There is something troubling in the modern ideals that have been springing up around artistic expression of all sorts for the past several decades. Truly, something has been vanquished; let joy resound! The old elitism of cultural value, with all its moral and scholarly pretension, that White America perpetuated from post-Enlightenment European standards, has gradually become replaced with a much more American, a much more democratic, and, seemingly, multicultural tapestry of stylistic variables. Surely, a triumph of free expression, made possible by America's constitutional commitment to every man's (and, at last, woman's) right to speak their mind, or sing, or paint it for that matter.
Or is this triumph, rather, merely a compromise? Taste is, theoretically, no longer centrally dictated by aristocratic inclinations, no longer prejudiced toward historical notions of artistic or literary merit. Instead, art is essentially subject to trade on the free market, to what's trending in digital media, to what marketing deems cool, a new compromise between economic and media powers who attempt to wield power over the masses whose whims they must yet follow and anticipate. The complex functioning of 'The Crowd' was written on at length by 19th/early-20th Century French psychologist Gustave Le Bon in his influential work of the same name. Friedrich Nietzsche had observed the growing tendency toward valuation of weakness and mediocrity in the progress of democratic ideals.
We are currently interested in the molding of artistic values in relation to popular music in Western society, although these values cannot exist in a vacuum, but rather exist in a network-like continuum of mutual influence with numerous social and cultural factors, including the other arts as well. The modern revolution in American music stems from African-American musical idioms of the 20th century, such as the blues, jazz, and rock-and-roll. These forms have roots even earlier, of course, but the 20th century exploited the new medium of audio recording to invent the music industry as it has existed, essentially until the birth of the internet and filesharing threatened its economic structures. This brought black music into the homes of many white listeners who would never have otherwise heard it, although many white youths did frequent the clubs that played blues and jazz around the middle of the 20th century. White musicians did very well, profiting from the medium of jazz, and some did make valid artistic contributions in their own right, but for the most part it was merely a racist exploitation of black creation that allowed them to shine. In the 50s and 60s, white youth started to experiment with the medium of rock-and-roll and to make it something truly unique, in thriving cooperation with the constant innovations that were still being produced by black artists themselves.
The contribution of these white American and British musicians was not purely musical. Much of the appeal came from a synthesis of counter-cultural values, absorbed not only from black musical tradition but from literature, poetry, philosophy and the equally-20th-Century medium of film.
Hailing from the cultural melting-pot of Los Angeles, The Doors embodied all of these varied influences, as icons and representatives of a new politics of art, even more so than as musicians. The three instrumentalists drew from jazz, blues, flamenco, classical, cabaret, and a host of other styles, creating something boldly new in the process. Meanwhile, Jim Morrison, taking cues from Jack Kerouac, Arthur Rimbaud, and James Dean, sought to be at once poet, philosopher and actor. The fact that he and Ray Manczarek (sic) met at film school gives credence to the idea that they approached the rock concert as a film, which it often was, as well as theatrical production, or even religious event. Of course, rock and roll grew out of the black church, so the religious component of rock was nothing new. Most white bands, however, were severely lacking in this element (and even more so today.) Their fourth studio album, 'The Soft Parade,' despite its corniness, has at times an almost gospel feel to it (not that Jim is any sort of gospel singer.)
Meanwhile, Robby Krieger and John Densmore both attended transcendental meditation classes with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, two years before the Beatles. The Doors had also all dropped acid, two years before the Beatles. In many ways they became trendsetters, both in the mainstream and amongst the counter-culture. The 60's revolution in music was basically a youth movement, and it is that legacy that has persisted over the decades, through a variety of splinterization in musical taste and fashion. The band in fact helped to 'open the doors' to many different styles: punk and metal were certainly prefigured by Morrison's persona, both on and off the stage. The whole idea of a rock star was transformed by his tremendous presence. However, whereas punk and metal bands, up through Guns N' Roses, identified with this visceral, dangerous element of confrontation and dissonance, the modern image of indie-rockers and hipsters trace their roots through Jim's iconography as well, back to the so-called beatnik poets of the 50s.
Although the Doors were signed to a major label, had gold records and hit singles on the radio, and sold out huge concert venues (paving the way for 'arena rock,' which was yet their virtual antithesis) they, along with the Velvet Underground and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd (is there really any other?) helped to set the prototype for what would become modern indie rock, or basically just modern rock in general, as well as an aesthetic and philosophy that extends to such fields as film, journalism and even politics.
This morning I read an article by Mike Seely in the Village Voice's music blog,
'The 10 best songs by bad musicians' using the most iconic photograph of Jim Morrison in order to draw attention to itself. On the list is 'Break on Through' by the Doors, and in the accompanying blurb Seely asserts, "When talented but troubled frontmen die suddenly, usually at the age of
27, we're left to wonder how good they could have been. But with the
Doors, we sort of knew they weren't that great." While there are certainly many people who do not appreciate the Doors' music (often enough because of Morrison himself), no credible journal of popular music would put forth a statement dismissing the significance of the Doors in so straightforward a manner. Perhaps credit is due for his audacity. I, however, began to tweet a response, defending the group's pivotal importance. After writing a sentence on their behalf, I thought about the implications of what I had just written, and wrote a second sentence, articulating a notion that had just then hit me, although it may have been gestating for a while. The tweet itself runs,
the rock industry wouldn't even exist today if not for the Doors. but i guess that would be a good thing.
