards of $25.00 CAD.

There’s obviously exceptions, I don’t have a problem with Green Day or Marilyn Manson being up there, but lets have some gospel music (Johnny Cash and Elvis sang gospel), lets have some jazz (Phil Collins and Billy Joel Both love jazz), and lets all get over ‘R’ music and lets reunite the ‘R’ with the ‘B’

Some of it just ain’t music to my ears.