Seely asked me to elaborate on my position, which I attempted to do in the limited context of a tweet, linking to my recent article on
Robby Krieger's musical legacy, which touches to some extent on the band's musical contribution. Seely maintains, fairly enough, that the innovations Robby introduced into rock were "Mostly regrettable," but said, nonetheless, "I appreciate your elaboration." All in all he seems to possess an honest and open-minded perspective, quintessential to modern journalism, despite his apparent lack of taste. The "best song" by these "bad musicians," in his humble opinion, is 'Break on Through (to the Other Side)'. Surely a great and noteworthy song, yet the selection betrays his adherence to this same modern aesthetic I aim to expose for what it is. Although the riff Robby stole is great, the bossa nova beat is swingin', and Ray's take on Ray (Charles, that is) drives the incessant, hypnotic pulse of one of the band's most characteristic numbers, and of course Jim's lyrics could stand in as a lost fragment of Heraclitus,
other than that...it's really just a radio single, extolling (in its current, re-mixed-as-intended form) the hedonic pleasures of drug use, and appealing to a young generation devoid of cultural discipline, now, more than ever.
While punk, metal, and hip-hop (which one could claim Jim Morrison helped to inspire, albeit not without risking adding to the leverage white society, critics and the media in particular, use to co-opt the creations of black musicians) displayed a fierce originality, disdain for custom and convention, and masculine expression of a 'master morality', a healthy, violent, sensual functioning of the organism of man, these modern bands are, by contrast, cringing, wretched, castrated, in short the epitome of the 'slave morality' Nietzsche described in his haunting monument on modern decay, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'. No paradox is implicit in the equation, however: when a force attains the height of its power, and gives free reign to every prodigal expression, as popular music did for nearly three decades, a new, less powerful generation, victim of an increasingly liberal and homogenous (yet oh-so-multicultural) society, can only
react against this triumph, while simultaneously idolizing its very same prodigality, through a virtual deification of decadence, and of all the instincts and moral virtues of decadence.
In a Rolling Stone interview some years past, Robert Smith of The Cure told that he "hated Queen and everything they stood for," a statement which sums up neatly the values which this modern aesthetic holds dear and sacred. Whereas Queen created powerful, life-affirming music, from the heart of a lonely homosexual man diagnosed with a terminal illness, far surpassing the manliness of most straight singers before or since, The Cure and their ilk seek comfort amid soporific melodies that sound more appropriate in the dentist's reception room than at a dangerous, volatile rock concert.
A more insidious example of this narcotic sentimentality is the group Nirvana, who thoroughly poisoned a generation with, as their name implies, a desire for nothingness, to flee from both the terror and joy of existence, into the un-emotive, nay, anti-emotive voice of Kurt Cobain, signature anti-hero and justification for the new desire to not be great, if his audience is unable to follow in his footsteps and consummate the desire
to not be. Certainly Nirvana, like other of their so-called 'Grunge' cohort, including Pearl Jam, were directly inspired by the Doors. I have heard a cover of 'The End' which deteriorated into some sort of soliloquy about a refrigerator (no, not the famous Youtube interview with Kool Keith), displaying a sort of pronouncement that the new aesthetic was in fact, no aesthetic, that
this generation was
beyond cool, that cultural merit was unnecessary to cultural impact, a true enough statement in the MTV generation. And yet Cobain himself bravely fought, in vain, against this sort of cult-of-weakness that grew up around him, just as Morrison had resisted the trappings of stardom, once he perceived soberly (OK, maybe not soberly) all that it entailed. After all, look at the legacy of Christianity; how far does it fall from the example of the Christ?
It is lamentable that modern music has fallen into such a stagnant pit of filth. Of course, not everyone sees it that way. Many factors play a part, but the media, and journalists especially, are responsible for propagating the obsession modern culture has with all things crass, pornographic, self-indulgent. Certainly Jim Morrison contributed to this cult of individualism and frivolity, to a degree that cannot be underestimated. Its infectious presence can be felt in fields as diverse as journalism, film, literature, television--including what passes for the news, politics, and of course, the internet. Americans, and others influenced by western ideology, are quick to defend their freedoms, but these are generally what are called 'negative freedoms', rather than factors which actually advance culture and the human race.
More specifically, there has been cleaved a sharp divide between black and white music, after the commercial appropriation of superficial aspects of hip-hop culture. Throughout the 60s and 70s, black and white artists thrived off each others' influence. Indeed, basically every genre of popular music today has evolved in some way from the blues, whether through rock, funk and soul, or reggae, which influenced hip-hop and British house music. Effectively, the corporate powers have finally figured out how to cut off the power and influence that Black America exerted through its music, as well as popular unrest, thereby removing the dangerous influence upon our impressionable white youth, who are currently being indoctrinated into a state of helpless subservience to the coming world order, unless someone is original enough to stand out against this all, as Morrison did, seemingly so fearlessly. Yet like all the cultural progress from that time, only complacency has been engendered, a feeling that things are now OK. As my wife always says, it's like we're living in the 50s again.
